Absolutely NOT a "rip-off" IT IS CONDENSED!
I sell and ship plants for a living. I usually use crinkle-cut shredded craft paper which costs almost $18 for a 1 lb sack after sales tax, but I decided to give this stuff a try. Then I see all these negative reviews saying it's a rip-off, that the package is ridiculously small, that you don't get enough to justify the $6.95 price tag (the person who said a similar product sells for $2 at Target is the only one who has my attention for a good reason--I'm going to check that out!) and then my first package arrives the same day as my stiff, heavy, rough crinkle-cut-craft paper, and all I can say is WOW. This stuff is considerably better for what I need it for, less likely to hurt my delicate rare aroids, but enough to protect the plants while packing them up for shipping around the nation. The flat box this product comes in says, and I quote: "COMPRESSED in airtight packaging for eco reasons, take me out and give me a good fluff up to regain my volume!" SO I DID JUST THAT. Guess what? It's the same volume as my 1 lbs sack of crinkle-cut-craft paper!! In fact, I didn't even "fluff" it as much as I could have, and I pressed it down in the photo to re-compress it a bit so it wouldn't look like a "cheating" photo comparison. No, it doesn't weigh 1 pound like the craft paper, but craft paper is a heavier paper per-sheet than tissue paper is. If you have 1 pound of fence nails and 1 pound of cotton balls, you're going to have a massively larger VOLUME of cotton than those steel nails, and volume is what matters here. The volume you see in the bag of craft paper is the actual volume it takes up outside of the bag, which is why I feel ripped off when I use THAT! So the same volume or more in the shredded tissue vs shredded craft paper, but the craft paper costs 17.55 after CA sales tax and the tissue paper costs me 7.63 after sales tax? I bought 2 more bags in the Ivory color and a bag in the dusty peach! I already have a bag or rose and a bag of blush on the way--and I no longer am having buyer's remorse based on these baseless bad reviews. It's a great product, and the only thing that could make it better is if a truly comparable product of the same volume is available for only $2 pre-sales tax @ Target, and I will be updating this review after I find out if that's really the situation or not.<br /><br />Please look at the photo--the left is the crinkle-cut-craft paper (rough, heavy, scratchy) and the right is this product in the Ivory color after it has been decompressed to represent accurate volume in the comparison photo. It's almost 1/3 the price for the same volume of a nicer product IMO. NO REGRETS!
Rating: 5 stars