Razzle Dazzle Em

A couple weeks ago I was doing my daily perusing of the People.com website. I read an article about a new venture that the illustrious Kim Kardashian is exploring called Shoedazzle. Despite the hilarious name, the website was actually intriguing. I'm not one to turn down a pair of shoes, or a pair of shoes each month, so I read further. Shoedazzle is an online shoe service that is customized to fit your taste. You sign up, take a very short personality/style quiz (consists of choosing between various celebrities as your style icon and various shoes as the ones you are most attracted to), and voila! Within 2-3 days, the personal shoe stylists at Shoedazzle send you 5 shoes to select from. You are allowed to select one shoe per month for a monthly fee of $39.95. If you don't want a pair of shoes one month (or 12), you can opt out by the 5th day of the month and they won't charge you anything. However, if you do want a pair you just select from the 5 pictures/descriptions they send you and you are done. Your shoes will arrive within 7-10 days in a very attractive shoe box along with a prepaid return label. I keep trying to find the catch in this situation and I've only found two fairly small ones. First, you can either exchange the shoes or return them for a refund with the prepaid shipping label. Sounds great. The only catch is there will be a $5.95 restocking fee if you decide to return. Second catch is what happens if you forget to "opt out" by the 5th day of the month. They will charge your credit card for $39.95 and send you 5 pictures to choose from. If this happens and you still do not want the shoes that month, you will accrue credits that you can use another month. So technically, they will never charge you for nothing...you will always get a pair of shoes even if you decide to wait a few months.

I was tempted to see what 5 shoes they selected for me from my personality/style test, so I went through with it. I got pictures of 4 high heels (we're talking at least 3 1/4" high) and one pair of flat gladiator sandals. I have a feeling that they mostly send high heels along with one or two flats per month, so it's a good variety. Since we're going into summer, I chose the sandals on a whim...gladiator is not something I'm sold on by any means, but I'm willing to try. They sent my shoes and I received them about 5 days later in a really nice package containing a free gift (a pashmina) and my return label. The shoes are surprisingly solid quality (I forget the brand name but this guy has stores in California and is by no means a high end designer...more like knock-off brand). I tried them on and looked a bit too much like Cleopatra for my taste, so I'll probably send them back - you have 30 days - for an exchange. I'm not sure if I'll keep this up for very long. I don't exactly need a new pair of trendy shoes each month and I certainly can't afford $39.95/monthly for these shoes, but it's a fun thing to do every now and then. I'll just have to remember to opt out each month or those credits will pile up as high as my shoe room.

You can check out the website at Shoedazzle.com.

Guys, my apologies.

And finally! A very happy belated, by a day, Happy Birthday to my fellow blogger diva Leigh Brandon! She celebrated her big 27th yesterday and will continue to celebrate all week long with the grand culmination of events taking place this Saturday for what is lovingly known as Divafest around these parts. Here's to a fabulous birthday week!