Shine for Shein

We have all seen the Shein ads. The ones that pop up on Instagram, Facebook and Tiktok. The ones that somehow show items you searched for on other sites or have spoken to your friends about.

You know that conversation you had about dinosaurs with your friend, and then suddenly Shein was showing ads for dinosaur…everything? Yeah well, that happened to me too. And now here I am with multiple dinosaur themed t-shirts and bikinis.

Let me take a back step before I get into that though.

For years I have been hesitant in buying from the likes of Shein or Wish. I have heard the reviews about the poor quality and delays in shipping. I mean how good can the quality be when the t-shirt is $4?

I have asked many friends about their purchases. All with mixed reviews. Some said the shipping took months. Others said the quality was really great, but then again that particular persons taste in clothes was not exactly something to go by. I kept ignoring the ads.

Although there was maybe two or three times, I had filled my online shopping basket with all the things that caught my eye. It is surprising how quickly you can get your cart to $200 when everything is so cheap on there. Then you get the discount codes which is an added bonus. But every time I was ready to hit that ‘confirm’ button, something stopped me. I thought “Am I wasting my money on poor quality? Will my package even arrive? Is it going to take months? If they don’t fit how hard is the returns process?” So, There I went again, exiting out of the window and ignoring the abundance of “You left something in your cart” emails.

It was not until a few weeks ago where a friend lent me a bikini after an impromptu visit to her house. I loved it and asked her where she had purchased it. To my surprise she said “Shein”.

I went through the process of asking all the questions I had. She said the quality was good enough for what you pay, which I thought was evident to the bikini I was wearing. She also showed me the other items she bought. To me they all seemed of the same equal quality as to what I would buy from other Australian online boutiques. She mentioned it took close to two weeks for the items to arrive to her doorstep.

So that next evening I sat down, ready to commit, finally seeing hope in the process. I put at least $250 worth of items into my shopping cart. But by the time I added all the little discount codes that pop up along the way (you will understand what I mean if way, you know the ones I’m talking about, both intriguing and irritating at the same time, it ended up being $165 in total, with free shipping. The site itself gave me an estimated delivery date which was roughly two weeks from the date of purchase.

I downloaded the app which made it easy to track the package along the way. Each day I would check this tracking, watching it go from one country to the next until four days later it said it landed in Australia. The estimated delivery date never changes, but what do you know it was on my doorstep the very next Monday. So, it only took 5 business days in total to arrive.

I was both excited and anxious to open the package. I was actually overly impressed with the packaging. Each item was folded nicely and in its own individual bag (however the hippy in me would have preferred less plastic usage). I started opening each package, which took a while considering how much I purchased. Overall, the quality looked pretty good. There were 12 items in total, there was two that I was a little concerned about when I opened them and felt the material. They were not what I had assumed they would be and that is purely because it is hard to judge by just looking at the photos online with the perfectly tan and thin models sporting them.

Later that night I decided to do a little fashion show for myself trying on each product to see what I liked. Of the 12 items, 4 were bikinis. 4 out of those 4 were really impressive. I loved the shape, the size was spot on (Quick hint for any fellow AU size 8-10 gals out there, order size Medium). The other bikini was revealing. And not in a good way. However, it is hard to get the right cup size as a female anyway. You might be a size 10 in bottoms but have little or much breast fat making it hard to judge buying online! How much easier would life be if we all had the same cup size, am I right?

Next up there was a pair of pants that, like mentioned earlier, were not as they seemed online. The material was A LOT thinner than I assumed and meant that these white pants were very see-through. They have officially become pyjamas now. Which for $8.75 I cannot really complain. Next on the list was a white skirt with sunflowers. It is cute when I hold it and think of all the places I could wear it, but when I put it on it is a different story. And I really cannot blame Shein for that.

The rest of the items was simply different tops, and I love them all! They are all considerably basic though, and I do not expect them to last years and years, but for the price I paid, I am pretty impressed!

Coming into winter now I would give Shein another go as I have seen some cute outfits that would be good for work. As well as cute pyjama sets that keep popping up on my socials every time I am meaninglessly scrolling through.

The main negatives I would point out to anyone thinking of shopping on Shein is, not everything is what it seems. Read the bios, and the reviews on the product to get a better idea of materials etc. The site is hard to deal with. I thought the app would be better, but they are much of a muchness really. There is so many items it makes it impossible to look through everything (even when you filter your searches) so you are left with the feeling of “what if there was something better?!”

Be prepared to wait. I was lucky in that my items came pretty quickly. However, from other stories I have heard it is very hit and miss. Especially if something is on back order.

Overall, I was pretty happy with the outcome on my first Shein experience, I did not have to be a Karen and send any stern emails on where my delivery was!