Haul: Front Porch Candle (February 2013)

Woot! My first order from Front Porch! I can't believe I actually ordered... I actually hate her free shipping policy :( However, the 10% off $25 or more really took the edge off for my imagined shipping costs I was paying. Anyways... on to my order!!

 

First we have the Valentine's Day Sampler Pack! I really don't know what I was going for in getting these samplers... but since this was my first order I decided "what the heck! buy ALL the samplers!!" (brownie points if you get the meme reference). In case you can't read the pictures, the scents that came in this pack were: Love Dare, Snuggling Under the Stars, Candle Shop, Smoochin' By the Fire, Wine by Candlelight, Chocolate Covered Strawberries, Pink Sugar, and Princess Gown.

Next up is the Spring & Summer Sampler pack! The scents in this were: Sunburn, Apple Mango do the Tango, Hydrangea in Bloom, Pink Princess Gown, Iced Tea with Lemon, Macintosh Apple, Sun Your Buns, and Jasmine.

Then, to get me to $25 so I could use the 10% off I got a single tart in Blue Sugar and a 4-pack of Serendipity.

I'm not doing cold sniff reviews since I already incorporate that into my individual tart reviews. Besides, all I ever really look at on other people's hauls are the pictures anyway ;)

Front Porch - Serendipity

My first melt from a vendor that I bought myself, JMae's Soaps and Candles aside! :) When I made my order I wanted serendipity SO bad, as I haven't tried it by itself from any vendors. I bought this in the donut shapes just because Angie didn't have this in stock in the grubby tarts at the time.
Cold Sniff: 1.5/3 I picked up on a lot of the cherry scent here, and as goes with the berry theme for me, on cold sniff it just smelled off. I actually decided I didn't want to give this a try based off cold sniff... then I remembered the Curse of the Berries.
Warm Sniff: 2.5/3 The coconut really came out as this melted, and over the life of this tart the coconut slowly overcame the cherry until there was almost no cherry. I actually enjoyed that this scent changed over time.
Scent Strength: 2/3 This was a nice strong scent. I noticed it no matter what I was doing and it even overpowered the acetone I was using to remove my nail polish.
Melting Power: 3/3 This lasted a solid 18 hours before I had to replace the wax.
Repurchase: I would most definitely repurchase this, though I'll probably only get it to try out in my own blends.

Candles From the Keeping Room - Cranberry Bundt

While cleaning, I decided to finally begin sorting my stash by vendor. For any vendor that I have enough of to fill a photo box (bought from Michaels) I stick them in the box. Everything else (or vendors I am uncertain I will order from outside of destashes) is going in a larger plastic drawer that I've been keeping my tarts in anyway. I just hadn't resorted everything since Lauren's destash came in, nor with my little haul from Front Porch.
I noticed that my Candles From the Keeping Room stash was fairly large, even though I've never ordered from them before. So I have 3 Vendor Boxes -JMae's Soaps & Candles, Front Porch, and Candles from the Keeping Room- with one vendor that I've never tried from!
Cranberry Bundt was a sweet tart to me. The cranberry ended up being a lot more sweet than I'd thought based off cold sniff, and I didn't really think I would like it.
Cold Sniff: 1/3 I don't know... all I could smell was the cranberry and somehow all berries smell weird to me on cold sniff. I've seen this with every 'berry' tart I've melted.
Warm Sniff: 2/3 This was very pleasant on warm sniff. The cranberry became very sweet and succulent. I'm afraid I don't know what the 'bundt' part was supposed to be, but this tart was nice nonetheless. M says he smelled something cinnamony like the Big Red gum in this one, but I didn't pick up on it.
Scent Strength: 1.5/3 It's a little more than a background scent, but it's not enough that I'm sniffing this all the time. This competed with some chicken alfredo I made and for the most part the chicken alfredo won.
Melting Power: 1/3 This lasted right at about 6 hours before I couldn't smell it anymore. I went asleep with it still on thinking my nose could have just gotten used to the scent, but after waking up and showering I still couldn't smell it. It's currently in the freezer so I can pop the disc out and put in something new.
Repurchase: Maybe. I'm still on the fence about it. If I'm looking at Candles From the Keeping Room I wouldn't make an order just for this scent. I'll probably pick it up in a 4 ounce just to give it another shot.

Quick Wax Reviews

I cleaned the house yesterday, and it appears that during my cleaning I've misplaced my notecard that had all the notes for these tarts I melted. So, I'm going to have to ditch my new rating system for this post and these tarts. When (if) I melt them again, I'll do a proper review on them.
First off is JMae's Soaps & Candles' Black Raspberry Vanilla. This smells exactly like a sugar scrub I've loved using from an old YouTuber who has now left the world of videos for bigger and better things. This scent is a very background-y scent and pleasant, too! I think it filled my entire living room, but I don't remember exactly. I don't remember how long it lasted, either. *huff* This is why I never clean LOL.

