Thrifting Don’ts

Hey Beauties,

So, yesterday, when I got really side tracked and forgot to put up a blog post, I had also went out with a friend to get our nails done together. This turned from a simple manicure, to a thrift shopping date.

Every time that I go thrifting recently, I’ve found amazing pieces that work so well for my new Live Action Roleplay (LARP) characters and just everyday pieces that will add to my closet so well. Most of my friends who have seen how much I’ve purged from my closet, realized that the amount was soon rebuilding and wanted to know how I did it so easily.

To start, it was really simple. I took out everything in my closet and got rid of the things that didn’t fit me or just didn’t make me happy. I took everything that I had decluttered and stuffed it in a box to head to a thrift shop.

Once I was there, I started to look around since I knew I didn’t completely want to pay for business clothes, or at least, I didn’t want to pay full retail price for business clothes.

Sure, back then, I still had my employee discount at T.J. Maxx and I could easily find great pieces there that I liked, but since I was already out, I figured that I’d give the thrift store a shot.

The last time that I had gone thrift shopping, I found pieces that I really didn’t like or just a lot of pieces that weren’t my size but I kept thinking that I’d give them a try to slim down to fit into them. Since they were so cheap, I put them in my cart and didn’t really give it a second thought as to what I was buying.

This time around, I knew I had standards for what I bought.

Make sure nothing smells strange.

With this, most items of clothing in thrift stores have obviously belonged to someone else. You don’t know if it came from a smoking home, if the smell is just pee that never got washed out, or anything else.

You also don’t know if, once washed, you can even get the smell(s) out. It’s better to be safe, rather than sorry, and just avoid items with a bad smell.

Just like smell, make sure there are no stains.

Is that stain blood or wine? Is that just really hard to get out grass stains that have sat in the fibers of the clothing for who knows how long?

Is this something that the previous owner tried to wash about a billion times but eventually gave up based on the stains?

YOU DON’T KNOW. You’ll likely never know until you take the product home and put it through the wash yourself.

By then, the item’s yours since you’ve already taken off the tag. Don’t fall for it, and just pass it up unless it’s a small stain that you really don’t mind all too much.

Check to see if it’s dry clean only!

Most thrift stores have a great selection of secondhand designer clothing. The caveat is that most of this clothing is dry clean only and the previous owners didn’t want to keep paying ridiculous dry cleaning fees for their clothes.

Sure, it could be $6 now, but how much will it end up costing you in dry cleaning costs in the end?

Don’t buy anything that isn’t your size just because it’s cheap.

I’ve fallen for this trap one too many a time. “Oh, it’s cheap and I can always sew or hem it to fix it up!” or “Oh, I can easily get to this size by *insert time in the year* It’ll be no big deal!” can really add up.

There’s no guarantee that it’ll fit right after you’ve lost weight and no real guarantee that you’ll end up fixing it up anyway. Don’t do it!

Don’t buy anything you don’t absolutely love!

If this wasn’t obvious enough, then I don’t really know what else to say. If you really think about it though, when do you ever wear things that you don’t love?

Exactly.

When will you ever wear things from the thrift store that you don’t love? Probably… NEVER.

Save yourself the hassle of adding things to your cart just to put them back or add them to a pile of “To Donate” soon enough. What are your ways of restricting yourself while shopping? Lemme know in the comments!

XOXO

Beauty Bound Beta