What are you buying?
I bought crap. I didn’t plan it that way, but that’s what I got.
Every year, discount stores put out shelf after shelf of lovely soap gift baskets. The packaging styles often echo other high-quality brand names that you would normally find in department or specialty stores. The baskets range in size from just a trio of soaps to massive boxed sets. They tend to be priced at $5-$20 – precisely the gift limit for a lot of smaller gift exchanges.
I’d never been given one of these gifts nor have I ever given one. I am quite practical though, so I’ve always been curious.
I picked up a few of these at Meijer a few days after Christmas at 75% off. I toyed with the idea of buying several and stashing them away for last-minute gifts throughout the year, but my cheap gene wouldn’t let me do it. I picked out a few that I thought I would like, thinking maybe if they were awesome I’d regret it and rush back to the store and get more.
My cheap gene saved me money, in this instance. The stuff was crap. One thing that I bought was a bottle of soap and the matching lotion in a little wrought-iron holder type thing to place next to my kitchen sink. I actually put back one of those Softsoap dispensers and bought this instead. The Softsoap was like $1.50 or something and this thing was closer to $2. Not a spectacular deal, but I was itching to try this stuff.
The hand soap doesn’t lather up. It doesn’t smell like soap. The dispenser squirts out these red lumps of non-soap that reminded me of jelly, except it didn’t smell as good as jelly and it just slid off my hands. Washing my hands with actual jelly would have resulted in cleaner hands because I’d rinse much better and there would be little worry that I was using some sort of Chinese toxic-waste napalm.
The matching lotion is on par with these value tubs where you get three year’s worth of lotion for $1 – not high-quality stuff. The best part was that the funky scent didn’t linger at all and my skin didn’t burst out in sores, so there’s that.
It’s not a total loss; the bottles are cute so maybe I’ll refill them with good stuff.
The other item I tried out was one of these large gift boxes with body wash, bubble bath, body scrub, hand soap, lotion, even a body poof thingee – seemed practical enough. It cost me $3. My first disappointment was unwrapping the stuff. What I thought were two little bars of hand soap turned out to be empty cardboard spacers that just happened to be in the shape and size of a bar of soap. I tried out all three of the body products in the shower and not one of them lathered up with a body poof thingee. A tiny dab of cheapie Suave body wash lathered up in the poof as anticipated.
This stuff looked like it was going to dye my skin. The kit came with soap roses – delicate soap carved out like rose petals. One of these petals fell to the bathroom floor and must have gotten wet because now I have soap cement stuck to my floor. I can’t seem to wipe it up. You know soap is bad when I am considering ripping out a tile and replacing it.
I am sooo glad that I opened these piece-o-shit would-be gifts at home and found out how awful they really are. I can’t imagine giving this to someone as a gift. If I want to give a practical soap gift, handing someone a plastic grocery store bag with a few cheap body washes would be a step up. Sad, huh?
Now the day I bought these items, the clearance section was full of women elbowing each other to get to this crap. A teacher out there will open up one of these as a gift on the last day of school… several will be dispersed on Mother’s Day… some poor woman will sit confused after receiving this with a card that read, “Just thinking of you!”
I am all for clearance deals, but make sure you check yourself this clearance season. Ask yourself why you are buying something. Is it useful? It’s the elementary question that the woman who hit me with her cart to get to these things never asked herself. Unfortunately, just because the wrapper says “soap”, doesn’t mean you can trust it.
I got more than one of those when I was teaching. It is the thought that counts right? I have actually found some nice gift packages, but I already liked the brand when I bought them. The no named ones are never worth the risk.
My BIL did that one year. He bought me a chocolate-scented basket with lotion, soap, bath salts, loofa and more. It didn’t smell like chocolate. And it didn’t lather up. I stopped using it. My daughter, however, thought it was neat, so I gave the remaining stuff to her. It’s a good thing she was only 7 at the time. She didn’t get it was crap.
“It’s not a total loss; the bottles are cute so maybe I’ll refill them with good stuff.”
Done that! Sometimes I like the containers more than the product.
I have never really been a fan of gift lotions and body washes. When I buy them for myself, they are always on clearance and it is because I want the purse or makeup tote they come it. LOL
“The best part was that the funky scent didn’t linger at all and my skin didn’t burst out in sores, so there’s that.”
LOL!!! Too funny!!
Oh boy! Aren’t you glad you tested one out before buying tons of them and giving them away? I would have been mortified to give that as a gift to a teacher or my mom or sister! EEK!!
Yes I am!