Bag Of Love May Edition & Chatting With Teh Mi Mi

We love receiving beauty boxes because of their contents. Unless you’ve seen the spoiler on someone’s blog, there’s a certain frisson when we open the cover of the box or in Bag Of Love’s case, unzip the bag. With Bag Of Love, I get very excited when I see the bag itself as I love collecting make-up bags. They do come in useful when I travel, I usually bring at least 3 along when I’m away on a trip – one for toiletries, one for make-up and one for skincare.

Last month’s Bag Of Love is a pale gold bag, I love touching the bag as the material is soft and although I liked the debut March striped bag, I like this one even more. It’s elegant and classy much like the founder of Bag Of Love, Teh Mi Mi with whom I had the pleasure of catching up with recently.

But before we get into the Q&A, let’s have a peek at the bag’s contents although I am sure the majority of you already know what lies within :-

• Dove Beauty Nourishing Body Wash, Full-Size 
• Crabtree & Evelyn Somerset Meadow Hand Therapy, 25ml
• Elizabeth Arden Ceramide Capsules Daily Youth Restoring Serum, 7 Capsules
• Kérastase Bain Olêo-Relax Smoothing Shampoo, 30ml
• Kérastase Bain Olêo-Relax Smoothing Masque 2 x 15ml
• Calvin Klein Eternity EDP & Eternity for Men EDT samples
• complimentary basic manicure voucher worth RM38 at Amante outlets

My favourites in the bag are the Kérastase Bain Olêo samples as I haven’t tried those yet and these days, I seem to be more excited about haircare than make-up.

Anyway, here’s my Q&A with the lovely and always poised, well dressed, well spoken and sweet Teh Mi Mi.

What’s the response been since March when you introduced the first Bag Of Love?

It’s been crazy! We’ve been sold out all 3 months (March, April, May) and even oversold. I have a lot of support from family, friends and a bulk purchaser. Response has been very good on Bag Of Love’s Facebook. Having oversold in May is a good sign but I will continue with the same number of bags for now.

We haven’t seen many make-up products in your bags so far. Any plans to include more in future?

It’s difficult to obtain more  make-up products at the moment but it’s in the works.

Now that the 3rd Bag Of Love has been sent out, do you know what your subscribers want more of?

They are quite happy with the contents so far. A lot of people want more make-up brushes. I hope to bring in more make-up items.

Unlike most other beauty box providers, you have to come up with a different design for your bags every month. Isn’t it more expensive that way?

Every month I come up with new bags because I think it’s nice to have new designs. It’s a good feeling to choose where to place the Bag Of Love logo, design the bag and choose the material for the bag. (I wondered if Mi Mi would come up with a bag made of jeans material one day). It is quite expensive to produce the bags instead of boxes. If I’d had 3000+ boxes made, it would have brought down the cost.

How do you decide what goes into each month’s bags? Does it depend on the samples you have?

It highly depends on the sponsorship of the products. Sometimes I receive samples enough for 2 months. Either I come up with the theme for the month’s bag and choose the products to suit the theme or choose the products first and then come up with the theme.

Any hiccups along the way/challenges which you have had to overcome?

I quit my job as a beauty writer to spend more time with my kids. I thought I’d have more flexibility by starting my own business and it still gave me a connection to the beauty industry. It didn’t occur to me that I’d get so busy even with help from family and friends. I regretted starting the business in the beginning as it left me with less time with my kids. Then in April, there was the issue of the drenched bags when one of the products leaked during transit to subscribers. It left me heartbroken, it was a loss in April as I had to replace all the drenched bags but no one was angry. They were all very understanding and not harsh on Facebook.

What are your various workshop collaborations with brands?

Bag Of Love has collaborated with Kanebo, Tigi and Eve Lom. There will always be events and workshops organised. So far, there have been 2 bloggers’ gatherings with The Butterfly Project where we held the unzipping of Bag Of Love. It is the 1st event of this kind in Malaysia although it is quite common overseas. Having a tea party at Delicious by Su created a buzz.

Anything you’d like to inform Bag Of Love subscribers?

I hope that they will continue to be happy and support Bag Of Love. There will be a special collaboration with Only Beauty in August and the bag will contain only full-size products, all for RM49.90, this one will be very worth the price.

Image of Teh Mi Mi has been provided for use on Juniper’s Journal by Mi Mi.