Original Fancy Box – August 2013

Fancy BoxFor those of you not familiar with the site, Fancy is pretty much what would happen if Pinterest started selling stuff.  Users upload, post and “fancy” the coolest items throughout the internets.   While you browse the site, you have the option to buy the items through Fancy.

In addition to the posting and fancying and buying they also offer a monthly subscription box.

Fancy Box is a monthly subscription service that curates items that are popular on the Fancy website.  There are a few different subscription options.  They all cost $39 plus shipping (an additional $7.95).

#1 –Fancy box (Original)
This box features a collection of some of the most fancy’d items, curated by the fancy community. Each box includes $80.00+ of products in the categories of your choice. 
The categories you can choose from include: Men’s, Women’s, Kid’s, Home, Gadgets & Media.  It also lets you customize your Tshirt size and your cell phone type.

#2 Fancy Food Box
Each Fancy Food Box includes five or more food products – anything from cookies and chocolates to teas and sauces – along with a selection of tasty recipes and pairing suggestion.


#3 Celebrity Curated Fancy Box
There are seven celebrity curated boxes to choose from.  Each box includes $80.00+ of products.  Most boxes are geared toward men or women though they do include unisex items.

They include:

 

COUPON CODE:  FOLLOWUP10 to Save 10%

Now to the review…


Last month I fell in love with the Jennifer Love Hewitt Fancy box I received, so despite the overpriced shipping I decided to try out the original Fancy Box that would let me select which categories I wanted to receive.  I selected: Womens, Home, Gadgets & Media.  I listed my Tshirt size as XL and my cell phone as an Iphone 5.

InsideCards

Here’s what I received for my first original Fancy Box.

Tshirt
Young and Wild Tshirt
:
  Retail ??? (Couldn’t find the price of this one online, so we’ll estimate $20.00)
Verdict:  Miss

The first problem with this shirt is that it’s a Large, not the Extra Large I indicated on my profile (I prefer my looser tees).  I had this same problem last month with my celebrity box.  That time I got a medium.  Since I could gift that shirt and everything else in the box was great, I didn’t bother complaining.  In this case I don’t really know anyone who wears a size large and would want a see through white tee that has “young and wild” written across the chest.  It’s also more of a fitted tee shirt, so that makes the sizing more important.

I contacted the Fancy customer service and they apologized and said I could mail it back with the pre-paid label and they would send me the correct size along with a $15 gift card for the hassle.

Even in the right size I’m not thrilled with the shirt.  I don’t really think I’m that young (33) and I don’t think I’m particularly wild either (unless you call weekends replaying Dragon Age and perfecting baked mac and cheese recipes “wild”), so it’d be like false advertising.  Also, I really hate white tshirts you can see through.  I don’t want to have to wear a damn Tshirt underneath my Tshirt.  I’ll probably relegate this shirt to my workout gear/pajama drawer unless someone I know loves it and wants to claim it as their own.

Magazine
“In Snap” Magazine, Edition #9:
 Retail $20.00
Verdict:  Total Miss

So this addition made me rethink my selection of “Media”.  I thought I might get some cool books or stationary, but instead I got some weird magazine I’ve never heard of.   It’s basically picture after picture of people wearing “quirky” street clothes.  In this case quirky = patterns that don’t match, shapes that don’t flatter and lots of shit with fur resembling skinned muppets.  I would have been unimpressed if this thing cost $5.00, but it’s ridiculous for $20.00.  For that price you can get a year’s subscription to a far more interesting publication.

IceMolds
Tevolo Sphere Ice Molds: Retail $10.00
Verdict:  Win!

Who can say no to giant ice balls?  Not this girl.  I was so psyched to see these.  In general I don’t have many ice cube trays and no super fancy ones.  These will come in so handy when I forget to put the wine in the fridge (and I really don’t care if that’s not the uber classy way to drink wine.  I like mine really cold and if that makes me a heathen, well then so be it).  I also think these would make a great gift.  If you plan to give someone a bottle of scotch or bourbon for Christmas, just throw in a box of these to go along with it.

LAEX
LAEX Card Holder:
 Retail $27.00
Verdict:  Gift Pile

A nice detail on it are the words “be foolish” written in the plastic.  While I don’t really have a use for an ID holder like this, it seems like a fun and practical gift.  It’d pair nicely with a cute little bag.

Jelly Fish
Jelly Fish Set:  Tripod for Smartphones & Sun Shield: Retail: $10.95 & $3.97; Total = $14.92
Verdict:  Love!

After Verizon’s constant bribery to get me to upgrade from my ancient phone, I finally joined this century and got an Iphone 5 just two weeks ago.  I love love love the little tripod.  It makes it so easy to record videos and it’ll be great when I want to watch some Netflix while I chop vegetables.  The sun shield is not quite so useful since summer is mostly over and I don’t see myself heading to a beach anytime soon.  This probably would have been perfect for a box that came earlier in the season.  I’m sure I’ll use it eventually though so it’s still a win.

Items

For the retail values, I googled and used the cheapest prices I could find online since I find that Fancy inflates the prices of some items. The total retail value of this box came out to: $91.92.  With a coupon code applied, and the shipping costs accounted for I paid $43.05.  While the retail price certainly exceeds the value of what I paid, there’s no way I would ever spend so much on some of these items.  A $20 magazine and a $27 card holder just don’t quite make the grade for me.

I’m not sure if I will continue this box.  My hope in getting it was to find a few cool things for me and some great gifts but with the high cost of the box and shipping, the items just aren’t quite doing it for me.  I wish they’d implement a system where we could rate the items we get and then they’d curate our boxes based on those ratings, but since they can’t even match up the Tshirt sizes I’m fairly certain that’s a pipe dream.

I think I will give this box one more month to impress me but only because I really really love giant iceballs and mini tripods.

Author: Writer Preziosi

Once upon a time, long, long ago, Lisa attended Syracuse University where she studied singing in a giant castle surrounded by ice and snow. After she earned her music degree, she headed to the island of Manhattan, down to the West Village, to a place called the New School. There, she earned another degree in the great art of writing stories for children. She currently works on that same island trying to help real people, while making up stories about imaginary ones. Her first book, “The Ice Maiden’s Tale,” a fairy tale adventure, was released on May 30, 2017 and is up for sale on Amazon.

10 thoughts on “Original Fancy Box – August 2013”

  1. You have really boring taste because seriously, you bitch about every cool thing these boxes contain. Which is pretty much everything in them.

    1. Actually if you read through my blog, the only subscriptions with items I didn’t care for were from Fancy. I’ve also paid for all the boxes I’ve reviewed, so unlike reviewers getting them for free I do have a higher expectation. Every one is entitled to their own opinions of the products which is why I post pictures, prices, and links so people interested can buy them. Just because they don’t suit my lifestyle doesn’t mean someone else won’t love them!

    1. Do you mean the cardboard box it comes in? I’m sorry I don’t have the size on it. If you shoot Fancy’s customer service an email they can probably tell you.

      1. I’ll try to get a measurement for you when I get my next box. But like I said above, Fancy customer service should be able to tell you that exactly. They are excellent with responding to emails.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: