Artificial flowers are a cheap and easy way to inject some colour into your home through gorgeous artificial flower walls, floral arrangements and artificial flower garlands. I’m planning to create an artificial flower wall (post soon to come!), so I spent the whole day searching for individual artificial flowers yesterday. I looked at Dunelm artificial flowers, The Range artificial flowers and B&M artificial in my never-ending search for something that suited my needs!
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This search was long and arduous, but in this economy I can’t quite keep up with fresh flowers. I had previously taken a gamble and ordered Dunelm artificial flowers online – which turned out to be a huge mistake. This time I decided to go in person so I can check the quality before parting with my money, and it was an interesting search to say the least. I’ve put together a review of the artificial flowers in each store, with photos, so that others don’t have to go through what I did!
These reviews are related individual stems / flowers you can put into an arrangement. I will create a follow up post about artificial flowers in vases, artificial trees & artificial plants from each store soon. Each review will have an overall score, which encompasses individual scores for variety, aesthetic, quality and pricing.
Dunelm artificial flowers – 5/10
TL;DR: Dunelm artificial flowers were good from afar but far from good! Dunelm does many things well and I have some excellent pieces of furniture and textile from there, but the artificial flowers looked very artificial. This, at least for me, is a deal breaker. Depending on where you are planning on putting your artificial flowers (eg will people be able to see them close up?) then you may wish to go ahead with a purchase from here. Otherwise I would avoid.
Variety
Score: 8/10
Dunelm had the best range of artificial flowers in terms of variety. There were many different types of flowers, in different colours and sizes. they had a sizeable pampass grass range in different shades, and a good amount of white flowers. I was looking for baby’s breath in particular and they were the only store that offered it by the stem, which helped increase it’s score.
Aesthetic
Score: 6/10
As above, there were lots of different types of flowers, all which looked gorgeous from afar.. The colours on offer were chic and realistic and they also had beautiful bouquets of tasteful floral arrangements, which I appreciated!
Quality
Score: 2/10
This is where Dunelm failed.. massively. The attention to detail in my opinion was terrible – once you looked at the flowers closer up there were very obvious imperfections with glue and plastic all being visible. It felt like, when it came to the stems of flowers in particular, there was no attempt made to make them look realistic.
Pricing
Score: 4/10
Dunelm artificial flowers are not crazy prices, however they were more expensive than the other stores I visited. Due to the quality issues I felt that they were therefore overpriced, and creating an artificial flower wall would have quickly got me over £100 spend.
The Range artificial flowers – 6/10
TL;DR: The Range artificial flowers were made from quite cheap materials – all of the flowers I looked at were very light with hollow stems. However there did seem to be more of an effort to make them look realistic. There wasn’t such a great variety of flowers to choose from (in comparison to Dunelm) and some of the floral arrangements looked quite tacky. However the pricing was good and I ended up picking up a couple of pieces.
Variety
Score: 6/10
The Range had slightly less variety than Dunelm, and some of the pieces were in my opinion quite tacky. There was also a lack of supporting pieces for floral arrangements, such as baby’s breath, cherry blossom and fern. However they did have enough variety for me to find a few pieces I liked.
Aesthetic
Score: 5/10
I have mixed feelings about the aesthetic of The Range’s artificial flowers. Some pieces, such as the roses, were beautiful with gorgeous (albeit unrealistic) colouring. However, they also had a fair few pieces decorated with glitter and gemstones which, depending on your tastes, could be seen as quite tacky. The floral arrangements also left a lot to be desired, which lowered their score.
Quality
Score: 5/10
This is a hard one for me to score, as I had just come from Dunelm so I had low expectations! The quality was okay, there had been an effort to make the stems look realistic at least. However, all the artificial flowers were very light, with hollow stems and cheap materials. This didn’t affect how they realistic they looked, so it didn’t bother be a huge amount and I still picked some pieces up.
Pricing
Score: 8/10
The Range is known for being very affordable, and it did not disappoint here. The artificial flowers on offer were a lot cheaper when bought by the stem, and the floral bouquets were also pretty cheap.
B&M artificial flowers – 5.75/10
TL;DR: B&M artificial flowers were quite pretty and had reasonable quality, however if you’re looking for individual stems there are very limited options. They did have some cute bouquets that you could split apart, but there still wasn’t enough variety and I didn’t find anything that I needed for the artificial flower wall that I am planning.
Variety
Score: 3/10
Perhaps it was the B&M I went to in particular, however the variety for flowers you could arrange yourself (so single stems or bouquets that could be separated out) was severely lacking. I think the two photos above capture the entirety of artificial flowers that was on offer – not ideal if you’re planning a big piece like an artificial flower wall or an artificial floral headboard! For that reason, I’ve had to give B&M artificial flowers a low score for variety.
Aesthetic
Score: 7/10
The B&M artificial flowers and bouquets were really pretty, I felt. They had some great autumn bouquets that would be great transitional items if you like to change up your style each season. Annoyingly, there wasn’t enough variety for me to make a fully informed decision – and they also had a few bouquets with the weird glitter roses which I hate (but others may love).
Quality
Score: 6/10
B&M artificial flowers still had some issues with the stems – as you can see those weird white pieces at the top of each stem. However, the quality of the stem was far more realistic than the others, the weight of the flowers indicated good quality materials, and there wasn’t the weird printed pattern on the leaves. I think these flowers were the most realistic looking out of the three shops I went to.
Pricing
Score: 7/10
I found the pricing of the B&M artificial flowers to be fair, they were slightly more expensive than The Range artificial flowers but the quality was better so I think it was appropriately priced.
Winner
The Range is the best store to go to for artificial flowers, if you are choosing between Dunelm, The Range and B&M. The Range had a more acceptable quality than Dunelm, and a better variety and price than B&M. However – no stores had a particularly high score.
I will likely be continuing my search at other stores such as Ikea, John Lewis, TK Maxx and next as I didn’t find everything I was looking for. I will update this review with the new stores once I’ve completed my investigations!
