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Latest update of this article: 13.07.2024
Today, I finally want to post my ways and experience with them on how to buy Secret Honey Disney dresses. There are several now, which is cool, when I started collecting in 2014 there were no dresses on Ebay, none on Instagram, I had to go over a personal shopping service. Nowadays, you can get the dresses on several Japanese websites such as Mercari or Yahoo auctions or over sellers on Instagram, sometimes even ebay (but be careful there, more information in the article below). Sadly you can’t get the dresses from the Secret Honey stores anymore since they stopped their Disney collection in 2020.
A look into my Disney wardrobe… All of these are Secret Honey, I do own a few other Disney items though. Ah, and I have both, “originals” from the store and untagged dresses and I love all of them equally 🙂 Let’s get into the brand:
Secret Honey is a Japanese brand that had an ongoing Disney Collection from 2013 until 2020, I believe, they started with a Mickey/Minney Mouse Collection and then released several collections in 2014, amongst them their first Frozen collection. This is also the year I started collecting their dresses. I came in touch with the brand on my first Sunday in Fukuoka, when we decided to go shopping in Tenjin Core. I bought my first dress in September, it was the first Frozen Dress Secret Honey released, I still have that one, it is very special to me and I am going to talk about it in one of my winter posts.
Sadly, Secret Honey stopped releasing Disney collaborations since 2020. I don’t know why, I can only assume. Maybe it’s the pandemic, maybe they thought, that they have done everything, maybe it wasn’t lucrative (although I doubt that highly). But unfortunately, the only way to get the dresses now is second hand and most of the times over a third party.
The dresses are all licensed and they are (since 2017 I believe) divided into the more “casual” ones and their “Halloween” Dresses (which should just be called “Cosplay” because that’s what they are and they release them all year round).
Their dresses have gotten quite expensive (my first dress was around 100$, now they start at 150 to 180$) but there’s the possibility of getting untagged dresses.
A general advice first… Since all dresses are onesize (there’s sometimes a size M or MT, but that only means that the skirt is longer ;)), make sure to check the measurements! Since Secret Honey doesen’t sell Disney dresses anymore, I would refer you to this blog. You can find the measurements for a lot of dresses on there as well as all the additional information like the official pictures, the release date etc. Here is an example of a size chart:
Crucial for me (174cm, german 38, US S/M) are the following measurements:
Also, trousers: Not made for my behind… So I sadly stay away from them.
Since Secret Honey bases their dresses often on similar patterns, it is easy to know what fits you and what not after some time. For example: Casual Snow White, Casual Cinderella Live Action and the Casual Cinderella Animated Ball Gown share the same pattern for the bodice 🙂 Different neckline, but same base pattern. They have several of these base patterns and they are a great help in finding out, whether the dress would suit/fit you or not. But I would still always check the measurements, it seems to me, the dresses got a bit smaller over time.
Since Secret Honey doesen’t release new dresses anymore, you cannot buy the dresses directly. We have to use a third party and most of the dresses will be second hand, keep that in mind. But there are a few good ways and others, that I don’t recommend. Let’s go over them.
The best way to get Secret Honey dresses second hand is probably over mercari.jp with the help of the service buyee. I love using buyee, it is so good. Buyee takes a flatrate of 300 Yen per item as a fee, which is so cheap.
If you are curious how shopping with Buyee works, I have a whole post for you on “How to Buy Secret Honey with Buyee“.
If you want to buy from mercari.jp and can’t use buyee for some reason, then a shipping service is a great option. I always used tenso.com. You get an “address” in Japan and Japanese sellers ship your products there. From there you can have it sent to you. You will pay a usage fee, that is based on the weight of your package as well as a handling fee. But it is not a lot.
You can choose different shipping options as well, according to your liking. So except for the fact, that you have to place a shipping order from tenso’s wearhouse to your home, it’s as if you’d shop at amazon.
