Stop & Chat: March 25-28

Just a textual update. Friday was the first of M's 3 days off, and the last day I was going to be able to get my SOFA stamp on my passport. We left the house at 9, arrived at Osan City Hall at about 9:40, and got some incorrect directions via phone telling us to take Highway 1 South for another 20 minutes where we would find the air base.

Candles From the Keeping Room - Strawberry Peppermint

Scent Description: None available.

Date Received: February 2016

Weight Melted: 0.9 oz.

Location of Warmer: Living room, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 5/5 A strong peppermint with a hint of sweet strawberries.

Warm Sniff: 5/5 The strawberries got much stronger here, but this is still very much a peppermint dominant blend. The strawberry took off the biting edge that peppermint tends to have.

Scent Strength: 2/3

Scent Throw: 3/3 This filled the entire living room and a little bit of the hallway.

Melting Power: 3/5 I got about 5 hours of scent from one of the smaller snowflakes.

Repurchase: Yes. This was a pleasant blend that I quite enjoyed!

Stop & Chat: March 24 - Namhansanseong

I thought I was going to go into Yongsan with M today to keep him company in case his dentist decided to perform his root canal that he needs. One of the other soldiers had a dentist appointment as well so they made arrangements to take a government vehicle. Basically M didn't need me anymore. LOL

Stop & Chat: March 20-23

Tuesday I did lots of adulty things that probably should have been done earlier. M and I got me fully registered with my insurance over here. Finally. We also set up an appointment for me to take my written driver's test to get my SOFA driver's license. Yes, it's taken me almost three months to get that thing. It's also taking me much too long to get my SOFA stamp on my passport. In my defense, we tried at the beginning of March but M's ID card is going to expire soon and that stamp would have then been set to expire soon.  So tomorrow we will be spending the entire day at the immigration office with the end goal of having my passport taken care of. If not... well, my visa technically expires on Saturday so that's not good LOL. I can't believe I've been in Korea for three months already! How time flies!

Candles From the Keeping Room - Strawberry Pomegranate

Scent Description: A house blend of strawberry, cake, and pomegranate.

Date Received: February 2016

Weight Melted: 1.0 oz

Location of Warmer: Kitchen, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 4/5 An even blend of cake, sweet strawberries, and pomegranate.

Warm Sniff: 4/5 I'd forgotten that this had a cake note to it, so I got a pleasant surprise when I realized that this was a bakery blend. The cake is more batter-like than other cake scents, while the pomegranates and strawberries blend together into a sweet medley.

Scent Strength: 2/3

Scent Throw: 3/3 This filled the entire kitchen/dining area, hallway, and office.

Melting Power: 5/5 I got about 8 and a half hours of scent from this tart.

Repurchase: Yes! This was a wonderful scent!

Olde Primitive Treasures - Twisted Peppermint

Scent Description: Peppermint with vanilla and sugary musk.

Date Received: 3-1-2016

Weight Melted: 1.3 oz

Location of Warmer: Kitchen, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 5/5 An accurate dupe of BBW's Twisted Peppermint.

Warm Sniff: 5/5 No surprises here!

Scent Strength: 1/3

Scent Throw: 3/3 This filled the entire kitchen/dining area, hallway, and office.

Melting Power: 3/5 I got about 5 hours from this tart before the scent died off.

Repurchase: Yes! Really anything Twisted Peppermint that performs better than BBW's version I like to stock up on. I do wish this was a little stronger, but it's my experience that the blend itself is just light. It could also be that I didn't give this much time to cure before melting it. I'm still not sure I entirely buy the whole curing thing, but I have found certain vendors have waxes that seem to perform better the longer I let it sit. Conversely, I've found vendors that seem to have their scents fade as time goes on. There are lots of factors that go into this, however, so I'm not entirely crediting it to curing.

Solstice Scents - Snowshoe Pass & Owl Creek Aleworks

Owl Creek Aleworks: Sticky English toffee, pudding, Blackburn's Parlor vanilla ice cream, caramel, toasted coconut & hazelnut, sugared pumpkin cream stout.

