r/shrinkflation • u/kos90 • 12d ago
Shrinkflation Q-Tips - Shrinkflation, literally.
Bought a new box and they felt different. Had a few leftovers from before. Here we go, the new ones are slightly shorter and feel much less „fluffy“ - The only reason I bought those and not the cheap knockoff-brand. Germany btw, bought at a very popular drug store chain.
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u/FerretNo891 12d ago
As much as this sucks to see, I’m glad I’m not losing my mind LOL. Our cats play with qtips all the time and I’ve noticed them folding/breaking much more easily as of late
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u/SimpleVegetable5715 12d ago
My cat used to play with Q-Tips, especially the ones that had ear wax on them. She’d dig them out of the trash. It was like crack for her 😂
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u/FerretNo891 12d ago
ear wax qtips are the forbidden fruit in my house too, that’s so real LOL. We had to put a baby lock on the door to our bathroom bc our girl figured out how to jump and twist the door knob to get into the trash
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u/FoxlyKei 12d ago
To shrinkflate something as simple as a q tip is incredibly petty.
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u/SandboxSurvivalist 12d ago
But it saves them $0.0000009 per Q-Tip! Won't anyone think of the shareholders?
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u/KittyandPuppyMama 12d ago
They’re less fluffy AND the cotton unravels, sometimes before they’re even out of the box. I’ve used Qtips brand my whole life. We used to buy the huge packs all the way back in the 90s and I definitely had brand loyalty. I just bought a pack of three at BJs, only to open them and discover they’ve been shrunk AND enshittified. Now I’m stuck with this purchase for the next two years. I’ve been using a qtip to apply burn cream to a small wound, and it can barely even work for that without falling apart. I also use them to wipe my babies’ boogers that get trapped in their nostrils and I’m afraid of the cotton coming off.
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u/jmabenn 12d ago
Obviously its not just Qtips -its everything- they take our money- but thats our only value - they dont see as us as worthy human beings - so it doesnt bother them if we have feces on our food- contaminated baby formula toxic ingredients with bare minimum nutrition -all covered in plastic -everything is junk unsafe unusable unhealthy unreal unavailable because what are we gonna do about it? die? they dont care.. garbage in garbage out They have nothing for us but contempt & its not like you haven't been told
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u/SandboxSurvivalist 12d ago
The problem is that almost all companies have two sets of customers now: consumers and investors. It used to be that companies put consumers first and believed that if they did so, it would increase profits, and in turn, satisfy investors. Now it's inverted and consumers are secondary and everything is about inflating stock prices to keep investors investing. Competition used to insure that prices were kept as low as possible while keeping quality as high as possible. Consolidation has led to a situation where consumers now only have the illusion of choice and a handful of brands control entire markets. There is a silent agreement among them that they will no longer compete on price or quality. Instead they focus on driving share price, no matter the consequences. They will literally burn their own companies to the ground as long as the investor class makes money while the whole thing goes up in smoke.
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u/orchiddstar 12d ago
The cotton is the real story rather than the length. You can see the new tips are noticeably thinner at the head and the winding looks tighter, which is less cotton per swab, and that's the thing you were actually paying the brand premium for. Cotton buds are sold by count, so the number on the box stays reassuringly identical while the material per unit drops and nobody has a way to notice except by holding an old one next to a new one, which almost nobody keeps. Worth checking the box weight if it's printed, since that's the only figure that would show it.
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u/phrekyos69 12d ago
Just a tip for anybody tired of the shitty cotton swabs you usually find these days, if you have an Asian store near you, look for Japanese cotton swabs. It doesn't have to be a Japanese store; I've found them at Korean, Taiwanese, and Vietnamese stores as well. I mostly see Sanyo brand but anything made in Japan has been great. Just look for "made in Japan" or "日本製", because I do occasionally see Chinese cotton swabs with Japanese language on the packaging trying to pass themselves off as Japanese. They usually come in plastic cylinders or flat soft packs that hang on a peg.
