Taobao Winter 2013 Haul ~ Orange Bear, Nail Green City, Saacheer, Oh My! Part 1

I am horribly addicted to shopping on Taobao now. There is just way too many things to browse through and so many adds to my want list! This is my 5th Taobao order with a 6th one that I just placed about a week and a half ago. Anyhow this Winter review is actually a combination of a couple of my past orders that I didn't review yet including the nail preview that I posted in October. This will mainly focus on stores/brands that I found :).

Once again I used Taobaotrends as my agent. New thoughts and updates on them though.

1. Their photo sharing website YunPan is fickle. Some days it works for me and others it doesn't. They're still very accommodating in sending you the pictures as attachments though when asked.

2. My major issue now is that they refuse to purchase anything with "batteries" such as watches and certain liquids like nail glue as they claim that Hong Kong Post will not ship it. I did look up HKP's shipping restrictions and they do state those restrictions on their website, but what baffles me is that I can buy those items on Ebay and get them shipped to me using HKP without any problems. Also some of the fake nails I bought actually included nail glue! Overall confused about what is alright and not alright to ship through HKP.

3. Holiday season now! Communication seems to be a little lagging. Updates are taking longer than usual and also they sent my package without a notice or tracking like they usually do. However despite that they still did everything in a timely order. It's just them emailing the updates that are taking longer than non-Holiday times. So just a warning if you're looking into purchasing things from Taobao through an agent overall right now.


So my Winter Haul is actually my Christmas shopping that I ordered in early November and wanted to get before December actually hit. This one took about 3 weeks in total from ordering, paying, shipping (used EMS), and receiving it at my doorsteps. Since most of them are gifts I will not comment or post a few things. I will focus more on the shop itself and overall quality of my items.

Orange Bear

Orange Bear is a Taiwanese based brand. They also have an official contract with Disney to sell Disney clothing/fashion. A lot of them are really cute too! It's not as childish as the Disney stuff they sell here in the States. What I like about this brand is that they not only have really cute styles, but it's also really reasonable compared to other Taiwanese brands such as CatWorld, Tokyo Fashion, etc. They also have a lot of sales so you can find some really great deals. The quality for the most part have been really good too with some minor things which I will share with each item.

This is the very first item I got from OB and from Taobao. I really wanted a vintage and frilly style dress and I found this one on OB for sale. It was about $5 (Yup pretty good deal!). Material is chiffon and it's also a little thicker than I originally though it would be. My only issue is the lace collar. It's a little off right in the middle near the first button, but with a sweater over it you can't tell that the craftsmanship is a bit off. Overall I like it, but it is a little short so I either have to wear pants, leggings, or shorts under it. 

Grey one is cute too! 

Animal inspired sweaters/jackets must be in in Asia this year. I already got a plush sweater with sheep ears, but really wanted another style too. Have to admit I got really excited once I saw this leopard inspired one on OB's site. I got a little worried that they would have sold out before I was able to make my order, but I got lucky and was able to get one! As you can see I got the white version as it was the only one left with a small/medium size. Verdict: BEST PURCHASE EVER. It is exactly like the photos, super soft. and warm. Just perfect for the winter!

I love sweater shirts/dresses. In the stock pictures it looked like a sweater dress, but it became a sweater shirt on me.  It could just be the size, but I'm already a small and quite short so either the model is even shorter than me or I needed to have gotten a different size. I like it anyways and the synthetic wool isn't itchy like some other wool type sweaters I've gotten on Taobao.

Pink Chiffon shirt. Got this on sale in their Summer clearance section. It is very soft, light, and airy which makes it perfect for warmer weather.

Burgundy was my first choice, but they sold out on it :(

Legging pants are another big thing in Asia. I kind of like them as they're just like normal pants except that they don't have any zippers. They're my lazy pants since all I have to do is pull them up! I got these in a dark grey/blue since the one color I wanted was sold out, but I really wanted to try them out. The quality of OB's legging pants are on par with any normal pair of pants and jeans so they're not just colored leggings. I got them in small which can fit those who are between sizes 0-2 depending on how tight you want them. I'm an in between 0-1 so they fit, but they're not too tight or tight looking on me. They're extremely high wasted though so they're best paired with long shirts and sweaters. The best thing about OB's legging pants is that they have real pockets!


Overall Verdict:
I really like OB. They're a little like shopping at Forever 21, but with some things slightly cheaper than them (Pants & Jackets have great deals/prices). The daily and special sales they have are awesome and you can find a lot if you're into Asian fashion or certain casual wear. Another thing that is great is that they also cater to a wide range of sizes, which means they also have plus sizes! Unfortunately the larger the size the more expensive the clothing gets, but it is really great to know that there are some asian brands that do and cater to curvier girls too :). They also have a handy size chart on each of their sale's page and I have found it to be pretty accurate so far. Also the quality has been much better than I originally expected. Nothing that I have bought so far looks like it'll fall apart anytime soon. The only thing is that I have to hand/line dry most of them which is common for things bought from Asia since they don't really use or have drier machines. So just beware if you dry them using a machine as it may shrink the clothing!


So that's it for Part 1 of my winter haul ^_^.  I wanted to focus on Orange bear first since I've been wanting to do a review on them for a little bit. Look out for part 2 soon with reviews on some tights, accessories and lingerie (hee hee)! Thanks for reading!