How It Works

Once you set up your account (you can see our Privacy Policy here), you can begin to fill your closet. Choose items to put in your closet that you don’t mind lending to a friend. The dress you bought and can’t part with but barely ever wear, or that unique kitchen gadget you bought but use once a year, are a great fit. Your absolute favorite shoes or your grandmother’s heirloom bracelet probably aren’t. You get the idea.

When you’ve chosen an item, click “Add Item” in your closet and follow the dropdown menus to fill in specifics. Type a short description, including anything that would be useful to the borrower to know that isn’t captured in the standard fields. This information will be searchable when others are looking to borrow items.

If you have an item in your closet that you don’t want available for longer periods of time, you have the option to select “Not Available” as a status. If you don’t want an item to be visible to others, click the “Hide Item” box so it isn’t visible to your circle until you’re ready.

Can I Borrow It? allows you to link to Facebook to select from friends, or you can add friends with an e-mail address. Go to "My Circle" and select "Add Friends" to get started. If you want to see if your friends are already using Can I Borrow It?, you can search by name in the user list and click "Request" to request them to be in your circle. Remember, your circle of friends on Can I Borrow It? will be able to see the items in your closet and you'll likely be swapping with each other. Use discretion when adding friends. Ask yourself, "Would I invite this friend into my closet in real life to borrow my things?"

You can browse your friends' closets by clicking on a friend in your circle and going into their closet, or you can search in the search bar at the top of the page. Add a few keywords specific to your item, for example: red heels size 8. Your search will run through all the closets in your circle of friends and will return any items that match. If you have questions about an item, you can message your friend directly by clicking the "Message" button to the right of the item. If you know you want to borrow something, click the "Request" button and a calendar will pop up to choose your dates. If it's already reserved, dates will show in grey as unavailable. Once you choose your dates, a message will go to the owner with a request to borrow and, if accepted, will prompt a chat dialogue to work out the details of the exchange.

If a friend sees something they want to borrow, you'll get a request and a notification. When you respond to the request, a chat box appears so you can either work out the details of the exchange if you're accepting, or provide a reason if you're declining. If you have days that you know you need a specific item, you can reserve it for yourself and the item will show as not available in the calendar. For longer periods where you don't want to lend an item, you can mark it as "Not Available" or check the "Hide Item" box (see "Fill your Closet")

24 hours before the item is due back to its owner, the borrower will get a message reminding them to return the item. Lenders are sent a message 48 hours after the reservation is done with a prompt to confirm whether the item was returned. Reminder messages go out to both parties every 48 hours until the lender has confirmed return of the item.

Once the lender confirms an item has been returned, both parties are asked to rate how the transaction went. This will generate a "Lender" and "Borrower" rating for each user. These ratings allow you to see your friends' history when deciding to loan/borrow an item, as well as the rating of someone requesting to be in your circle.

If you find something you really like and want to borrow at some point (but don't need right now), you can save it as a favorite for later.