I’m sure you’ve seen the ads for Brandless all over your social media too… common household products and pantry times, all for $3, with free shipping once you spend $39. They claim to take out the hidden costs you pay for name brand products and offer quality goods at a lower price.
I was interested at first but after checking out the site I wasn’t ready to shell out $40 for a bunch of $3 products with no customer reviews right out of the gate. Then I got a mailer for free shipping on my first purchase with no minimum so I decided to give them a try. Since there aren’t a lot reviews of Brandless out there yet I figured I would share my experience.
Overall, you have to be careful about what you buy. For some items like Grade A organic maple syrup, $3 seems like a great deal because you won’t find a bottle real maple syrup for under $6 in most grocery stores. However, the size of Brandless bottle is only 6.7 ounces, compared to the 8.5- 12.5 ounce bottles you’ll find on most shelves. Same with the pistachios- they’re $3.94 for the name brand 8 ounce package at the grocery store and the $3 Brandless package is 5 ounces. Instead of offering lower cost products, they are just giving you less of the product overall.
The good thing about Brandless is that if you want peanut butter, you don’t have to stare at 30 different versions in the aisle trying to decide which is best. There’s one option and the only ingredients are organic peanuts and salt. We have to make 230493 decisions a day and I’m all for making things easier. If you want dishwashing soap, there’s one choice. I like that their cleaning products are supposedly better for the environment and more natural but I’m not enough of an expert on deciphering the ingredients label of cleaning products to vouch for that. The foaming hand soap with lavender essential oil smells lovely though (and costs me less than my typical Bath & Body Works purchase).
What I would buy again:
- Peanut butter
- Hand soap
- Pistachios (if I needed to add more to my box)
What I wouldn’t buy again:
- Toilet paper- It’s comparable the worst 1-ply you get in a cheap roadside gas station.
- Dried mango- Does anyone know why dried mango without added sugar taste like fish?
What I want to try:
- Coconut oil
- Lemon verbena surface cleaner wipes
- Multi-surface cleaner
- Calm & focus support supplement (ashwaganda root & leaf extract)
- Shave gel
- Shampoo and conditioner
- Dark chocolate and peanut butter bars (10g of protein- maybe similar to a KIND bar?)
- Coffee pods
I’m not ready to write them off yet but I don’t think that I’ll often have $39 worth of products that I actually need in order to get the free shipping.
Have you tried Brandless? What was your experience?