Owl Creek starts off as a very heavy toffee & caramel scent that sweetens and strengthens as it sits on the skin. My nose picks up a suggestion of apples every time it catches a whiff, and I'm taken to a fall festival that hints of pumpkins. Sometimes there's a hint of spice that I can't quite place. At the end of its life this boasts of sweet ice cream and heavy coconut. A rather dynamic fragrance!

Snowshoe Pass: White amber, white musk, vanilla accord, peppermint cream, cold winds.

This lovely concoction opens up with heavy vanilla and soft, creamy peppermint notes. Hiding in the background is the cold bite of winter and a sweet and musky amber note. As it settles in the slightly floral musk makes its way to the front, combining with the rest of the notes to create a very authentic white chocolate scent sprinkled with hints of peppermint. A simple but gorgeous blend. Sometimes I forget that you don't always need a long list of scent notes in a fragrance to find something beautiful.

Solstice Scents recently announced they are discontinuing their rewards program in May of this year. Does that affect any orders you might want to make? I know it is making me reconsider when I want to place my next order. Hurry and reach that gift card threshold in the next 2 months, or forget about Solstice Scents until I run out of a scent that I really want more of?

Sniff My Tarts - Pink Sugar/Plumeria/Peppermint

Scent Description: Cotton candy, vanilla, caramel, strawberry, plum, dry fig leaves, musk, anise, musk, woods/exotic sweet floral/crisp, clean, true peppermint

Date Received: 3-7-2016

Weight Melted: 0.9 oz

Location of Warmer: Kitchen, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 5/5 It's hard to pick up on any plumeria on cold sniff, but this is still a beautiful Pink Peppermint scent that I'm a huge fan of.

Warm Sniff: 5/5 There's that plumeria! Sweet florals beautifully blended with pink sugar and peppermint. Quite a subtle but sophisticated blend.

Scent Strength: 1/3

Scent Throw: 3/3 This filled the entire kitchen/dining area, hallway, and office.

Melting Power: 4/5 6.5 hours of scent from this beauty.

Repurchase: Yes! In fact, I already did, in a ginormous loaf. If I somehow change my mind on whether I like this scent I will have a lot to hate. LOL

Stop & Chat: March 19

I won't bother writing about the rest of my week besides saying nothing happened; it was boring and not blog-worthy!

Today, however, was a whole other story! M's exercise ended and he finally got a weekend off! Knowing us, biking was a must. This time M and some of his coworkers made an event so others could join in if they wanted to. Only two other guys showed up, but it was as fun as it can be biking with three other much more fit people.

Vintage Chic Scents - Tea Time Couture Event

Scent Description: Blueberry crumpets & earl grey tea.

Date Poured: 2-11-16

Weight Melted: 0.8 oz

Location of Warmer: Living room, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 5/5 I smell authentic blueberry muffins. I know this because I had just eaten a blueberry muffin and this smelled exactly like it. I'm not sure where that tea was.

Warm Sniff: 5/5 No change. I'm curious if the tea made a difference in this scent or ended up drowned out by the blueberry.

Scent Strength: 2/3

Scent Throw: >3/3 This filled the entire house, even through the closed doors of the bathrooms! My goodness.

Melting Power: 4/5 6.5 hours of strong scent from this little buddy.

Repurchase: Yes! Even if I couldn't directly smell the earl grey tea, I'm in love with how this smells and the performance!

Sassy Girl Aroma - April Fresh Downy

Scent Description: Clean, fresh laundry straight from the dryer.

Date Received: 2-26-16

Weight Melted: 0.7 oz

Location of Warmer: Office, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 3.5/5 A very detergent-ey scent. It's hard for me to describe this scent besides clean.

Warm Sniff: 4/5 That harsh detergent note dropped off and this became a much nicer soft and clean scent.

