How I began reviewing beauty products as a micro-influencer

My YouTube subscriber count is barely over 150, this is my third blog post, and my Instagram has about 2.3k followers, but this morning I got an email that I will be receiving a free Dr. Jart cryo rubber mask and a Mac studio radiance primer. If you’re interested in getting started with collabs as a micro influencer, keep reading.

I’ve gotten a lot of free products in exchange for a review since I started in 2016, but in the last year or so they’ve gotten better. I spent part of summer 2016 in Israel and I decided that I was going to leave Texas and either go back to Israel or move to New York. Moving to NYC was actually a goal of mine, but I went with no job, no housing, and some big dreams. There was this big plan that I was going to blog, do all these fun things in New York (I did the fun stuff in New York), and start a youtube channel. The issue was I still struggled with mental health, so I didn’t think anyone was interested in hearing what I had to say, so didn’t actively blog and post videos to my YouTube channel (which I definitely do regret).

That aside, I mentioned that trip because there was someone who actually did start a blog and an Instagram and I saw that she was testing some free products. I did some digging and found out that she went through Influenster, so I set up a profile and ended up getting my first voxbox. It was not the glamorous designer makeup she got, but I was excited. I still remember it to this day, it had some French’s crispy onions and hot sauce, but I was excited that it was legit and it worked.

I really didn’t get many boxes or recall anything super exciting, but in 2020 I stumbled upon another site for free products called Bzzagent. On a whim, I filled out a survey for a Bissell smart robot vacuum and didn’t think much of it, but a few weeks later I found this couple hundred dollar robot vacuum at my door. I got a notification to test and review the product, and next thing you know I got a survey for another product. I received a Dermalogica exfoliating powder ( the one that’s $64 at Sephora) and I was shook.

With Bzzagent I continued to get prestige brand products and had success much faster than I did with Influenster. On average i get 2 products a month, at most 4 and sometimes just one. Last month I got 4 products: sample-sized Aveda mask, a Colgate supernova tooth whitening kit, Undone Beauty eyeshadow quad, and Lancome serum mascara.

As my Instagram followers have increased, I can say my Influenster vox boxes in the last year have gotten better. I think the first big set I got was a full-size laura mercier primer and skin tint. My sister, who joined a few months ago, has about 25k+ followers across her platforms. She got a full-size Charlotte Tillbury moisturizer less than 3 months in. In the last 3 months I’ve gotten numerous boxes that actually felt like a haul. The most expensive item I have received from Influenster was the Foreo UFO 2 face tool (retails $299).

I predominantly receive skin, makeup, and hair products and on occasion pet and home products. They are almost always full size though on occasion I do get the sad sample size products that you get for free with orders (I have selected no sample size but they still come lol). Eventually, I canceled my Boxycharm subscription because the price went up, the quality went down, and I felt like I got my fix of new products to try.

Overall of the 2, I recommend bzzzagent for super macro influencers (under 1k) but still recommend signing up for influenster as things may be better than when I joined in 2016. These give you an opportunity to have things to blog about and tag brands in to build a relationship.

Comment below if you would like me to start posting on here about the products I receive if you use either of the platforms or any questions you have.