Journey Through Words: Product Review: Book Bandi

Photo courtesy of Book Bandi on Facebook

I came across this bookmark after browsing from blog to blog. It looked like an interesting idea. My traditional bookmarks, which consist of scraps of paper, receipts, whatever, end up lost more frequently now that I have children. My daughter routinely gets her hands on my books and takes out my bookmark in the process.

The Book Bandi seemed to be a solution. It is made out of two bands of colorful elastic ribbon that stretches taunt when you place it over you book. One band is suppose to go around your cover while the other acts as your bookmark by placing it over all the pages you have read.

The bookmark comes in sizes to accommodate various types and sizes of books. I bought the medium to fit over trade paperbacks, which is mostly what I read. They also incorporate the label so you can use it to hold pens.

Torn and Ripped Covers

While the idea is great, I don't think this bookmark is the answer to my bookmark problem. I used it for two different trade paperbacks and it started to pull at the bottom of the cover, ripping in one instance. I had to find a different way to use it so it didn't continue to wreck my book covers. If you're thinking of checking this out, I would recommend only using this for hardcover books and journals.

I also thought, once the product arrived, that $5.99 is a bit excessive. Perhaps I'm being a bit cheap, but anyone with a sewing machine can sew two elastic ribbons together. I can be forgiving with the cost, but the $2 shipping and handling fee was a kick in the pants in my opinion. I dislike companies/people who inflate the shipping and handling costs to make money. Especially when it cost $0.44 to ship (from the US to a US address), and it was placed in a simple manila envelope. I think $1 would have been enough to cover postage/envelope/time/gas. The fact that I paid $2 and the way it was shipped really bothered me.

So unless you're using this for a journal or a frequent textbook/hardcover reader, I'd pass it up. If you're interested, check these sites out:

4 comments:

ms.composure said...: randomly found your blog and im loving it!!!

http://mscomposure.blogspot.com
http://infintelifefitness.com; 28 September 2011 12:16
Carrie said...: Thanks for stopping by! I was trying to check out your second link, but it's not connecting!; 28 September 2011 15:06
coachi said...: so i gave them a go and love them.

I am a teacher so i use them for my lesson plan books. I also got a couple small ones that would fit on some of my softbacks i read in the classroom and they worked fine for mine (I put the band on the cover and a couple pages(index , table of contents, etc) and no issues with ripping.

my shipping was a bit more than yours i got a couple so it was like $2(charged) and the tag on the envelop says 1.72, so not bad.

anyways, thanks for sharing and happy holidays

coachi; 13 December 2011 17:51
Carrie said...: Glad you're enjoying them, but I stand by my review. Overall, I don't think the money is worth the product (and I paid the same amount for shipping as you--$2). Thanks for stopping by!; 14 December 2011 07:20