Scent Strength: 1.5/3

Scent Throw: 3/3 This filled the entire office, hallway, and kitchen/dining area.

Melting Power: 5/5 I got two tealight candles' worth of scent from this, totaling over 10 hours.

Repurchase: Yes! I'm not always in the mood for clean scents, but when I am I like knowing I have a good quality one I can reach for.

Candles From the Keeping Room - Blackberry Currant

Scent Description: None available.

Date Received: February 2016

Weight Melted: 0.9 oz

Location of Warmer: Kitchen, in tealight warmer.

Cold Sniff: 4/5 I think of soap when I smell this, probably because there's some sort of soapy product that has a similar scent to this. Slightly floral. Very tart. More fruity than sweet.

Warm Sniff: 4/5 No surprises here!

Scent Strength: 2/3

Scent Throw: 3/3 This filled the entire kitchen/dining area, hallway, and office.

Melting Power: 4/5 I got about 6.5 hours of scent from this melt.

Repurchase: Yes! Because of my personal associations with this scent, I think I would pick this up for when I'm craving some sort of clean scent.

Does anybody else have scents that make them think of soap when the fragrance itself isn't categorized as clean?

Haul: Vintage Chic Scents

I think it's well known to everyone that knows me that I have a hard time doing anything half way. I've jumped into working out at ~5 times a week, when I work out there's no such thing as going easy, when I work on a project I can't possibly put anything but my best forward... and when I try a new to me vendor, I go all in and try all the things. I've gotten much, much better in recent months, but there are still times when I accidentally go in a little too far and end up with a large flat rate box of new to me wax.

Vintage Chic Scents is one of those vendors that I went ham and picked up everything I could get my grubby little hands on. Okay, I had a list set up, but I didn't expect to get almost everything from my list!

I placed my order on February 19th and it shipped on February 23rd. On to what I got!

Sniff My Tarts - Ice Cream Cake Batter/Fresh Picked Strawberries

Scent Description: Vanilla, almond, sugar cane, cake batter/fresh picked strawberries.

Date Received: 3-7-2016

Weight Melted: 0.7 oz.

Location of Warmer: Kitchen, in tealight warmer (the one Deb sent me! <3)

Cold Sniff: 3/5 Eh, this was okay. I picked up on sweet, sweet strawberries on cold sniff.

Warm Sniff: 5/5 Authentic cake batter! Sweet strawberries! Cake galore assaulting your face! M thought he smelled a berry medley with something like cookies, which is close enough.

Scent Strength: 2/3

Scent Throw: >3/3 This filled the kitchen/dining room, hallway, office, entryway, and most of the living room with its bakery goodness.

Melting Power: 4/5 I got about 6 hours from this cute little tart.

Repurchase: Yes! I already did. I'm going to be drowning in SMT wax whenever Amy & Donna send my order off. You know, because I'm not already drowning in their wax.

Sniff My Tarts - Sweet Lavender & Rosemary Mint

Scent Description: None available.
A very sweet lavender with rosemary & spearmint leaves. Slightly herbal. Fully delicious.

Weight Melted: 1.0 oz

Location of Warmer: Living room, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 5/5 Very yummy.

Warm Sniff: 5/5 No surprises. A very delectable blend. How many synonyms for delicious can I use in one post? :)

Scent Strength: 2/3

Scent Throw:  >3/3 This filled the entire living room, hallway, bedroom, and some of the office and kitchen/dining room.

Melting Power: 4/5 I got about 7 hours from this melt.

Purchase: I already did! I received this as a gift, melted it, fell in love with it, and may or may not have bought an entire loaf at the recent Sniff My Tarts loaf sale. So that's that. If you're a fan of either of these scents, SMT's version is ah-may-zing!

Olde Primitive Treasures - Creamy Candy

Scent Description: Strawberry, coconut, and vanilla musk.
Yes, if you're thinking of a Lush dupe you are correct!

Date Received: March 1, 2016

Weight Melted: 1.3 oz

Location of Warmer: Living room, in tealight warmer.

