Monthly Subscription Boxes - Citrus Lane August Box Review

Back when I first had EM, a friend of mine gave me a 3 month subscription to Bluum. So I signed up for it. Every month for 3 months I received a box of random things that pertained to the current age and gender of my baby (newborn at the time) and usually a little something for me too. I thought it was a great idea but wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue my subscription or not I had never heard of “Subscription Boxes” before and decided to do a little research. Turns out there are Subscription Boxes for everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING! (babies, adult, pets, food, underwear, make-up, etc – you know it, they probably have a box for it). While doing my research I found that there are quite a few people who do reviews on their received boxes which helped me to decide if I wanted to continue with Bluum or switch it up. At the time, Bluum was switching up from smaller (cheaper) boxes to larger (more expensive) boxes so no one had any experience with the larger boxes yet so I decided I would switch to something different. After looking at a ton of reviews and asking around in my Mommy Group on Facebook, I decided on Citrus Lane. So for the past 6 months or so I’ve been getting a monthly Citrus Lane Box which is tailored to a girl at her age. Of course with babies, they all grow and learn things at different ages, so some of the items had been a little advanced for her at first, but she’s grown into them. For the most part I’ve been very happy with them and have discovered quite a few new things and brands that I probably otherwise would never have found. They do tend to stick to a lot of Organic and Natural items, which is nice, although I probably wouldn’t buy them myself. EM’s favorite teether and bedtime toy is from a Citrus Lane Box, and by looking at it, I definitely would never have purchased it for her. However, it seemed like none of the reviews on Citrus Lane were ever for my age (baby) boxes; the people who received them always had them for older children (toddler+), so I figured with my latest box, I’d start blogging each month after I receive it so if anyone out there is interested in what it would be like for a baby, now they’ll know! I do plan on subscribing to one more baby box, I just haven’t decided which one yet. There are so many out there and I definitely could see how someone could easily get addicted to many of them.

Initially I wasn’t sure if I would like it/think it was worth the money, so I have a monthly/cancel at any time subscription, but I’m thinking I might buy a 6 Month subscription to save some money if I plan to continue with it.  So here is my first review!

I received my box yesterday, Tuesday. This is what I got in my 9 Month Old, Baby Girl Box and the approximate retail value I found for each item from their specific website (or Amazon if I couldn’t find it). Sometimes I have to do some math because the sizes aren’t quite the same, hence why they are approximate values J

At first glance (they are always packaged so nicely!) it looked like a good one! They also always include an information card with descriptions of the items and usually coupon codes to buy additional items at a discount if you like them!

Clean Well  All-Natural Hand Sanitizing Wipes – Orange Vanilla Scent (40 Wipe Canister): I probably wouldn’t buy these on a regular basis, they are kind of expensive and my regular wipes would work just fine, but I will definitely use these! If you have a small infant/child you should probably invest in cleaning wipe stock! You use SO MANY every single day.  ($5.50)

Crocodile Creek 5″ Playground Ball At first I thought EM may be too young for this, it reminded me of a smaller version of the type of balls we used to use for kickball in Elementary School, but as soon as I showed it to EM she smiled, grabbed it and started to play with it (and then cried every time she rolled it away from her and she couldn’t get it lol)  It looks like a great quality – let’s just hope the pups don’t destroy it! ($7.99)

as you can see, EM loves it!

Octopus Opposites from Barefoot Books I think this is the 2nd or third Barefoot Book that we’ve received so far. They are a nice waulity board book.  It is perfect for us, because if they were regular pages, EM would eat them. Not that she won’t try to eat this book, but at least it won’t get ruined when she tries. EM loves when we read to her, so whereas she might not “get” the book just yet, she enjoys getting read to and will eventually be able to read it herself in the years to come. They also included a book mark with a 20% off coupon code. ($7.19)

Ouchies Adhesive Bandages (20 Count) These are adorable band aids, and once EM is older and needs a band aid I’m sure she’ll love them. I assume Olivia is a character kids like, we haven’t gotten into to many characters yet. I also have never bought kid themed band aids before but I’d be shocked if you couldn’t find some cheaper than these ones, $5 for 20 seems pretty steep! These will definitely get used at some point though! ($4.96)

BabyTime Mighty Shield by Episencial (0.5 oz) This is bug repellent lotion. A small travel size is nice since we won’t really need it too often. EM goes to bed before the bugs really come out, but if for some reason we are out and about and it’s buggy, it’ll be nice to have handy in her diaper bag. ($1.76)

Fabkids Free Outfit OK, this is a card with a special coupon code on it for a free outfit from FabKids.com (you may have heard of the adult version JustFab.com) The concept is great, free 3 pcs outfit valued at $39.95 however I would never actually buy a full price $40 outfit for EM at this age, especially for something similar to what I could get much cheaper elsewhere. Since they only charge you around$5 for shipping, it’s worth it. The catch, it automatically signs you up for their monthly service to get one outfit for $39.95/month once you redeem your free outfit, with the option to cancel at any time. For me, this is no problem, I’ll put a note on my calendar and cancel right away (plus will use a pre-paid credit card JUST in case they try to charge it, there won’t be any money left on it). However I’m sure many others will forget to cancel and get stuck with this charge each month. The other problem I had with this box addition is the smallest size clothing they have will NOT fit a 9 month old. It says size “2” – I assume that’s 2T so I’ll be picking out an outfit she can’t wear for over a year or more. I’m not counting this in my “total value” of the box since it’s not really an item since you have to spend money to use it.

Bowling Pin Cutouts - I assume this goes along with the ball, and for a 4 year old, this would probably be great, but 2 year olds can’t even really color yet, you think my 9 month old is going to do anything but eat crayons? They are on card stock and can be folded to stand up. Not even sure what to value this at, so leaving it at nothing.

Total estimated Value: $28.14 (not including shipping)

Cost: $25.00 (free shipping)

Overall Impression: Eh, it was alright. It definitely isn't the most valuable box to date either. Usually I find the boxes are valued around $35. I think it was a little over-aged for Miss EM and we will get use out of all the items eventually; however I’m a little disappointed overall that it wasn’t very age specific. Several of the other blogs that I read for older children got almost the same items, so it doesn’t look like they put a lot of thought into this one for age groups. Although, this is probably the first box I feel that way about, so I will continue my subscriptions. I wish I would have reviewed some of my previous boxes that we loved so you could see the full potential of Citrus Lane!

If you are interested in signing up for Citrus Lane… use my referral link and get $10/off your first box (and I’ll get a $10 credit as well): https://www.citruslane.com/invitedby/citrus.lane.607957

Remember, you can cancel at any time, so your first box would only be $15, not too shabby!