9 best beauty subscription boxes: Monthly skincare and make-up treats worth signing up for

Lookfantastic is home to some of the biggest beauty brands around, so it was no surprise that the retailer’s beauty box was full of bestselling products. Including everything from skincare to fragrance and beauty tools, these boxes really are a taster of the most in-demand products across the industry each month. All the products are travel-sized but still large enough to really get a feel for what they were like, and the brushes were, of course, regular size.

While you aren’t able to pick your own products, for those who to be like surprised, this is all part of the fun. With prices starting at £13 per month, the delivery is gift-wrapped in a Lookfantastic beauty box and tissue paper to give that extra touch of excitement too.

Skincare fanatics, you’re going to want to pay close attention to this one, as Skin + Me is possibly the most revolutionary beauty subscription service available to buy right now. Working to reduce the number of products we all use in everyday life – quite the contrast to the boxes packed full of the latest beauty launches – Skin + Me acts more like a tailored skincare solution service.

To begin, you fill out an online consultation form, including questions such as “What are your skin goals” and “What’s your skin type” on top of the basics, age, gender and allergies. From there, you add three pictures of your face, and the form gets sent off to a dermatologist for review. In just a few days, you’ll have a tailored product designed just for your skin called the “daily doser”.

With the price starting from £24.99 per month, our tester was amazed at how easy the process was, how quickly the product came, and the fact it has your name on it is just a nice extra touch. The product is said to be prescription-strength, which explains the price, but Skin + Me states you shouldn’t need to use anything else on your skin. So far, we’re pretty blown away by this one, and if you’re sick of buying countless skincare products without really knowing what they’re meant to do, we strongly encourage you to give this a go.

Few retailers are as luxurious as Liberty, so it’s no surprise the London-based store’s beauty subscription service is stellar. But, how it works is slightly unconventional, in the best way possible. Named “the beauty drop”, you have to deposit £25 per month into your personal beauty account to gain entry into the club. Then, you can spend this money on whatever you like or save it up till the end of the year for one big splurge, and you’ll receive four discovery boxes a year for free, full of fun products worth over £300 – and you don’t even have to pay for delivery.

Sounds too good to be true, right? We promise it’s not, as we opened up our latest box to products from Malin + Goetz, Vilhelm Perfumerie, Suqqu and many more big-name brands. So, if you want to gain free products through shopping, then this may be the best beauty subscription box for you.

Working more like a private online members club, a Beauty Pie subscription gives you access to all of the brand’s bestselling products – as well as a handful exclusive only to members – for around a quarter of the original price, with the subscription itself costing £59 per year or £10 per month. Working with some of the world’s best beauty labs, Beauty Pie has become one of the UK’s most in-demand beauty brands, and this "buyers club" was the first of its kind in the luxury beauty market.

A whole host of products are available to buy, from skincare to haircare, but the latest release that we got our hands on was the Beauty Pie youth bomb biologic collagen peptide+ cream, 50ml (RRP, £175 or £44 for members, Beautypie.com). As you can see from the whopping £131 price drop, the subscription can save you a lot of money if you’re already a Beauty Pie fan or think you could be, and you can make back the cost of the yearly membership with just one purchase.

Glossybox has racked up quite a loyal fanbase of beauty buffs who call themselves “glossies”, and once we received this pretty pink box, it was easy to see why. With the monthly subscription cost starting from £11.50, at least five products are included, from a mix of big beauty brands such as Spectrum and Nip + Fab, and others from lesser-known labels, which only added to the excitement.

A mix of full-sized and travel-sized products are included across skincare, hair care, body care, make-up, fragrance and tools (such as brushes/ tweezers), and each one wowed our tester. For anyone who likes a coupon, there was a whole host included in our Glossbox order, meaning you can save money on a huge range of other brands such as French Connection, Hello Fresh, Hotel Chocolat and more.

We reviewed the Fussy deodorant in our roundup of the best natural deodorants, rating it the best refillable option on the market. So, it only makes sense that this refillable product can be bought on a subscription basis from, a currently discounted, £13 per month. Once you select your deodorant case from a choice of six different colours and your scent from a growing range, it will be delivered to your home every three months, so you’ll never have to worry about going a day without deodorant ever again.

While it isn’t the sexiest beauty subscription box filled with seasonal goodies, it is an easy way to stay on top of buying this everyday essential. Did we mention the refills are plastic-free too? Making it a more planet-friendly and purse-friendly pick.

The first thing we noticed about Roccabox was how nice the box itself was. In fact, if you’re looking to gift a lucky someone with a beauty box, we’d strongly suggest this one. According to the site’s ethos, it only sources products “from premium luxe and leading beauty brands,” and a minimum of five products are included as standard. Usually, the worth inside is around £100 in total and each monthly drop covers all sections of skincare, hair care, make-up and more. The product selection seriously impressed our tester, as a good dose of our IndyBest favourite brands were included.

One-month, three-month, six-month and 12-month subscriptions are available with prices starting from £13 per month. However, once you sign up, you won’t be able to cancel until that timeframe is over. Or, if you prefer a one-off box, there are also designated edits, such as the make-up box, haircare box and Christmas box, available for immediate purchase on the site.

The founder of Trii, Yolanda Wetteland, not only has a background in Medical Biochemistry, but she’s also worked for some of the best beauty brands – including Space NK, Charlotte Tilbury and Elemis – so it’s safe to say she knows more than a thing or two about beauty. As such, we were rather excited to pick up this range of plastic-free products which include a hand and body wash (£8, Trii.co.uk), hand and body exfoliator (£8, Trii.co.uk) and moisturiser (£10, Trii.co.uk) which all come in a selection of five scents.

While all of the products can be bought individually, you can also buy them as a set of three for £26, and this is were the subscription model comes in. It costs £22 to receive a delivery every month or every two weeks and we think it’s a great option to help you save money while staying on top of the everyday beauty essentials. Delivered in plastic-free packaging that fits through the letterbox, you never have to go without one for long. Our tester found one month was enough between deliveries, and the lavender scent turned their bathroom into a spa-like sanctuary every evening.

Korean skincare – or K-skincare for true beauty buffs – has cemented itself as a stalwart in the skincare space. So, if you’re already all over Asian beauty brands or simply fancy testing the waters, this beauty subscription box may be for you. Housing between four and six products (one of which is full-sized), Skin Cupid focuses on introducing the best Asian beauty brands to its customers with monthly or bi-monthly boxes of goodies, with everything from skincare to haircare up for grabs. The box we received included a face mask, full-sized shampoo, serum, face mist and a sweetly packaged skincare set, allowing us to try out brands and products we’d never seen before – an incredibly exciting concept for any cosmetic fan.