Cold Sniff: 4.5/5 A very authentic Lush dupe, which is exactly what I wanted.

Warm Sniff: 4.5/5 No surprises here.

Scent Strength: 2.5/3 That musky note makes this kind of hard to miss while melted.

Scent Throw: >>>3/3 This filled the entire house. Every bit of it. I feel bad for M because he was assaulted at every turn while I melted this.

Melting Power: 4/5 I got about 6 hours from this melt before switching out the wax.

Repurchase: Yes. It's quite nice to know I have some strong Lush dupes with a fair TAT at my fingertips!

Stop & Chat: March 9-13

I'm already annoyed as I type this up. Blogger decided to post a lot of my properly scheduled posts (I checked, their scheduled post dates were not all on the same day at the same time!) all at once so I had a huge mess to clean up before working on this post. Hurray. If you see a couple posts in the next few days that look familiar, I'm sorry. Just wipe your memory and act like you haven't read it before, okay?!

Candles From the Keeping Room - Lavender Cream Peppermint

Whaat? No, this picture wasn't taken back in December and thus has a winter themed backdrop for the tart. You are crazy! :)
Scent Description: None available.
I get a very sweet and creamy lavender with a hint of peppermint.

Weight Melted: 1.1 oz

Location of Warmer: Office, in tealight warmer.

Cold Sniff: 4/5 A really lovely, creamy lavender peppermint blend.

Warm Sniff: 4/5 No surprised here. The peppermint was really light so if you're not a very big fan of strong peppermints this won't be too overpowering.

Scent Strength: 2/3

Scent Throw: 3/3 This filled the entire office, hallway, and kitchen/dining area.

Melting Power: 4/5 I got about 6 hours from this melt.

Repurchase: Yes! So yummy and creamy! I've had a real hankering for lavender blends lately, so please excuse me if I'm a little heavy on the lavender blends in my upcoming posts.

Candles From the Keeping Room - Sugared Cranberries

Scent Description: None Available.
I get very sweet cranberries with an added floral note.

Weight Melted: 0.8 oz

Location of Warmer: Living room, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 4/5 Sweet? Check. Berries? Check. This is a recipe for success!

Warm Sniff: 4/5 This was such a sweet yet light scent. I'm sad that I couldn't find any scent descriptions from Carol's website and frankly I'm not scouring the multitude of files she has in the Facebook group to see if I can find it.

Scent Strength: 1/3

Scent Throw: >3/3 This filled the hallway, kitchen/dining area, master bedroom, and living room.

Melting Power: 5/5 I got about 10 hours, or 2.5 tealight candles, from this scent. What did I do with the other half of my tealight candle? Let it burn, because I was busy and didn't feel like messing with my warmers. LOL

Repurchase: Yes, if I ever see it again. The closest thing I'm seeing is Pink Sugared Cranberries, but from my own post history I can see that the cranberry note wasn't very strong and that's definitely not what I got here.

Jaimie Lauren Cupcakery and Confections in Wax - Glazed Cinnamon Donut/Zucchini Bread

Scent Description: None available.
Pretty self explanatory though. On cold sniff I think of very strong cinnamon toast.

Date Received: June 2013

Weight Melted: 1.2 oz.

Location of Warmer: Living room, in tealight warmer.

Cold Sniff: 3/5

Warm Sniff: 0/5 I don't think I've ever hated a scent this much before. I literally got nauseous from the scent. Then when I left the area all of my possessions smelled like bile and tortilla chips, and I had to wipe down and scrub every surface I could in the living room. I don't like zucchini bread, and I didn't have high hopes for melting this, but that was a whole new level of yuck. I do recall that the glazed cinnamon donuts part of this melt really died off.

Scent Strength: 2.5/3

Scent Throw: 3/3 This filled the entire living room.

Melting Power: 3/5 This was going for about 5 hours before I turned it off. Why so long? I was asleep for the first 3 hours and in another room for the other 2. I regret every hour of it melting.

