Chiconomical

With coachella still on everyone's minds, then you know tis the season to be bohemian. While the definition of bohemian differs for every person, one thing that's pretty uniform in all trains of thought is accessories. Nothing says free spirit quite like wearing a neckpiece in your hair or an anklet with your stuffy formals (yes, I did it once during busy season at work). Now, I don't know about you guys, but I absolutely love getting custom made pieces of jewelry and that's why a homegrown new store was high on my radar!


Rutuz Craft Studio is a jewellry and accessories store based out of Mumbai and Pune. The brilliant ladies at the studio work their magic with all sorts of materials like beads, copper, tassles, wood (whoa!) to come up with unique designs for every girl who doesn't like to wear mass produced items. All their pieces are handmade and you can always tell them exactly what you want! So of course, when they got in touch with me, I asked I wanted a headpiece. Hey, I've got those maang tikkas but there's no such thing as too much when it comes to headgear right?



Now, the lovely team at Rutuz Craft Studio sent me three brilliant pieces for review. First off, can we take a moment to appreciate how lovely these pieces are? It's all hand crafted and trust me when I say you can feel the love and positive energy it brings! I wore the neckpiece while running errands and honestly, its a welcome addition to my wardrobe. I'm seeing the hand harness and the headpiece in my very next outfit post already! (Yep, stay tuned for that).


Ok, so I can hear your wheels turning saying this is all good but its crazy expensive I just know it! Right? Wrong!! Everything in ther store falls in the very affordable price range starting from Rs. 150 upto around Rs. 1500. For instance, all my pieces were under Rs. 500!! Yep, that's pretty much the same range in which most accessories fall in, in mall stores. (Not to mention most of those are mass produced, meaning you and you cousins can all be matchy matchy, in a not so good way). However, for custom made pieces, this price range is crazy awesome!!

So how do you get your hands on their lovely pieces? They currently operate from Facebook and Instagram and are in the process of setting up various other online payment options too. They've assured me that COD will be up and running very soon! They ship via a courier service that'll give the fastest delivery to your location and the shipping costs depend on the destination. Plus, if you're in Mumbai, you can check them out at the Style Soul Sundowner and PopUp Flea  in SOHO-Tapas Bar, Andheri this weekend!

Honestly, I'm a big believer in supporting anyone who's creative and imagine my happiness when I found such lovely designs practically in my backyard. Yep, you've got to give them a shot. Also, don't forget to tell me how you'd want me to style these pieces in the comments below!

This month, I received all three of India's Top Subscription boxes and when I saw them all together, I thought it would be a good idea to have a faceoff between the three and see which one is actually better.
I feel that most subscription boxes at the moment follow a system where the products fall in three broad categories: Beauty, Makeup and Others. There's also a bunch of other things such as appearance, delivery, overall customer care and I've listed those too. All the individual ratings are on a scale of Meh, Yeh, Brillinat where Meh is the lowest, Yeh is Average and Brilliant is well, brilliant! So lets see how each of the boxes scored on my various scales.



1. Looks: While all three were in shades of pink this month, here's what I thought about each.

Fab Bag: The most useful box of the three, because its not really a box but a bag that can be easily reused, I think this month's bag is quite lovely with its bright pink color as well as the almost woven texture. This was a Yay for me!

MSM Box: Its a pretty box, I'll give you that, but then they use the same box every month and there aren't a lot of interesting things to see or get excited about how its gonna look when you open it packaging each month its decidedly boring. A definite snooze and a Meh for me.

My Envy Box: While this is still a box, I absolutely love the pink packaging. As this month's box was curated by Bipasha Basu, maybe she had something to do with the distinctly girlie yet pretty box design. (I think the Label Life logo helped make it prettier too). Honestly, it's brilliant its month!

2. Makeup: For beauty boxes, the April boxes did have a good number of makeup products, lets take a look.

Fab Bag: This month, the fab bag gave not one, but two full sized makeup products! There was a lovely catrice eyeliner in copper and a Makeup Revolution concealer. Thankfully, this time everything was in shades that suit my skintype and can be used immediately. A big Yay for me!

MSM Box: The MSM box had one hard core beauty product (okay, so maybe you could consider the cleansing moisturiser as a beauty product but I think of it more as a skincare product tbh). It had the Inveda BB Cream that I've been using since the day I received my box and honestly, while its only one, its multiple ticks such as Parabens Free, Cruelty Free and all natural ingredients make it a yay product for me. However, since its a beauty subscription box, I expect more makeup products So it sadly comes out as a Meh for me.

My Envy Box: Okay, so this box had the Fran Wilson Moodmatcher lipstick in Orange. I've never used the Moodmatcher lipstick before, so while I'm excited about it, I still think they could have added another makeup product sample if they'd tried. A Meh for me.

3. Skincare: Skincare is something that seems to be big with all subscription boxes and this month's no different. For beauty boxes that usually show images of makeup products, they always seem to have more skincare products. Let's take a look.

Fab Bag: Fab Bag gives you Soul Tree Cleansing Milk and a O3+ whitnening mask as its skincare this month. I like the Soul Tree Cleanser but I've already received the O3+ whitnening mask before. So its just a Meh for me.

MSM Box: From the sinfully fragrant Rose and Almond Body Bar, the Jasmine scented face mist to the luxurious Fuschia Cleansing moisturiser, I love the skincare in the April MSM Box. It is sure to make you smell like the queen of Egypt with its floral scents and luxe feel. A big Yay for me!!

My Envy Box: A Milk scrub is something I haven't tired before so it definitely intrigues and excites. The Rene Furterer Parish is also another brand I haven't tired before, so in terms of wow quotient, it definitely was a Yay for me.

4. Other Benefits: These days, most subscription boxes come packed with other than beauty products too. This month, we had some amazing products (looking at you there BBlunt) so lets quickly list them down.

Fab Bag: We got some goodies from Style Fiesta this month and also a pair of use and throw lenses! Definitely something unique. I got a pair of golden earrings which I'm a little on the fence about but the lenses are gorgeous and I'll hopefully wear them in a post very soon! This is somewhere between brilliant and yay for me!

MSM Box: The MSM box gave a lovely makeup brush this month and while I may be quite clueless about the perfect way to use it I'm sure makeup enthusiasts will love it. For me, its a little Meh.

My Envy Box: My favorite of the lot, I love love love both the other things in this box. The lovely BBlunt Hairspray and the smells better than sin Roberto Cavalli perfume sample are absolutely Brilliant!

5. Overall Satisfaction: So lets sum up what I felt about each this month and of course, the winner!

Fab Bag: A good mix of things, this month's fab bad didn't disappoint me and was a overall Yay for me.

MSM Box: While it had some sinfully fragrant products, I wish it was better somehow. An overall Meh Experience for me.

My Envy Box: From the gorgeous pink box, the good variety of products and the overall happiness it got me, I think this month's My Envy Box was pretty brilliant! If you must get one of the three, I'd say go for the My Envy Box this month!

Happiness is a state of mind, and everyone can do with choosing to be happier in life. That's exactly the theme of this month's MSM Box and it does make me a little happy. First off, the delivery of the box was spot on, right on the day when I had a rather hard day at work. One of the best things to rid Monday blues!

So lets take a look at what all I received in my MSM box this month!

1. Inveda BB Cream: Rs. 175