Recently in Consumer Products Category

Shrinking soap

Johnson's have shrinkflated their packs of soap from 4x100g down to 2x90g bars. This had been selling for £1 for several years so it was overdue for a simple price increase, but instead of doing that they've gone for the deceptive option of shrinking the product to make it appear cheaper when actually it won't last as long; the extra packaging will increase the overall cost and produce more waste.

The price is still £1 but that now only gets you 180g instead of 400g of soap - an increase of 222% with more outer packaging per bar.

Johnson's Baby Honey Soap (pack of 4x100g bars)
4x100g (2014-2022)
£1.00 (25p per 100g)

Johnson's Baby Honey Soap (pack of 2x90g bars)
2x90g (2022)
£1.00 (55.6p per 100g)

Shrinking toilet paper

ASDA have applied some pre-Brexit shrinkflation to their own brand toilet paper "Shades So Soft". This time you get 10 fewer sheets per roll. That's 1¼ rolls less paper for the same price.

Contents: 24 rolls, 2 ply tissue. Average 200 sheets per roll. Sheet size 118mm x 104.5mm. Total area 59.18m².
59.18m² for £8.00 (2018-05-02)
Contents: 24 rolls, 2 ply tissue. Average 190 sheets per roll. Sheet size 118mm x 104.5mm. Total area 56.23m².
56.23m² for £8.00 (2019-02-11)

They're still advertising it as Bigger Pack Better Value but now it costs 5% more to get the same amount of paper.

Shrinking liquid detergent

Persil have shrinkflated their liquid detergent products from {25,40,60} washes down to {24,38,57} washes. Their website hasn't been updated yet but the new products have appeared on Tesco's website.

They haven't reduced the size of a wash (it's still 35ml) but the initial price for 38 washes is £8.00 whereas 40 washes only costs £7.00. At over £6 per litre this is significantly more expensive than the usual special offer prices of £3.33 to £3.57 per litre.

Shrinking toilet paper

Less than two years since they last did it, ASDA have applied shrinkflation to their own brand toilet paper "Shades So Soft" again. This time the sheets are shorter and you get fewer of them. In April you could buy 24 rolls with a total area of 63.20m² for £8.00 but from May the same 24 rolls (also £8.00) have a total area of only 59.18m². That's 1½ rolls less paper for the same price. We're now down over 2 whole rolls of paper since 2016.

Contents: 24 rolls, 2 ply tissue. Average 210 sheets per roll. Sheet size 120mm x 104.5mm. Total area 63.20m².
63.20m² for £8.00 (2018-04-02)
Contents: 24 rolls, 2 ply tissue. Average 200 sheets per roll. Sheet size 118mm x 104.5mm. Total area 59.18m².
59.18m² for £8.00 (2018-05-02)

They're still advertising it as Bigger Pack Better Value too.

Shrinking toilet paper

ASDA are at it again with the shrinkflation, this time with their own brand toilet paper "Shades So Soft". In August you could buy 24 rolls with a total area of 65.18m² for £8.00 but from September the same 24 rolls (also £8.00) have a total area of only 63.20m². That's about ¾ of a roll less paper for the same price.

Contents: 24 rolls, 2 ply tissue. Average 210 sheets per roll. Sheet size 122mm x 106mm. Total area 65.18m².
65.18m² for £8.00 (2016-08-12)
Contents: 24 rolls, 2 ply tissue. Average 210 sheets per roll. Sheet size 120mm x 104.5mm. Total area 63.20m².
63.20m² for £8.00 (2016-09-19)

Shrinking shampoo bottles

Alberto Balsam have brought out "new" 350ml bottles of shampoo that ASDA sell for the same price (£1) as the previous 400ml bottles, so you now pay the same price for less. What makes it worse is that when they originally replaced the ASDA branded product with the Alberto Balsam equivalent, it had a "same 400ml fill" label despite it being smaller than the 500ml ASDA version.

ASDA Essentials Coconut Shampoo (500ml) [Source: mySupermarket.co.uk]
500ml
£0.80 (2013)
Alberto Balsam Coconut and Lychee Shampoo (400ml) [Source: Tesco]
400ml
£1.00 (2015)
Alberto Balsam Coconut and Lychee Shampoo (350ml) [Source: Ocado]
350ml
£1.00 (2016)

About this Archive

This page is an archive of recent entries in the Consumer Products category.

Computing is the previous category.

Cycling is the next category.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Content authored by myself is just my honest opinion.

  • Linux
  • Get Firefox!
  • Get Thunderbird!