It was July 14th, 2022, and I was at the Oak Ridge community pool. I was wearing a $6 leopard print string bikini from Shein that I thought made me look like a Bond girl. I didn’t. I looked like a person wearing six dollars’ worth of polyester. I jumped off the low diving board—nothing fancy, just a standard pencil jump—and when I hit the water, the left strap of the top simply gave up. It didn’t tear. The plastic ring just snapped. I spent three minutes underwater trying to tie a wet knot while a group of teenagers stared at me. It was humiliating. I went home and immediately ordered five more suits from the same site. I have a problem.
The day my $6 bikini decided to quit its job
That’s the thing about Shein. It’s a gamble. Sometimes you win, sometimes you’re flashing the local lifeguard. But after buying probably 40 of these things over the last three years (I know, I’m part of the problem), I’ve realized that “Shein” isn’t just one brand. It’s a bunch of different sub-labels, and some are actually decent. Most people just click on whatever looks cute on the model, but that’s how you end up with a suit that feels like it’s made of recycled grocery bags. I might be wrong about this, but I honestly think the main ‘SHEIN’ line is the worst one they have. It’s the bottom of the barrel. What I mean is—actually, let me put it differently. It’s the stuff they sell when they don’t even want to put a specific sub-brand name on it. It’s generic. It’s risky.
Total garbage.
DAZY is basically a personal insult to anyone with hips
I have a very specific beef with DAZY. If you look at the best swimwear brands on Shein, DAZY always pops up because the designs are actually tasteful. They aren’t all neon and cutouts that require a degree in engineering to put on. They look like something you’d buy at a boutique in Seoul. But here is the thing: DAZY is designed for people who have the body composition of a stick of gum. I’m a size 6. In DAZY, I am an XL. Sometimes an XXL. It is a psychological assault to have to click ‘Extra Large’ for a bikini when you can fit into a Small at Target. Anyway, if you are petite and have zero curves, DAZY is your gold mine. For the rest of us, it’s just a reminder that we ate too many carbs in 2019. But I digress.
The fabric on DAZY suits is actually thicker than the main line, which is nice because it doesn’t go transparent the second it touches a drop of chlorine.
I bought a sage green one-piece from them last May. It looked incredible in the bag. I tried to put it on and I genuinely thought I was going to have to call the fire department to cut me out of it. The leg holes are so small. Why are they so small? Do people not have thighs anymore? I gave it to my niece who is twelve. It fit her perfectly. That’s my verdict on DAZY: great quality, but only if you are literally a child or a very thin ghost.
The actual hierarchy of Shein sub-brands
If you want to actually get something you can wear more than once, you have to look at the labels. Here is how I rank them based on my very expensive trial-and-error phase:
- SHEIN VCAY: This is the sweet spot. The prints are usually better, and the fabric feels like actual swimwear material, not just stretchy plastic.
- GLOWMODE: This is their “premium” line. It’s more expensive—like $25 instead of $10—but the fabric is buttery. It’s trying to be Lululemon. It mostly succeeds.
- ROMWE: Avoid. I refuse to recommend ROMWE even though everyone loves them for the “aesthetic.” I think ROMWE is a psychological experiment to see how much sandpaper humans will tolerate on their skin.
- CUPSHE (via Shein): Sometimes Shein sells Cupshe stuff. Just buy it. It’s actually made for swimming in the ocean, not just posing by a pool.
VCAY is the winner.
I ran a very unscientific lab in my laundry room
I’m a bit obsessive, so I actually tracked how these suits held up. I tested 14 suits over the course of one summer and tracked things like elastic stretch and color fading. 9 of them were trash by August. I spent exactly $214.50 on that haul. One specific suit, a SHEIN VCAY Tropical Halter, was the outlier. I wore it 11 times in chlorinated water and 4 times in the salt water at Myrtle Beach. I tracked the leg-hole diameter; it only stretched from 22cm to 23.5cm over three months. For a $12 suit, that’s basically a miracle. Most of the others stretched out so much that by the end of the summer, the bottoms looked like I was wearing a soggy diaper. I know people will disagree and say you should just buy one $100 suit from a sustainable brand, and they’re probably right, but my bank account doesn’t always agree with my ethics.
I used to think that the “Solid” collection was the safest bet because there’s no print to mess up. I was completely wrong. The solid colors are actually where they skimp on the lining. If you buy a white solid-color suit from the basic Shein line, you are essentially buying a window. Everyone will see everything. Always buy the ones with busy patterns; it hides the fact that the fabric is thin enough to read a newspaper through. The ‘VCAY’ line usually has a double lining, which is the only reason I don’t have a permanent ban from the community pool.
Just stop buying the neon orange ones
I have an extreme stance on this: neon swimwear from Shein should be illegal. It looks great on a screen. In person, it makes you look like a construction cone. And for some reason, the neon dye they use smells like a burnt tire. I bought a neon orange set three years ago and I washed it four times, and it still smelled like a chemical plant. I eventually threw it away because I was worried the fumes were going to give me a rash. Plus, neon fades the fastest. After two days in the sun, that vibrant orange turns into a sad, sickly peach color that looks like a moldy fruit. It’s just not worth it.
Also, I’m going to say it: high-waisted bottoms on Shein are a trap. They never sit where they’re supposed to. They either roll down or they’re so high they reach your armpits. There is no middle ground. I’ve bought the same black high-waisted bottom three times hoping the next one would be different. It never is. I don’t care if something better exists; I’m stuck in a loop of hoping Shein will suddenly understand human anatomy. It won’t happen. Never again.
At the end of the day, I keep going back because I like the variety. It’s a rush to get that big plastic bag in the mail and see which 30% of your order is actually wearable. Is it a sustainable way to live? No. Does it make me feel like I have a new wardrobe every time I go to the beach? Yeah. I still wonder if that lifeguard remembers the leopard print incident. Probably. I haven’t been back to that pool in two years.
Stick to VCAY or GLOWMODE. Avoid the neons. Check the lining. That’s the whole trick.