Repurchase: No. I feel really bad saying such awful things about this blend, but I promise I did not intend to 100% talk crap about this melt. I liked the cinnamon toast note on cold sniff and I've had a few successful zucchini blends before, so I hoped for that here.

Haul: Sniff My Tarts January 2016

Have you decided whether you're going to participate in Sniff My Tarts' Easter loaves sale? If so, have you figured out what blends you want your loaves in? Want some more blend options to make your choice just that much harder? Yes? Spectacular.

I was lucky enough to get my order in pretty quickly after Amy opened - it took about 5 minutes from start to finish, including some trouble on my end that I can't even remember. It was something to do with the checkout process. I was in the first group of orders. This order was placed on January 15th and shipped on February 29th. A decent amount of time, but I knew how long this could possibly take going into this order.

What's that? You want to see what it is I got? Okay, I guess :)

Haul: Candles From the Keeping Room February 2016

Look at all of these gorgeous shapes! Such color! Such pizzazz!

Stop & Chat: March 5-8

Can you see the yellow dust storm off in the distance?

Uhh... my Saturday and Sunday were not productive in the least. I spent both days playing video games and watching movies and occasionally eating or sleeping. It was wonderful! I did want to clean, though, so I'm disappointed that I didn't really do that.

I did try to wash dishes like the responsible adult I am, but the inner tubing on my sink head burst! It was a mess. So I cancelled those plans and we got in touch with our realtors.

L3 Waxy Wonders - If These Dolls Could Talk

Scent Description: Fresh picked strawberries, cotton candy, strawberry white cake.
I get strawberry cotton candy here. No white cake.

Date Poured: 12-16-15

Weight Melted: 0.8 oz

Location of Warmer: Office, in tealight warmer.

Cold Sniff: 4/5 The day I'm not a fan of strawberries & cotton candy is the day I die.

Warm Sniff: 4/5 The cake came out a little, making this a slight bakery type scent, but it was still very faint.

Scent Strength: 1/3

Scent Throw: 2/3 This filled the office, hallway, and some of the kitchen/dining room.

Melting Power: 4/5 7 hours of scent before this one died off. I did make a point to burn a 2nd candle to get all of the scent out of the quarter chunk I used.

Repurchase: Yes. I quite enjoyed how subtle the cake note was here and the performance was just what I wanted. I've already melted through the rest of this chunk. No more for Liz :'(

Candles From the Keeping Room - Cherry Blossom

Scent Description: Fresh orange top notes sweeten this lush white floral bouquet. Forest fern adds a natural sensation to the heart of shimmering flowers, as light green tones balance the bouquet. Warm woods and a hint of musk warm the floral accord.
This smells just like the BBW Cherry Blossom perfume, if you're familiar with that.

Weight Melted: 1.1 oz.

Location of Warmer: Living Room, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 4/5 I love Cherry Blossom, so naturally I liked this!

Warm Sniff: 5/5 This took on some extra notes that I can't quite describe, making it different enough from BBW's version that I wouldn't call this a dupe. Maybe added vanilla? In any case, I liked it!

Scent Strength: 1/3

Scent Throw: 3/3 This filled the entire living room.

Melting Power: >3/5 I got 5 hours from this tart, and I'm sure I could have gotten more if I'd lit another candle for it.

Repurchase: Yes! This was a sample from my March 2015 order, and I regret not melting this earlier and picking up more.

Haul: Solstice Scents

For those of you who may or may not be following my Stop & Chat series, you may recall me mentioning making a few fragrance-laden orders. This is the one that started all of the others.

I decided to finally buy because the lovely Julie gifted me a sample of Rose Mallow Cream and I fell in love with the scent. One bottle of perfume, one 10ml spray, and 17 1ml samples later, here we are. So let's take a look!

Pine Needles Handcrafted Soap

Ahh, such a gorgeous soap. I love how the swirls turned out and how white I was able to get the white section of my soap. Very minimal titanium dioxide dragging, too!

