Hello! This week, I will talk about my first Taobao orders! There’s a little bad and a lot of good so let’s get started!

Taobao can be described as an online marketplace. Individual sellers and business create storefronts with unique urls. These online storefronts showcase a wide range of products from shoes to accessories to clothes. Lolita Fashion, interestingly enough, has become incredibly popular in China, sparking a wave of indie Chinese brands that produce Lolita dresses and accessories through individual Taobao shops.

It’s getting close to the holiday season so I anticipated things would calm down here in regards to local meetups and blogging. What I didn’t anticipate was that my Taobao orders would be delivered to me before the end of the year!

For a little background, I have ordered one thing using Taobao before: a bag in the shape of a jellyfish by Taobao brand MilkyWay. However, this blog entry is about my first time making a large haul order and a dress pre-order.

So, let me talk about my first dress experience because it actually ended up being negative. Before I used SpreeNow and before I started placing orders, I reserved a dress through a different shopping service. I pre-ordered Bell Langue’s Code JSK, matching headbow, and sweater (for Bobby) in the ivory colorway.

The dress arrived after around 3 months of waiting. But the color turned out to not be color accurate to the picture. There was also a miscommunication on sizing so the dress turned out to be a size I wouldn’t have ordered otherwise (though it still does fit) Bobby loves the hoodie! I’m glad his part of the order ended up working out even though there was another sizing miscommunication. As for me, I think I’ll end up parting ways with the JSK and head bow. Maybe I will be able to find it in another colorway in the future!

Looking back, I knew the possibility was there but this was my first lesson that there’s always a risk in ordering from Taobao brands, not because they can’t be trusted, but because there isn’t a defined level of quality control among all brands. In addition, there’s a lack of feedback and reviews considering brand releases are very sporadic and often singular.

So, for my SpreeNow order, I ordered from a few brands: Mix Mania, MuFish, Ruby Rabbit, and Dream Holic. Dream Holic has produced my favorite wigs so I opted for my very first mass order direct from them, springing for 5 wigs, 3 in the same style. MuFish and Ruby Rabbit have a few pairs of tights I had my eye on for a few months. In addition to my hobby of Lolita Fashion, I also like anime, so from Mix Mania, I ordered an ita bag (collection-based window bag) to celebrate one of my favorite anime characters! With the orders placed, I played the waiting game for everything to arrive and be organized together.

Before I get onto the direct images, I want to talk about SpreeNow a bit more. This shopping service is incredibly easy to use. All you need is a direct link to the product page and then, after creating an account, you can get a direct translated shopping page for what you want to order and can organize everything in a cart system. Communication happens through a text chat system and responses are usually quick and within 24 hours. The best part, in my opinion, is the ability to re-arrange boxes. It gives an additional area of control that allows you to plan for what arrives to you when you want and with what else you want. So I highly recommend using it as a great introduction to shopping through Taobao stores! So onto the haul!

Everything arrived in two separate boxes that I had planned out. One for the bag and the other for all the tights and wigs. I’ll be reviewing the Dream Holic wigs on their own on a later date so I won’t include many pictures of them in this post!

I LOVE the Mix Mania bag! It’s amazing in person! It’s very spacious and the window has a good amount of space for merchandise. I bought the purple color, hoping to match it with my Yuri!!! on Ice Christophe Giacometti merchandise. Chris owns a cat in the anime so the cat ears really appealed to me! I took a few pictures below of the front and back, with additional ones with the merchandise. I’m heavily considering also ordering the pink and green but I’m not sure what I’d do with them yet.

The Ruby Rabbit tights came well-packaged in their own decorative bag. I really like their Alice-inspired tights!

I ordered two pairs of the white & black transparent diamond OTKs from MuFish just in case a pair gets damaged or I want to match a coordinate more with Bobby. Right now, they’re a little tight because I have thick calves so just a head’s up if you’re considering them! The circus-themed tights are also a little on the short end, with my height, the print stretches considerably so when I wear them, I’ll probably layer them over white tights to keep the print opaque.

That’s it for this post! I’m really excited with the results of this haul! I’ve already worn one of the Dream Holic wigs out and am looking forward to writing a full review on those. I’m also planning out new coordinates with my new themed tights~ If you’re interested in using SpreeNow to shop from Taobao shops, Here’s my referral link!

I already have a few other items I’ve reserved in my cart so I anticipate making more haul posts for this blog. Please look forward to them! Thanks for reading!