TrueLiving Facial Tissues (Dollar General)

Just about every season is tissue season. Whether it’s spring and summer allergies, or fall and winter cold and flu season, there’s rarely a time when most people won’t want to have a box of tissue close at hand.

Tissue as we know it dates back to World War I, where companies first developed it as a gas mask paper filter. After the war, Kleenex was sold to civilians by a company then known as Kimberly Clark (now Kimberly-Clark) as a women’s cold cream remover. The company quickly learned, though, that more people used it as a disposable handkerchief. The company saw where the money was, so it shifted its marketing, and the rest is history.

Today just about every grocer, big box store, pharmacy, convenience store, or gas station in America sells tissue paper. Oftentimes you can find name brands like Kleenex and Puffs, but many stores also sell their own private label tissue as well. Dollar General, not surprisingly, is one of them. The dollar store sells a few varieties, including those in its TrueLiving (or True Living, or trueliving, depending on the product) brand.

The TrueLiving Facial Tissues I bought came in a 3-pack “Family Size” of 200-count boxes. At post time this cost me an even $4, which comes out to about 1.33 a box and less than a cent ($0.007) per tissue.

That’s as cheap as anything I can find anywhere, with a lower price per tissue than Walmart (currently $0.008) and the same price per tissue as Aldi (currently $0.007). If you need an inexpensive tissue, this will do it. Granted, you have to get a fair amount of DG tissue to get there, but if you have a family or are buying this for a group of people, like a classroom or office, you’re going to go through it all anyway.

The box says that the tissue is “made in U.S.A. from domestic and imported materials.” The tissue are 8.2 inches by 8.4 inches, which is the standard size I see in other brands.

The box opens easily enough and the tissue dispenses just as easily. The texture of the tissue isn’t bad, either. I would say it’s pretty close to other brands. It might be a hair less soft than Kleenex or the Aldi version of tissue, but I don’t know that I’d be able to easily discern a difference in a blind test. It’s certainly good enough for the price. To get anything softer you’ll need to get a dedicated soft tissue (usually with lotion or the like) and those are more expensive.

The Verdict:

TrueLiving Facial Tissues are a good value tissue if you need one. It’s as cheap as anything out there and accomplishes that price with a quality close enough to the competitors to be worth it. Not a bad option, especially if you’re trying to save a little with people who go through a lot of tissue. Just be aware that this isn’t a lotion tissue, so if red noses are a big problem you’ll have to pay more.