Miss A is an online discount shop for jewelry that apparently was started in 2007, but I only just heard about them on FB when someone asked if they could use accessories from that shop with lolita. Their selling point is that everything they sell is just $1, and shipping is a flat $3.95.

So I picked up a few things. First things first, more than half of what I wanted was sold out. Either entirely, or in the colors I wanted. Some of the things I bought came in many more colors that I liked, but were all sold out. Some things came in a dozen colors and were sold out in every. single. one.

Here is what I did buy:

3 Piece Pearl With Bow Bracelet Set (Green x 2)

3 Piece Pearl With Bow Bracelet Set (Red x 2)

Pearl Bracelet Set With Mesh Bow (Blue x 2)

Rose & Bead Bracelet Set (3 Piece) (Lavender x 2)

Duplicates of everything because, well, it’s a dollar a set and there is nothing more frustrating in my opinion than going to put on a lolita coord and only having one or two bracelets that match when you want a good solid half-dozen.

Shipping was $3.95 + 8 items at $1/ea, and we have a grad total of $11.95, for which I’m getting 28 individual bracelets.

I have a lot of stretch bead bracelets like this in more normal colors already. I can tell you that I spent $4-$12 a set at places like Khol’s, Claire’s are Paris Kids. So at $1 a set, my expectations were low, but it was worth a risk.

I do have to say, looking through the site, there were a lot of items where it was clear that you would get what you paid for. Pretty much all of the metal jewelry looked very low quality. Chains were thin, charms were stamped out of thin metal. I didn’t even bother checking the metal categories in all of the sub sections and went straight to the pearl and bead options after glancing over the necklaces. Rings and earrings I totally ignored as well (green fingers and ears are not cute).

In the hair accessories, I saw flowers that are sold at Claire’s for $1.50 that I know are meh, and bows that are very poor quality ribbon or are tiny and are hot glued and come apart (I bulk ordered some a few years ago). I skipped those too.

The package arrived on May 19th (The order was placed on May 14th), so it got to me quite quickly.

It was sent in a plastic mailing envelope, which probably helps them cut down on mailing costs.

       

Inside the plastic envelope was a bubble wrapped packet and a shipping slip (Mia, my kitten decided to help by walking on the paper). Inside the bubble wrap was a tissue paper wrapped packet with a MissA sticker.

Inside the bubble wrap was some foam, and then finally I got down the the bracelet sets which were each wrapped in clear plastic.

Once the plastic was removed, each set was clearly tagged for peg display at a retail shop. Manufacturers varied (so MissA isn’t making these things, they are sourcing them from a manufacturer like most retail stores do).

The actual hang tags were a bit beat up, but that could come from storage in bins, which would be more typical for an online shop warehouse. most of the bracelet sets were tied with cheap sheer ribbon. You can wear the bracelets with the ribbons, and some people do, but I personally like the look of them more when they are lose. Some of the ribbon was fraying already as the ends hadn’t been finished off.

All in all, the bracelets were fairly color accurate, and they had a good weight to them. The lavender ones are plastic, and the roses were all well formed. The tiny blue green ones seem to be plastic as well. The rest were glass.

There were a few minor issues. On this red bracelet, some of the painting wasn’t done perfectly; the end bead had a ring of raised paint and a void, and some bits of red paint were flaking off the ends of some beads.

This darker red one from one of the same red sets appears to have rubbed against something and the paint is coming off very easily.

In these other ones, there were some beads which weren’t quite round; higher quality bead makers would consider some of these b-grade and not sell them. Lower quality (cheaper) bead makers aren’t as picky.

For comparison, here are some sets of similar things I picked up at my local dollar store.

The lavender pair was like the pink and blue sets and had earrings with it.

The dollar store bracelets have better quality beads (more uniformly round) and better paint jobs aside from one pink bead that was really messed up. However, each set came with less.

So, in conclusion, the Miss A ones aren’t horrible, but they aren’t the best ever. I’d say they are reasonably on par with normal dollar-store items. I’d certainly buy similar items from the shop again, and the price seems pretty fair for what you get.