secondhandwardrobe.com » Secondhand is Better than New

Four Reasons to Buy your Jeans Used

Cheryl — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 16:47:30 +0000

The thrifts are packed with jeans. If you’re new to thrifting, one easy way to get started is to look for a great used pair.

For more inforamtion about the problems with conventionally grown cotton click here and here to read more about formaldehyde.

Secondhand Clothing: The Ick Factor, Part III

Cheryl — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 16:40:01 +0000

Thrift stores can smell like a combination of musty basement, mothballs and who-knows-what else. I personally find the scent of regular retail manipulation to be far less appealing.

Learn more about fragrance and marketing at scentmarketing.org, scentair.com, or just enter “scent marketing” into your search engine and see what pops up.

High Fashion, Low Maintenance: The Second Hand Wardrobe

Cheryl — Thu, 12 May 2011 18:48:28 +0000

Thank you to Chelsea Pech, who writes for beautyxpose.com. She interviewed me and wrote a lovely article about the joys of secondhand shopping which you can read here.

Girly Shoes

Cheryl — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:23:47 +0000

These heels, made by Miracle Tread of Craddock Terry Shoe Corporation, are 50 years old and still gorgeous!

I’d never owned a pair of heels until last week, when I visited my favorite vintage store and found the perfect pair. They’re skinny, just like my feet. If you haven’t noticed, narrow sizes have all but disappeared from the shoe racks. Were I to get an invitation to some fancy event, say a wedding, I could spend half a year just looking for shoes that fit me, and since there are very few companies that still make them, the prices are more than I want to pay. So I nabbed the skinny heels for $20 and will pack them away until the next invitation comes.

All Malled Out

Cheryl — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:34:01 +0000

The other night, after months of really bitter cold, my husband and I broke down and went to the enormous mall (we’re talking 1,700,000 square feet of retail space). Neither one of us likes going to malls because the point of them is to part people from their money. But on this particular night, we really needed to get out of the house. Because of the extreme cold, there weren’t a lot of choices.

It had been so long since we’d visited this place that I’d forgotten about the volume and variety of stuff being sold. Stuff for your home, stuff to wear, stuff to cook with, and especially stuff for bored teenagers who spend a lot of time wandering around the mall learning to become consuming adults.

On my regular thrift store jaunts, I’m constantly scratching my head, wondering why so much barely used or brand new clothing winds up there. The rare trip to my local mall reminds me that other folks have very different spending habits than I do. Will the recent downturn in the economy start to change that? It certainly has for some people, but that’s another topic for another day.

Meanwhile, I have to admit that I succumbed to the temptations of the mall on that cold night. I bought one book from the dollar store.