L3 Waxy Wonders - Banana Bread

Scent Description: Smells like fresh baked banana bread.

Weight Melted: 0.5 oz

Location of Warmer: Guest Room, in tealight warmer.

Cold Sniff: 2.5/5 Eh, I'm not sure I'm a fan of banana scents in wax, and this didn't smell like authentic banana bread. More artificial banana scent that everyone knows.

Warm Sniff: 3/5 This only got better because the bread/muffin note became more dominant as this melted. M loved this scent, but I was not a fan.

Scent Strength: 1/3

Scent Throw: 3/3 This filled the guest room, guest bathroom, and entrance area of the house.

Melting Power: 3/5 I got about 5 hours from this before calling it quits.

Repurchase: No. I probably would pick one up just for M if he so desired, but I wouldn't pick this scent up for myself.

I'm experiencing some frustrations right now. I had one entire page's worth of scent notes, weight melted, performance, etc. and I cannot for the life of me find it. I have a new page that I started, but it only has a few entries and I have yet to post anything from my previous page's worth of melts. It's not that big a deal in the big scheme of things if I don't find it, but I'm upset that I put so much effort into my melts and future posts and now I can't post about it. AUUUGH!

Stop & Chat: March 4

Yesterday was a cooking day with L and T! L picked me up from my house at about 10:40 and we drove to T's house, where T showed us how to make squash soup and we made some healthy tacos!

Stop & Chat: March 1-3

Tuesday was a workout day with T and L! I met up with them at the realtor's office at 9 am, where we would walk to a small outdoor park with children's playground, badminton court, and various exercise equipment. Who knew, public health is a priority here! :)

Band of Bloggers - Vol. 3/March 2016

Welcome to the third edition of the Band of Bloggers. March is upon us and visions of spring lull us out of the winter doldrums. This month's topic sprung forth from a conversation with Deb and reading Michelle's blog post recently about Tea & Cakes being a scent trend. 

What scent trends have you noticed or have you fallen into so far this year? What do you predict being some trending scents? Scent trends can be in wax, candles, perfume, and/or body care. 

I've seen shaving cream as a popular blend lately. It's an awesome blend, but the name itself is kind of offsetting to those of us who are unfamiliar with what's in it. I'm coming back into flowery type blends. I still don't care for an overload of flowers, but I no longer mind it being in the midst of my blends. I've come across some lovely scents that way (Rose Mallow Cream from Solstice Scents, anyone?). As for trending scents? I think Lavender blends might be making a come back. I feel like it becomes popular every Spring though, because it's a pretty versatile scent with variations that play well in almost any circumstance. Sea salt is another one that I think is rising in popularity. A lot of scents, really. Then again, I feel like the past few months have been my great big comeback into the world of scented wax and bath and body products. All of this stuff could be old news. :)

We would love to hear from you! 

Please visit these Band of Bloggers blogs and help support the blogger community!

Deb, at It's Always Something.

Julie, at The Redolent Mermaid.

Lauren, at Lolo Loves Scents.

Liz, at Furianne. 

Michelle, at Waxing About.

Sunnee, at Fragrance Obsessed.

Haul: Olde Primitive Treasures

I have regrets today. I regret not buying some of Lara's chunk melts. Between the one I received and the numerous pictures she's posted to the OPT Facebook group I've found myself wanting some extra colorful, sparkly, glitter-bombed wax. I suppose what I got is good, though. I made this small order with the intention of trying out OPT and purposefully picked simpler, cheaper options and scents for this first-time purchase.

Haul: Sassy Girl Aroma

Haul time! This time we have a new to me vendor by the name of Sassy Girl Aroma. I submitted my order on February 12th and it was shipped on February 15th. It arrived to me in perfect condition, which is saying something given the state of 90% of my other packages. I think this was partly due to packaging. Everything was very nicely wrapped in bubble wrap and tissue paper, and there were packing peanuts in every spare bit of space in the box.
Anyways, on to what I got!