Fortune Cookie Soap Subscription Box Review – March 2020

Hi. I have loved FCS stuff for several years and every time I start to think the products are too expensive or remember I don’t like to pay shipping, I realize that I truly love some of their products. With regards to them raising prices on hand sanitizer, they posted several times about the costs of their raw ingredients going up and not being able to source enough of the bottles that they were using. They kept the prices steady as they used up their stock of ingredients (well into the current shortage situation) and only passed the increased costs on to their customers (with apologies on their FB page and their website) when they had to order more ingredients and bottles at increased prices. They are also active in donating hand sanitizer to their local community and have stopped all other new releases to focus on hand sanitizer and necessities.

I, too, miss the structure of the box from past years with the bigger products and cute themes every month, but they do four or so cute pop culture themes for the sub box per year (in addition to the seasonal themes and other random pop culture themes for their website).

No one is saying you have to buy their product especially if you don’t like it, think it costs too much for what it is, prefer Purell, or don’t want to pay shipping, but it doesn’t seem quite fair to accuse them of a lapse in ethics either when the prices (which have always been more expensive than Purell or Dove or Jergens or other drug store brands) have not gone up that much from previous prices and were raised with an explanation given to their community of shoppers.

So… there’s a lot of things that I take issue with in your comment. The first thing is that you’re including the cost of shipping in the cost of the product. That’s not really up to FCS at all. Shipping is calculated based on what they have to pay. There’s no reason they should have to pay to ship your product to you.

The second thing is the comparison you make between an FCS product to a commercial product that is made in bulk with bulk materials. FCS products are made by hand, and include different materials than what you would get from a manufacturer that pushes out one type of product 100% of the time.

Third, if you bothered to look into FCS AT ALL before making your accusations of a “lack of ethics” you can see that within the most recent posts on their Facebook, they talk about donating units of their sanitizer product to local businesses, as well as purchasing food from local restaurants for their workers to show support for other small businesses.

I don’t know if FCS has raised the price of their hand sanitizer or not, since that’s not what I typically shop for, but obviously hand sanitizer is their #1 seller right now, & I imagine they’re seeing a dip in sales of other types of product. Since they are remaining open because they’re classified as an essential business, I wouldn’t be surprised if they did have to raise their prices in order to make sure they can meet operating costs (specifically, paying their employees).

It sucks for you that you don’t like their themes any more, but I just got their Rainbow Brite Easter box, & absolutely loved it (and, yes, it included a 1-oz hand sanitizer).

If you’re looking for hand sanitizers, I believe Orly is still selling four 2oz bottles for $24. Still a bit steep, but they donated 10,000 bottles to Los Angeles.

I just signed up and I am number 243.
I signed up once months ago but never received an email with a number. So apparently the waitlist signup didn’t work the first time. Sigh.

The last update I read said they’d be waiting and probably reopening the list in May. They’ve been working on restocking sanitizers and filling any orders. If you’re on Facebook they have a group they post updates in.