Review and haul: Candy Envy Alternative Accessories

This is a bit out of my normal purview, but I've had a really good experience with this company and she's local, so I thought a review would only be proper :)

Candy Envy Alternative Accessories is a jewelery and accessories crafter I stumbled across during a market at Murdoch University (I would say my alma mater but I haven't actually graduated yet, heh). A pair of earrings caught my eye.

These were ridiculously cheap, something like $4 or maybe even $3. I've had them for almost 3 months now, they're so well-made they've withstood me knocking them with the work phone (ow) and dropping them on the floor (oops!)

They had a big clearance sale a while ago and I got these two faux-leather cuffs for a whopping $2 each - I believe they're're now out of stock. Sorry!

Despite the awesomely punk-rock look, because they're not leather they are surprisingly light. They're super comfortable to wear, not stiff at all and as you can (not) see they've two studs for a slightly more adjustable length. They came wadded in bubble wrap which I appreciated.

I adore makeup and accessories but I'm completely clueless about hair. Really clueless and boring. As well as cute jewellery Candy Envy have a MASSIVE range of geeky, vintage, goth and pop culture themed hair bows! Starting at $3 for a medium to small pair, these are great for a noob like me (and a great budget-friendly item for any hair aficionados out there). I bought three sets of bows to start off with.

The bows came in a huge puff of tissue paper so they weren't squashed. Her TAT is pretty quick, I got my order within about a week of payment. Here's the bows with a full-size pot of Aromaleigh eyeshadow to give you an idea of the size, since using a coin would be pretty useless to my non-Australian readers!

I have only worn the bows once each, so I can't comment on their construction. They do look and feel  very sturdy and I love that the clips don't get stuck in my hair. It was kind of hard to photograph, but all of the clips are covered in fabric ribbon before the bow is attached. The attention to detail is really lovely!

The only criticism I have at all is that although Shannon (owner of Candy Envy) does a lot of trading online, she doesn't have a shop front at all. To order you have to look through the products in the page's Facebook albums, check the comments to try and figure out if the item is still available, and then reserve it by commenting. My first order, she messsaged me fairly quickly with my total, I told her my postal address and she told me what email address to PayPal the money to. The second order (during the sale) I messaged her to speed things up. I understand she's probably time-poor since she makes most of the products by hand and does markets almost every weekend, but I really dislike the set-up.  I avoided ordering for quite a while because it just seemed so... messy. There's also nothing on the Facebook page to explain the ordering process or a rundown of shipping options. It seems like you're just expected to figure it out on your own.  After spending so long on well-crafted indie cosmetics sites with FAQs and shipping calculators and detailed "about" pages I felt very lost. Maybe those things don't bother you, but I feel like a solid (and clear and accessible) online presence is just as important as having a clean physical store is.

Shannon does custom orders for bows and I think jewelry as well? Again no information on the page about pricing, TAT or even guidelines. I guess you'd just have to get an idea from existing products and the pictures she puts up of completed custom orders.

Again, I love what I ordered and it was so cheap. I just wish Candy Envy had an actual online store rather than just operating on Facebook! If you'd like to check out her stuff the page is here.

EDIT:  There are purchase instructions and postage estimates in the Facebook notes. Derp!