It takes a bit to get your identity confirmed so if you buy from an auction, plan in advance. Also, you will have to be able to read a bit of Japanese to shop on Japanese sits or trust whatever Google translates for you 😉
If you like it even more personal, there are some Personal Shoppers that do their business on Instagram and that you can ask for help if you are looking for a certain dress and they tell you what options you have, but also, if there’s none at the moment.
I love Celeste Disneyboutique a lot, she’s my favourite. Lovely lady that helps you to get the dresses from Hong Kong. She has fantastic customer service, answers very quickly to your messages and is super nice. I highly recommend her.
What I also like a lot is that she sends you photos of your items before sending them off to you. So you know exactly what to expect 🙂
A word about Hana Castle Store who is the biggest Website and Instagram seller for Secret Honey dresses. I don’t recommend you buying from her. I had a few issues with her that led me to stop buying from her completely as soon as there where other ways to get Secret Honey dresses to Switzerland. First of all she is not 100% honest. She only started disclosing that she sells untagged dresses when other sellers emerged and she had to. I got a few dresses where I thought that the tag was not genuine. It was losely sewn on and/or with the wrong colour of thread. SMy conclusion would be that it is an untagged dress, sold as tagged (another thing that leads me to believe that is that one of the dresses has a very wonky hem which wouldn’t have slipped Secret Honey’s quality control). I also heard from others that they bought tagged dresses from her and got them with the tag in the wrong place for example, meaning it’s an untagged dress she sold as tagged.
One time I ordered from her website, I didn’t get my order at all and it was a long long way to get my money back. I heard from others who didn’t even get their money back, so I am lucky. The reason why I didn’t get my order is because Hana tends to leave items up for sale on her website, that she doesen’t have in stock anymore, which is very misleading in my opinion. You can’t take customers money in the hopes, that you will find these items somewhere for cheap, or whatever reason it is she has for leaving them up (and if it is because she lost overview over her inventory, it also speaks for the business very clearly). Just take these offers down.
So even if she were the only one to have an item I really wanted and I would forget all of the other arguments, I couldn’t trust her listing because I don’t know, if she really has the item or not.
She is now selling “tagged” dresses, that actually have a Secret Honey tag. But don’t be fooled, these are still factory remakes, the factory just adds the tags. These are not dresses that went through the Secret Honey quality control and not necessarily the same dress, that Secret Honey sold (sometimes the bodice is shorter (Rapunzel I see the Light Remake), the size is different (Snow White Song and a Smile dress) or they used another fabric (Remake of the Anna Ice Skating Cosplay)). Very similar, sometimes the same, but still no Secret Honey dress and it shouldn’t be sold as such.
For these reasons, I don’t recommend you to buy from Hana Castle Store eventhough she is the biggest reseller and probably does have good feedback as well.
I also heard some not so good things about Sundrop Rose. I cannot confirm or deny that since I never bought from her but I thought I just leave it here for you. Make your own informed decision.
I noticed that lately many people are selling Secret Honey dresses on ebay. But there’s a few rules for when you want to buy Secret Honey dresses from ebay. Not all listings are merely ebay listings. Often, the listing is one from mercari, sold at a higher price (sometimes double the price) on ebay. If you see something you like on ebay, always double check, if that dress or item is not also listed on mercari for much cheaper.
Make sure to read the description to know wether you’re buying dresses that were purchased in the store or untagged ones (factory overrun products). Most people write that down (which is only fair ;)). As of now, I can only recommend you one shop, which is this one:
Be careful, make your own choice whether to trust a seller or not. I had no bad experience so far, all sellers were very nice and I always got what I ordered, but I am just one example.
There are also services like Jauce.com that let you bid on Japanese auctions and also take care of shipping etc. I have never used that one before, I have to say, just wanted to let you know, that it exists.
And that is it :D. Have fun buying your own dresses and building or extending your Disney Wardrobe. I hope one of these possibilities suits your wishes 😉
Love, Ella
PS: In my last post I showed you my Nightmare before Christmas set 😉
Contact me over Instagram @_koumori_no_hime_
