Unboxing: Daebak Box Review

Have you ever wondered about getting yourself a subscription to a Korean culture box of some sort but wondered if they were worth the price? There are so many different subscription boxes out there. Choosing where to spend your money can be quite a dilemma. This week I’m going to take you on a trip through the Daebak Box I received this month from Daebak.co.

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Packaging

I used to have a subscription to a different Korean culture box which has recently been discontinued. My kids have all received various sorts of subscription boxes over the last few years. Family who live in other cities have found these services a really wonderful way to continue to spoil kids that they no longer get to see due to travel restrictions. All of the boxes that have come into this house have been a fairly standard shoebox size.

Until now.

The Daebak Box comes in a box that is about 2-3 times the size of the other subscription boxes I’ve received. Not only that, but it is pretty. Like, really pretty. When I pulled off the purple, plastic protective wrapper I was surprised to see something so pretty. It definitely started us out on the right foot.

Snacks

An integral part of a lot of boxes are the snacks they include. This box did not let me down in this department. Full-sized snacks. FULL SIZE!

There was a full can of peach-flavoured CoCo Palm beverage (beware, there are chunks of fruit in it which really took me by surprise). There is a bag full of squishy strawberry snacks, which my kids love. And there were two crunchy fruit bars made with oranges from Jeju Island. All of them were delicious. In previous subscription boxes, my snacks were usually just a couple of individually wrapped candies or tea bags. If there was a full-sized product, like a box of tea or a bag of seaweed, it was the only snack in the box. Full-sized snacks were a real surprise. A tasty one!

Beauty Products

The beauty products were also full-sized containers. No handful of sample sizes here. No boxes of sheet masks opened up and distributed between the different boxes. Not in this box. And we’re not talking just one full-size product either.

There were 2 different full-sized skincare products from beauty company Tenzero. I haven’t tried the moisturizer yet, but I quite liked the eye cream. There is a full-size facial cleanser from The Mask Shop too. These products alone are worth around $55usd. Given the price of the entire subscription box, that basically means you’re getting everything else in the box for free. Rounding out the beauty portion of the box were a dozen cute little pink make-up sponges, a couple of bean sprout hairclips, and Lovely Cookie blush compact from Etude House. I love trying out new make-up and skincare products, so this was definitely one of my favourite parts of the box.

Magazines

Most subscription boxes come with an insert of some sort that tells you about the different products inside. The culture box that I used to get had a lovely little magazine inside with articles and information. Daebak does the same thing, but since the box is bigger, the magazine can be bigger too.

The Daebak magazine has many fun little articles in it. There are phrase translations, information about festivals and food, a pop culture quiz, and of course, handy descriptions of all the products in the box. I really appreciated that the magazine gave detailed instructions for using the skincare products. They’re pretty obvious, but given that the packaging is entirely in Korean, it’s nice to know for sure. The final page of the magazine has a cute little punch out to make a miniature Daebak box. Apparently, if you get the whole year’s worth of boxes, they’ll combine into something fun in the end.

Along with the company magazine, there was also a copy of 1st Look magazine. This magazine is full of glossy fashion photos of K-pop idols and other Korean celebrities. While the article headings are all in English, the articles are all written in Korean, so I will have to spend some quality time with Google Translate if I want to understand any of it. The picture is gorgeous though, so it’s totally worth it.

And the rest…

Along with all these, there was a random assortment of other fun items like stickers and socks (yes, socks. Two full pairs of adult-sized character socks. They were a fugly colour, but my kid likes them, so whatever), and stuffed animals. There was a really nice tote bag too. The amount of stuff in this box is really amazing given the cost of the box.

The Daebak Box costs $50-$55 per box, depending on your subscription. That’s about 30% more than the last culture box subscription I had, but this one has about three times as much product in it. It really is a lot of bang for the buck. The Daebak Box only comes 4 times a year, shipping seasonally rather than monthly. I absolutely loved getting this box in the mail. It completely made my day, and I felt so special and spoiled. If you have a Korean content fan to shop for, I would highly recommend this as a fun gift to send them.

The Daebak.co website

I spent a little bit of time wandering through the Daebak Company website. The website offers a variety of different box subscriptions available in annual or seasonal purchase plans. Boxes themed around food, characters, and beauty products are all available at various price points.

The website also has regular shopping options available. Their pre-order section has options for ordering K-pop albums, magazines, and other items that are sometimes hard to find outside of Korea. The K-pop section offers albums, magazines, and official goods like water bottles, tote bags, etc. Are you a musician with a love of Kdrama soundtracks or K-pop? The website offers scorebooks of several different popular dramas and albums. The Kdrama section was probably my favourite section to browse through. It’s probably also the one most dangerous to my bank account 😜 This section had things like the official children’s books from the drama It’s Okay To Not Be Okay, a colouring book of the Descendants of the Sun series, and coffee mugs from Start-Up. So many cute and fun things.

The K-character section of the website offers items from a variety of fandoms such as BT21, TWOTUCKGOM, Line Friends, Kakao Friends, and Esther Bunny. The K-beauty is the next most dangerous to my wallet section. With offerings like make-up, sheet masks, hand cream, and sunblock, I could wind up spending a small fortune in there. In the K-lifestyle section, I found shower curtains, and room sprays, and scented candles, and rice paddles… it was a cornucopia of fun gift ideas. Ultimately, if you’re looking for a gift for the Hallyu lover in your life but aren’t sure what to get, the website offers e-gift cards too.

Final Thoughts:

I will definitely be bookmarking this website. I’m already thinking ahead to birthdays and other gifts that I need to buy. The subscription boxes are a great value for the cost. The shipping rates are pretty reasonable, and my experience with the box I received was that it came quickly and safely. Two thumbs up! This box is definitely daebak!