Among the samples of face cream, shower gel and lip balm, guys who subscribe to Birchbox will soon find something atypical in their monthly box.

In August, Birchbox Man -- the beauty and grooming retailer's brand targeted at male customers -- will be placing a custom-designed virtual reality viewer and instructions for how to log on to an app with original content. That’s right: Birchbox is getting into virtual reality.

Surprisingly, the content Birchbox is including in boxes will have nothing to do with shopping for shampoo or discovering the perfect razor. Instead, users with the viewer will be able to experience driving a race car, surfing through a wave, motorbiking on a dirt road or taking a helicopter ride.

So why is Birchbox getting into the virtual reality game? For Brad Lande, the general manager of Birchbox Man, it’s all about discovery. A large part of the Birchbox brand is allowing members to experience products for the first time, he says. Placing cutting-edge technology into boxes is a natural extension of that.

“[Our brand] is about trying new things,” said Lande. “The VR experience is really just a way to take our subscribers on an adventure and be transported and to have an experience that they wouldn’t otherwise have.”

Birchbox partnered with River Studios -- a virtual and augmented reality company -- to create the experiences. The viewer is nothing fancy -- it is made out of cardboard and uses velcro to secure your phone in place to play the app -- but Lande says you really feel like you are there riding the wave or on the motocycle. During our interview, he hinted that the VR content Birchbox provides for members could soon be related to beauty with things like product tutorials, but as an introduction the goal was to “surprise the customer.”

The virtual reality play speaks to Birchbox’s effort to accomplish a seemingly tricky goal: Get men interested in sampling beauty products. Founded in 2010 with a popular women’s line, the company started crafting beauty sample boxes for men in 2012. Lande, who joined Birchbox that year as well, said more than women, men are focused on health and wellness as opposed to the aesthetic aspect of “being a better version of yourself.” The company does not breakdown what percentage of its subscriber base of 1 million members is male.

Sending non-beauty products to members isn’t the only quirky way that Birchbox is looking to grow. After opening its first brick-and-mortar store last year, the company with more than $70 million in funding is hitting the road to help decide where its next retail location will be -- literally.

The company is bringing an offline shopping experience to three U.S. cities this summer and is allowing members decide where exactly it goes. A voting campaign, which began yesterday, lets customers vote with their zip code for their city of choice. Birchbox then plans to open two permanent stores next year depending on the performance of the pop-up shops in each of the cities.

“Who shows up and where are subscribers want us… There might be some unlikely places,” said Lande. “We wanted to give them a chance to raise their hand and say ‘Come to our city.’”

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