This New Faux Flower E-tailer Is the Best Place to Find a Unique, Affordable Mother’s Day Gift

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In the spirit of 2021’s unpredictability, gifting this year should suit the impulsive getaways of get-up-and-goers as well as the comfort of those staying put, and Afloral’s gorgeous collection of dried and preserved flowers, grasses, and greenery is absolutely the way to go.

When I came across Afloral, an online retailer for faux flowers, I was searching for a floral gift for a friend. While faux flowers weren’t what I was looking for, I was drawn in by the beautiful imagery of unique, brightly hued, and totally natural dried flowers. I saw they had the highly-coveted, Instagrammable pampas grass I’d been on the hunt for and for way less than other online stores I’d seen. For the sake of product research (aka my job), I had to try out ordering from the brand.

Afloral has one of the most unique and beautiful collections of affordable dried flora I’ve come across. For someone like me with a black thumb, dried and preserved flowers are the way to go when it comes to livening up your space. But if you’re gifting for Mother’s Day this year, a preserved bundle of lavender, eucalyptus, or banksia flowers will last longer for your recipient than any fresh bouquet will — and they’re just as beautiful.

I was nervous about getting delicate dried leaves and flowers, especially pampas grass and the stiffened preserved flowers, delivered to my home. One swift knock of the box and I pictured every petal and leaf crumbling to the bottom, leaving an unpleasant mess for me to clean up. Much to my extreme excitement, every bundle that was ordered came in perfect condition — from the Dried Eryngium Sea Holly Flowers to the Natural Smooth Mauve Pampas Grass.

What’s more, my cat has no interest in munching on any of the bundles I received, so I no longer have to deal with the petal messes, chewed stems, and eventual deterioration of cut flowers. Don’t get me wrong, fresh flowers have their time and place. But with the cut flower industry’s largely unethical sourcing getting more and more out of hand, I’ll be turning to my Afloral dried and preserved plants for the forseeable future.

To buy: Black Dried Eryngium Sea Holly Flowers, afloral.com, $22; Dried Ruscus Leaves in Terracotta Orange, afloral.com, $30; Preserved Mixed Eucalyptus Bundle, afloral.com, $28

Kendall Cornish is an e-commerce editor at Editor Aztravel.org. She’s never lived anywhere longer than three years, but currently resides in Brooklyn with her cat and beloved Dyson vacuum. You can follow her on Instagram at @kendall.cornish.

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