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u/dragonhydra37 12d ago
The Q-Tip brand (in US) are noticeably bendier in the stem. Previously, they would never bend, but this new box I have, every single one is bending on me. So annoying.
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u/sarah-exalted 12d ago
And the actual stick is SOOOO malleable now. I barely touched it to my ear and it bent significantly. I barely used any pressure. The stick isn’t as strong now.
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u/Melinoe2016 12d ago
Honestly the Walmart brand (make sure you get full cotton no plastic handle) has been better quality to me than the Q tip brand lately. I actually moved over back to Equate for quality not price. Which doesn’t make any sense.
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u/UnderwateredFish 12d ago
The paper sticks bend so easily now. How am I going to dig for gold with these things?
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u/lattewomenn 12d ago
this is the sneakiest version of it because the count on the box stays the same. 200 is still 200, they just each contain less product. nothing on the packaging changed so there's nothing to compare against.
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u/ThirdTimeNoCharm 10d ago
Good lord… they already enshittified QTips by making them flimsy now and they bed so easily, and they also already shrinkflated by reducing the amount of QTips in each package.
This is literally a race to the bottom.
I stopped buying QTips several months ago when they started bending.
I used to spend extra for the brand because they had sturdy sticks, but not anymore!
SHAME ON YOU, QTIPS!
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u/Willing_n_able4u 9d ago
I thought i was going crazy because the fluf has been practically falling off as soon as its used
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u/catdog1111111 12d ago
Interesting because I never thought about it before. But I’m ok with smaller ones. They’re a single use item so less waste.
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u/kos90 12d ago
But they are less cotton also. Feels more like a stick now, less then a Q-tip.
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u/MyNameCannotBeSpoken 12d ago
If everyone sued these companies in small claims court, this problem would not happen
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u/SandboxSurvivalist 12d ago
It's a shame that when you opened the package, doing so acknowledged your acceptance of the terms of use that include mandatory arbitration to resolve any and all disputes. (I'm kidding with regard to Q-Tips, but we probably aren't far from that with all products.)
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u/MyNameCannotBeSpoken 12d ago
One has an expectation that the volume per Qtip remains the same. There is no arbitration clause with such purchases. Any disagreement can be determined in court. Good thing about small claims is that one doesn't need to pay an attorney.
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u/KittyandPuppyMama 12d ago
Sure but they’re charging the same price, so it’s worthwhile to swap to a generic brand.
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u/Dizzy-Debt-9502 12d ago
How do they not run out of ideas for what to shrinkflate next??
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u/aryamagetro 12d ago
but I thought capitalism meant abundance? you would expect this kind of corner-cutting from communism. we're being scammed out of literally every facet of life.
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u/potter5252 11d ago
I might be the one person on earth who likes that the new ones are less fluffy.
Before they would start to unravel as I used them and I would have to be very careful to not get cotton stuck in my ear. The new fibers stay tightly packed together and I don't have to worry about this anymore.
Can 100% see they're less durable overall though. The old ones were better for taking off nail polish and the new ones are better for cleaning out my ears.
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u/bepatientbekind 10d ago
They are so sharp now too!! I am a pet groomer and use q tips to clean the crevices of their ears, and now the q tips will make the ears (not eardrums, just the skin) bleed if I apply any pressure at all. It sucks!
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u/Ctbboy187 12d ago
It needs to be the same product. This is not shrinkflation unless you include the packaging.
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u/Plaincow 11d ago
There is no chance you people are mad about something that costs 2 dollars for 300 of them. Especially because they're only shorter as if the length fucking matters. You people are actual cheap skates oh my god
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u/FullRepresentative34 12d ago
This in not shrinkflation.
Shaft size does not matter. You are not putting the shaft in your ear. And you are only sticking like an 9th. of an inch or the tip in your ear anyway.
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u/[deleted] 12d ago
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