Hi everyone! Today I'd like to tell you about a very popular bath and body company called Fortune Cookie Soap! The brand is based out of Oklahoma, USA, and is probably best known for... wait for it... their soaps shaped like fortune cookies. They have one of the most extensive selections of product types I've seen from any indie bath company, and they sell a quarterly soap box subscription service. I've had the opportunity to try a variety of their products, some of which I purchased for myself during the Black Friday sale, and some of which were gifts from a friend.
Let me tell you a little more about this company!
Packaging: I ordered a trio of roll on perfumes during the Black Friday sale, and though the packaging was plain, they were wrapped up well to protect them during transit. My friend kindly gave me the Hello Kat bath gift set, which had a cuter presentation. The set came packaged in a clear, flexible plastic box modeled after a Chinese takeout container. The soaps inside were wrapped in a big plastic bag, presumably to help keep the scents corralled within. The whole thing was tied with a ribbon that suited the theme of the gift set. For equally cute gifting on a smaller scale, the shop sells a handful of mini gift boxes which can hold a soap of your choosing.
I'm going to break my super duper professional blogger's tone for a minute and sheepishly confess something to you, my dear readers. I made a terrible choice in backdrop when I took photos of the brand new, neatly wrapped gift box, and didn't realize the problem until after I'd already torn into the packaging and started using one of the soaps. Instead of providing my own photos here, I'm going to direct you to the brand's gift sets landing page, where you can see beautiful photos of each of the gift sets in their pristine forms. And I promise never to use a brightly patterned dishcloth as a backdrop ever again.
Selection: This brand's selection is vast and a little overwhelming! Since I've only tried three different types of Fortune Cookie Soap products, I won't be able to describe too many of the products from personal experience. However, I can say they offer three kinds of soap, six (!) different ways to enhance your bath, a great assortment of ways to wash, scrub, and scent your skin, a couple of options for scenting your home, a few products for skin and lips, and several products to wash and style your hair.
Fortune Cookie Soap also offers a quarterly subscription service known as The Soap Box. Though the brand appears to put out a number of limited edition themed collections throughout the year (I'm seeing products from at least four limited edition collections on the website right now), my understanding is they have four major seasonal releases. Soap Box subscribers will receive eight mini products and scents as an early preview of the upcoming release, plus a coupon code for $10 off the subscriber's next purchase. The Soap Box's page has several examples of past boxes, so you can take a look at the assortment of products you generally receive in each box. I've never received this before, but I have subscribed to receive the Spring 2014 box, so rest assured I'll be sharing my thoughts with you when it arrives!
Samples: Both my gift box and Black Friday order came with a plainly packaged bath bomb sample. While the full-sized bath bombs offered on the website come in a variety of shapes and colors, my bath bomb samples were both white and "loose" - they looked more like bath salts than anything else. They were sufficient to give me an idea of the scent and feel of the product, though, and I don't think it's reasonable to expect the brand to put as much effort into the presentation of their freebie samples as they do into their full sized products.
Quality: This is a difficult factor for me to discuss at this point. Visually speaking, most of the solid products (such as soaps and bath bombs) come in a plethora of shapes and colors that unequivocally make bathtime lots of fun, and the near-constant launch of limited edition collections means there are always new, imaginatively decorated, themed items with which to clean yourself. In this regard, Fortune Cookie Soap is easily one of the most fun places to do some shopping. That said, I haven't been very fond of any of the products I've tried so far. I've been having trouble nailing down whether my feelings are due to actual inadequacies or just personal preferences about the scents I enjoy and how I like my soaps to lather up. As I mentioned earlier in this post, I signed up for the brand's Spring 2014 Soap Box, so I'll be posting my review with more detailed thoughts when it arrives.
Cost: This is neither the cheapest nor the most expensive indie bath company I've shopped with, and the prices vary across items. The bath bombs will run you anywhere from $4.50 to $8 USD depending on size and collection, which seems a little pricey to me given how few uses you'll get out of them, but most of their eponymous soaps are a very inexpensive $3. The roll-on perfumes are inexpensive at $8 for a roll-on bottle. The website photos make it difficult to tell how big the brand's other products are, so I won't pass judgment on how the prices stack up against comparable products from other brands.
Customer Service: I haven't needed to contact this brand about any issues, so I don't have any personal experience with their customer service. However, they seem pretty active on their Facebook page, which is always a positive sign.
TAT: I ordered during the brand's Black Friday sale, which I believe they described as their biggest sale of the year. My package shipped in a little over a week, which I think is perfectly reasonable, given their order volume at the time.
Shipping: Spoiled as I am by $3 (or less!) shipping from other companies, I find Fortune Cookie Soap's shipping costs pretty high, at least for small orders. Even with just a single soap in my cart, shipping starts at $6.75 in a flat rate box. The silver lining to this is, even when I add a couple of heavy items (a bath oil and bath salts) to my cart, shipping stays the same. This is definitely a case where you'll be rewarded for making fewer but larger orders if you intend to be a frequent shopper. For newcomers to the brand who want to sample some products without blowing half their budget on shipping, the Soap Box is easily the best option. Not only is it already a steal at $20* for eight mini-sized products, but the box includes a $10 gift certificate and shipping is covered in the cost.
* The Soap Box subscription is $20 for US recipients, $28 for Canadian recipients, and $34 for international recipients as of writing this post.
Personal Thoughts: Though I'm positive Fortune Cookie Soap must be tired of comparisons to their mainstream fanciful bath bomb counterpart Lush, I have to say, Fortune Cookie Soap is kind of like Lush's younger sister who's still really into Lisa Frank and hamburger phones. I'm still figuring out how I feel about this company, but I am looking forward to receiving their Spring Soap Box. Stay tuned for my thoughts on that in the coming weeks!
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