Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Sheinside.com Review

Many of you likely read the high profile blog The Londoner, as Rosie is one of the biggest names in the Lifestyle Blog business. Recently, she wore an adorable blue and white dress on her May 21 sushi date night blog post and said the price was ludicrously cheap. I hopped over to where she purchased it--Sheinside.com -- and was stunned by their rock bottom prices. Unfortunately, the dress she was wearing is only sold in one size (??? Very weird), and she looks quite tall and slim. I didn't think that one would work so well for me so I decided to browse the rest of the site. Even though I shouldn't really be spending money on clothes, I still couldn't help but take a peek.

I ended up deciding to purchase an item, going with this gorgeous Blue Short Sleeve Floral Print dress. Go ahead, take a look:


Gorgeous, right?

After I read the reviews, my heart sank. Shipping was apparently bad. The quality of their dresses is supposedly crappy. It is made in China and all very hit and miss.

Firstly, I will say the shipping wasn't bad. I perused the site around the 22nd of May and received my item from China to the UK on May 31st which is pretty good. I've recently shipped some items to Colombia and it was estimated to take up to a month, so this is impressive, especially when the shipping is free.

The prices were hard to beat. They kept giving me discount after discount until the total order of my dress was around $19 USD. For something this cheap, I wasn't expecting a lot. Sometimes if you don't have expectations, you just won't be disappointed. In the long run, I was glad I had that mentality, because when it arrived, it was obvious why the frock only cost about $19. Likely, it really cost about $2 to make if the site is turning any kind of profit on this.

My first impression of the dress was that the material was terrible. I have this weird thing about cheap feeling material, particularly those that are pure polyester. This one is supposedly made of chiffon, but it feels like the $3 fabric my mom used to make me a princess costume  when I was four years old. I thought it felt funky then, and I'm not likely to wear something like that by choice as an adult.

I decided that since returning it was more hassle than it is worth (you have to pay for shipping back to China, which is probably more expensive than the dress), I would try to make it work. That night, my boyfriend and I were going out to dinner, so I thought I'd give it a try.

WRONG.

Here's what the dress looks like before it is on...not so bad...but still you can tell the material is thin and cheap:




Let's examine this horror. THIS is what it looks like on me...I know I'm not the thinnest woman in the world (I've never been medically heavy) but this dress makes me look like I've gained about 40lbs overnight. Plus, the waist rides up to just under my breasts so that it makes me look like I've got premature grandma boobies:
Could it be ANY LESS flattering?

That's not getting zipped up, is it?



Granted, I do have big boobs, but in the States and UK, I'm roughly a size 8 and 12 respectively and usually don a medium top. Knowing the dresses would be made for an Asian population in mind, I decided to go for the large. The waist doesn't fall on the waist, the darts on the bodice look crooked, there's no way that's zipping up and however the dress is bunching makes it look like I've got Marie Antoinette hips.

Sheinside.com may be a hit or miss--but with no real ability to return the items, I say give it a miss.

Have any of you had really positive Sheinside.com experiences?


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6 comments:

  1. I ordered something for my sister for Christmas from sheinside. I made sure to pay for express shipping, which was pretty pricey, because I wanted it to arrive in time for Christmas, and it was being shipped from Asia. Well, it took them over a week to even ship the thing, so it didn't arrive in time for Christmas. I contacted customer service multiple times about it and never received a response until I tried the "live chat", where I was just told that it takes a while to get the items shipped. Now I know! When the item arrived, it was cute (a chunky, open cable-knit sweater) and fit well. -Brittany

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    1. I'm glad you ended up having a good experience! I think it's hit and miss really, but a big risk when you can't send it back!

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  • Rebekah ClarkeJune 4, 2014 at 7:23 PM

    Aw that's really unfortunate - such a cute dress in their photo. Thank gosh you only paid $19 for it!

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    1. I know! Otherwise it would have been a travesty. My housemate who is smaller than me didn't want it so I felt like I had taken $19 and thrown it in the garbage. Haha...oh well...lesson learned and all that.

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  • Ah, thank you for doing this honest, *real* review! I've seen their stuff pop up in a few fashion blogs that I respect, but as soon as I did some internet research and saw their China origin (nothing against China manufacturing, but I've ordered from a few 'fast fashion' sites that have laughably-abysmal quality and are so bad, they can't even be used for Halloween costume fodder) and read some customer reviews about shipping, I decided it probably was one of those 'photograph one thing and sell you another' type of sites.

    Sorry to hear your experience, but thank you for writing it! I wish there was a way to push the SEO on it so that it would surface to help others! ;)

    xo,
    lauriel
    EyeForElegance.com

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    1. I totally agree about Chinese shipping and the bait and switch. I feel bad because I know people need jobs and China is a huge export center, but so much of the stuff is "photograph this gorgeous dress and send you this piece of crap a 9-year-old girl made in 10 minutes." Just not worth it in my mind.

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