Next is Tara's Candle Cottage's Raspberry Noel Cake. The Noel in this turned the raspberry into one of those almost fake raspberry scents, though not enough so that it was unpleasant. The cake was just a background note in all this to make up for a very delicious smelling cake. I had to bake a cake after melting this, it was so yummy! It filled most of the house and lasted overnight (about 14 hours) if I remember correctly.

 Then we have Crabby Candle Co's Vanilla Lavender. I was a bit underwhelmed by this one compared to Tiffany Candles' version. This filled my living room, and barely. The scent was pretty much the same as Tiffany's, but to me it was obvious who had better quality, at least for a hot plate warmer. This lasted maybe 4 hours before retreated to the area immediately surrounding the warmer. However, I should note that I only melted half the tart. It looked so big I was afraid of overwhelming the house with the scent. Maybe I should have put the entire tart in.

Finally, there's The Scented Princess' Fluffy Pink Candy. I like this one because it's an exact dupe of Lush's Candy Mountain bubble bar (which I've now run out of... *sob*). The best thing about this in tart form is it isn't chokingly sweet, which I've experienced issues with in the bubble bar form (how am I supposed to take a relaxing bath when I'm feeling suffocated by the scent!? It's so pretty, but something about it keeps me from being able to breathe until the scent has faded a bit!). This sucker we could smell while walking up to the house. Her tarts are HUGE. I've been contemplating an order for so long now!
Unfortunately, just yesterday Dawn closed down her website so she could catch up on orders. I guess my very first order from her will have to wait (all my TSP products have arrived in destashes).

Orchid Lake Candles - Orange Ale

I had a very weird experience with this tart. When I was melting it the first evening, I could swear it smelled exactly like vanilla chai tea, the way I like it with tons of creamer and sugar. I went to sleep thinking that was weird.
The next day I went off to work and came back in the late evening. At that point both M and I had forgotten we were melting something until I mentioned smelling an orange-and-cinnamon. Mind you, this was twenty-four hours later. This sucker lasted for a while and now I'm forced to wonder if that initial tea smell was this tart mixing with the remnants in the air from the last tart I melted. The only problem is I can't remember what it was I melted and I don't believe I have melted anything since moving here that remotely smells like vanilla chai tea.

Cold Sniff: ?? I don't remember
Warm Sniff: 2/3 It's okay... I wish I could have another go-around at this one without having to pay for a scent shot since this one was so weird.
Scent Strength: 1.5/3 It's a light, background scent. Very pleasant for setting a sleepy mood without being obnoxious.
Scent Throw: 2/3 Filled most of my house.
Melting Power: 3/3 Over 24 hours of a nice, light scent, even though it appears that it transformed during its melt. 
Repurchase: Probably not, just because I don't quite know what happened here. I heavily relied on my notes when writing this post and really, the only thing I remembered was the weird vanilla chai tea thing this had going on that first night.

Wax Melts: My New Rating System

The title pretty much says it all, but I figured I'd give a little breakdown of my rating system because I'm like that.

I'm going to still do my little paragraph chat about it to give my general thoughts and feelings, but after that I'm going to break down the wax into 5 categories: Cold Sniff, Warm Sniff, Scent Strength, Scent Throw, and Melting Power. After that I'll give a little "I would/wouldn't repurchase this, blah blah."

Each section will have a rating out of 3. Here's a breakdown of what I'm taking into consideration for each category.
Cold Sniff: 1 is a dislike. Based off cold sniff I would not repurchase this item and it is unappealing to me. 2 means I liked it. 3 means I loved this scent.
Warm Sniff: 1, again, is a dislike. I would not repurchase this item. 2 means I liked it, but it's not a repurchase. 2.5 is a repurchase. 3 means I love this scent and it smelled amazing.
Scent Strength: This just rates how strong the scent is. Is it a background, light type scent, or is it an in-your-face obnoxious type scent? A 1 doesn't necessarily mean bad here; it just means that scent isn't very heavy on the nose.
Scent Throw: For me, it'll be easy for vendors to fulfill my throw needs. I own a small efficiency, so the scent doesn't have to travel very far to be everywhere I would want to be inside. So a 1 means there was virtually no throw and I am giving up on this vendor that can't fill even a small 16x16 living/sleeping area. A 2/3 means this scent filled that 16x16 main living area, but couldn't make it through the archway to the kitchen nor to the bathroom adjacent to the kitchen. A 3/3 means my entire house was filled and I was a happy camper.  
Melting Power: How long did the scent last while melting? 0-6 hours is 1 (what? I melt my tarts all the way to the end! I find 6 hours is nothing!), 6-12 hours is 2, and 12+ hours is a 3.

