Somebody please save me from myself.
I’ve got an addiction.
That addiction is called “AliExpress”, and it comes in the form of buying three or more items at $1.79-$1.99 each. Seriously, there is so much shit on here it’s ridiculous, and I can’t stop buying it.
Back in March of 2023, I did a short review of some stuff I bought from AliExpress, comparing the prices to those on Amazon. I decided that I would make this a recurring feature on the site, named “/csg/”, or “Chinese Stuff General”. I then went and made a 40 minute long YouTube video reviewing some more stuff, saying that /csg/ would be a video series going forward.
It won’t.
Making videos is too much of a hassle, and let’s be real, that video fucking sucked. Nobody wants to watch 40 minutes of that bullshit.
Going forward, /csg/ will no longer be a video series. Instead, I’ll be sticking to my strengths and doing AliExpress reviews in the form of written articles. I’m also done wasting time doing the Amazon price comparisons, except maybe on occasions where it’s warranted. I’ll even make an effort to do them a little more often than I did last year.
Anyway, in today’s /csg/ review I’ll be reviewing a whole bunch of stuff I bought from AliExpress’s Choice section. There’s a surprising amount of neat stuff there, as you’re about to see.
First up, hats:
All of the hats in this picture were bought from AliExpress at $1.79-$1.99 each. They fit fine, and the quality doesn’t appear to be much different from something you’d find in Walmart. Admittedly though, I haven’t worn them in the rain yet, and I’ve heard stories of colored dye running when hats get wet.
But buying all these hats did present me with a problem: Where would I store them?
AliExpress had my answer, in the form of 10 adhesive hat hooks for $1.99:
The hooks adhere to my wall great, they don’t feel like they’re going to fall off or anything. I ended up ordering two more packs, and I’m not sure what I’m going to do once I run out of viable wall space. At the rate I’m going my apartment is going to be wallpapered with hats, this is nuts even by my standards:
Speaking of adhering things to walls, I also ordered these reflective tiles at 24 for $1.79:
The tiles are made of cardboard with some kind of reflective surface, I’m not sure what exactly. Once you remove the protective covering they actually look really nice, especially in a display cabinet full of beer glasses and Govee LED lights:
Unfortunately, they’re pretty frail, as I discovered when I tried to apply them to my bumpy textured wall:
Even more unfortunately, they didn’t want to stick to said wall. Maybe because of the texture? I don’t know. I found a way around this though by sticking the tiles to poster board then using double-sided tape to stick the poster board to the wall. I ended up doing the same thing when I applied them to the back wall of the beer glass cabinet, it made my life so much easier.
I also grabbed some knockoff Lego sets for $1.99 each:
I’ll be giving the AliExpress Legos their own article at some point and going into further detail there, but these are pretty good for the price. As you can see some of the bricks are smaller than regular Legos, but the end result still looks nice. Both the sword and the church came with extra pieces (I used the sword’s extra pieces to build the stand it’s sitting on), so maybe one day I’ll accumulate enough spare pieces to build something else.
The Choice section is full of silly little knickknacks and trinkets. Here’s an assortment of stuff I grabbed at $1.99 each:
The goose plush has a home on my couch, and when I have company over everyone compares it to the goose from Untitled Goose Game (which I’ve never played). The “This is fine” pin was actually a set of three, the other two being pinned to my bookbag and a jacket. The pins are surprisingly good quality for how cheap they were. The sunglasses feel kind of cheap but for $1.99 I wasn’t expecting much anyway, and they still look pretty cool. That little banzai tree also makes for a nice decoration.
The flashlights are alright for spares to place around the house and at my work bench. I fucked up when buying the “rechargeable” one though and forgot to order an 18650 battery. It’s only rechargeable if you have the battery, otherwise it won’t power on unless you keep it plugged into a USB power source. This was totally my fault though, the listing even says you need the battery. I haven’t gotten the battery yet, but I played around with it while it was plugged in and it seemed pretty bright.
AliExpress had an assortment of sleep masks available, so I grabbed a bunch of them too:
The best of the bunch were the gray ones, which are made of silk and cotton. The black masks, which seem to be made of sponge, gave me acne under my eyes and on my nose. The Bluetooth one would prove to be difficult to wash since you can’t remove the electronics. Plus, I’m a side sleeper, so having those ear buds pressing up against my ear would get irritating after five minutes.
I also grabbed a couple of things that were $2.99:
The Mjolnir bottle opener is pretty neat, but it could stand to have just a little bit of extra weight at the top. Still, for $2.99 it’s good and I have no problem opening bottles with it.
The display case is for Lego mini-figures. As you can see, they fit fine. I’m seeing that AliExpress also sells various mini-figure pieces, like limbs, torsos, heads, and hairpieces. I’ll be checking those out eventually, and including them in a future /csg/ article.
I’m not sure why I bought the motorcycle mask. I have no use for it, but hey, it looks cool.
Overall, there’s just so much neat stuff in AliExpress’s $1.99 section that you’ll find yourself constantly browsing for cheap junk you don’t actually need. There’s a ton of stuff in there, and they seem to be always adding new things so you’re almost always guaranteed to find a few things you like. They also run a lot of promotions where they lower the price to $1.79, I feel like they do this at least once every two months.
I’ll definitely be doing more of these reviews in the future. Some things I intend to review soon are the Legos, the various anime figures I’ve bought, and even clothes. Stay tuned.