And repurchase is rather self explanatory. This is really for my own purposes to keep my ratings as even as possible across the board, so you can ignore this post if you so desire.

Sweet Fixations - Bubblegum Noel

On  cold sniff, I was wary of trying out this tart because the lemony gum smell was so strong. When I melted this, the gum was all I really picked up on. I let this melt for 6 hours before I got tired of my constant "I wanna chew some gum" cravings and dumped the wax.

JMae's Soaps & Candles - Pink Peppermint

Just by looking at the scent description or even the name of the scent, I would never have pegged this as a scent I would like due to my dislike of peppermint. Why, you ask, do I dislike peppermint so? In 2nd grade I decided to eat an entire bag of peppermint flavored candy. Later that night, I developed a flu and proceeded to upchuck every time I moved. That stuff reeked of peppermint. Since then I've associated peppermint with puking and haven't liked the smell nor taste of peppermint candies.
Imagine my surprise when I get a soap that I love from Jamie only to find that it contains a scent that I should by all means avoid! I liked -no, loved- it so much in soap form I decided to risk it in wax form (taking into consideration that there would be differences between the soap and wax smell). Boy am I glad I did. This was a lighter scent, but the throw was awesome! It filled my entire house, though that shouldn't say much because I live in a rear house that's an efficiency unit (hey, don't you diss my home!). However, if it fills my house, I'm happy, and this certainly fits the bill. The two cubes I melted lasted well over 16 hours of solid melting, how cool is that??
Please note me not describing the scent besides awesome. I figure it's an easy enough scent to guess and it's really just an even 50-50 blend of both scents, which I'm impressed with considering there's Pink Sugar in here. Typically PS blends end up being PS with a hint of that other fragrance blended in (Exhibit A: Shayz Scentz' Pink Nog).
In any case, this is most definitely a repurchase!

Wanted: Lauren from Lolo Loves Scents for Murder

WANTED: Lauren from Lolo Loves Scents for the Premeditated Murder of My Wallet

So... your lovely package arrived earlier today, as I so kindly told you via Facebook. After letting you know, I went through and made sure everything was alright. I paid particular interest to the Rosegirls chunks, knowing they are apparently amazing and well sought after by the wax world.
Upon cold sniff I was unimpressed. Why throw down so much money for these? They aren't even pretty like everyone claims! Just a rather uncreative two-tone swirl with some chunks. There was no pizzazz! What was up with all these claims?!
I tasked M with picking out something for me to melt when he got home from work. He picked Rosegirls' Strawberry Banana Bubblegum. I was surprised since off cold sniff this was just like a cheapo bubblegum I used to chew all the time in elementary. I didn't pick up on the strawberry at all. It smelled super waxy. He insisted I just do it (all the while making a "I do this because it's necessary to please her" face). So I threw it in the wax warmer and we left to pick up some food before his second shift of work.

 

An hour later, we come walking up the street to the house. We smell something sweet and pleasant. "I wonder what our neighbors are cooking," I mention nonchalantly to M as we get closer to the door. But something is wrong. The smell is getting stronger. It... it can't be coming from our house!! We've been out! I quickly unlock the door and step in. What is the sweet, strawberry-lemon-banana awesomeness I smell? My eyes fall on the warmer and my mouth gapes. You.
I turn on M and exclaim, "I knew this would happen!!!" and proceed to skulk away.

You see... when I got into nail art, I did not see the point in paying more than $1 or $2 for a single bottle of nail polish. To me all nail polishes were equal. Especially those glitter nail polishes. "I could make those myself!" I always exclaimed. I now know it's not as simple as that, but in my head so long as I had the separate glitters I could imitate the looks of those glittery polishes.
I was happy with my $1 and $2 dollar nail polishes until about 9 months into this newfound hobby, when M bought me some China Glaze for my birthday. That first polish, Stella, applied so smoothly, so evenly, I was instantly hooked. I now find myself willing to pay up to $5 or $6 a bottle, depending on the color, finish, and special properties of that bottle (magnetic, anyone? No? How about crackle? No? How about... GLOW IN THE DARK?!?!).

I appear to've run into the same situation here with wax. I did not order from Rosegirls because I did not feel their products could justify their prices. Now, unfortunately for my late wallet, I may find myself ordering next time they're open if the other wax chunks perform like this one did. This is all to blame on Lauren and her destash.

But seriously, thanks so much for this lovely destash! I'm loving everything!!!