Beezy Tarts - Cactus & Sea Salt

Scent Description: Cactus, fresh green elements, salty accents, sea moss and warm driftwood.

Date Received: May 17, 2016

Weight Melted: 0.9 oz

Location of Warmer: Kitchen, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 4/5 Quite an in-your-face cleaning day type of scent. Incredibly salty. I feel like I'm in some sort of laundry detergent commercial with an open house plan, white window curtains, and all doors and windows lend themselves to a beautiful view of the beach & sea.

Warm Sniff: 4/5 No surprises once melted.

Scent Strength: 3/3 "Hey honey, what are you cooking today?" "I don't know, all I can smell is your wax. So my nose's conclusion is soap. Soap is what we're having for dinner."

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

Melting Power: 4/5 I got about 7 hours of scent from half of a tart cup.

Repurchase: Yes! Though I may only melt this by the quarter tart cup. Half a cup might have been a little much for the house, our noses, and our taste buds. LOL

Stop & Chat: June Catch-up - Garak Market! (가락 시창)

I've been up to quite a bit this month, but it's not much that I can write about. I've made a new friend and pretty much spent the past month talking to and hanging with her. There was about a week where my sleep schedule had finally gotten to an acceptable time frame where I was awake before 9 AM each morning, but the past few days have completely screwed that up again and I yet again find myself a night owl.

One exciting thing I can write about is my trip to Garak market, 가락 시창 ("galak sichang"). I've also started working in earnest on learning to read/write in Hangul, so expect to see a little extra language written in. For instance, Hanji is written 한지!

Anyways, on to my trip to Garak market!

Lasting Scent Candles - Bliss

Scent Description: White wedding cake, vanilla cream and lavender sprinkles.

Date Received: April 8, 2016

Weight Melted: 0.9 oz

Location of Warmer: Living room, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 5/5 Think of a super sweet and bakery version of lavender vanilla. As we all know, I love me some sweet scents, so this is right up my alley.

Warm Sniff: 5/5 The cakey note was more noticeable once melted, but this was still primarily a lavender and vanilla scent.

Scent Strength: 1/3

Scent Throw: >3/3 This filled the entire living room, sun room, hallway, and part of the kitchen/dining area.

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

Repurchase: Yes! I'm getting some amazing performance from my LSC wax! Plus these blends are right up my alley!

Haul: Glitterati Customs 2015

It's here. It's here. It's here! My unicorn wax! Let me do a little dance of happiness. For those of you who don't know, The Glitterati Candle Co is a one-woman show run entirely through her Facebook group. The owner, Janine, has carved a reputation for herself as a creator of amazingly high quality wax tarts and as a result her wax has become incredibly popular. Add the fact that she has no intentions of expanding due to familial obligations and you have some seriously rare wax.

TAT is a little difficult explain. I submitted my order to Janine on May 25th and it shipped on June 14th - 3 weeks. Sounds amazing, right? Look at the title of this post. I did not make a typo when I put in '2015.' On the afternoon of March 21st, 2015, I was one of 100 people who managed to say "me" early enough for a customs sign up list. My name originally came up in December, but I had to defer as we were in the middle of a move. So depending on how you view it, TAT could be almost 15 months. For the 2016 customs list, Janine tightened up her rules on orders to ensure a shorter TAT this time around, including the removal of the option to defer to the bottom of the list. My point is, Janine's methods of operation aren't for everyone. I still can't figure out whether I like or dislike it, but I can appreciate that Janine has been incredibly open about TATs, where she is at on X mystery list and Y customs list, and her reasons for staying a one-woman team run out of her house's kitchen.

Now that we have all of that boring introduction stuff out of the way, let's get to the fun stuff - what exactly I got!

Rosegirls - Hello, Gorgeous

Scent Description: Bergamot, peppermint, pink sugar, sweet lavender.

Date Received: April 24, 2016

Weight Melted: 1.0 oz

Location of Warmer: Kitchen, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 4/5 Strong peppermint with a hint of lavender.

Warm Sniff: 4/5 Such a dynamic scent! Peppermint stayed strong throughout the melt. Lavender was in the background the entire time as well. Bergamot and pink sugar flirted with eachother and poked their heads out at random times throughout the melt. Yummy!

Scent Strength: 2.5/3

Scent Throw: >3/3 This filled the entryway, kitchen/dining area, office, and most of the living room. Wow-ee!

Melting Power: 4/5 Half of a chunk lasted for a little over 6 hours.

Repurchase: Yes! Such a pleasant mix of earthy, floral, and musk. I was hoping this would be a hit, and I was happy to find out how much of a hit it was!

Rosegirls - Wildberry Cheesecake Rolls

Scent Description: Wildberries, blueberries, cheesecake, sugar cookie dough.

Date Received: April 24, 2016

Weight Melted: 0.6 oz

Location of Warmer:  Kitchen, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 4/5 Authentic cheesecake mixed with a berry & sweet cookie dough concoction.

Warm Sniff: 2/5 Uh... I don't know what happened to this when it melted. First I got some very fantastic berries, then some sweet cake, then cheesecake... then the very fake smelling cheesecake I'm used to from my cheesecake blends. I was rather disappointed.

Scent Strength: 1/3

Scent Throw: 1.5/3 This filled half of the kitchen/dining area...

Melting Power: ?/5 I couldn't smell it for long enough to get an accurate reading, and I wasn't about to stick around in the kitchen the entire time to see how the tart performed. I'd say I at least got one hour of scent. Beyond that, no guarantee.

Repurchase: No. It's probably for the best. I can't keep adding vendors and scents to my list. My poor wallet can't handle it. :)

Rosegirls - Wild Heart

Scent Description: Gardenia, soft vanilla, Spring Renewal (fresh floral, fruits)

Date Received: April 24, 2016

Weight Melted: 0.8 oz

Location of Warmer: Kitchen, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 4/5 Gentle gardenia with a hint of vanilla and the pleasant aroma of a fruit market. 

Warm Sniff: 4/5 No surprises once melted. The gardenia was perhaps a bit stronger.

Scent Strength: 1.5/3

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

Melting Power: 4/5 Half a chunk lasted for about 7 hours.

Repurchase: Yes! This was quite a pleasant homey scent. I'm not a large fan of floral scents but when I do find ones I like, I tend to keep them around to remelt and repurchase.

Lasting Scent Candles - Lavender Confections

Scent Description: Lavender, cookies and frosting.

Date Received: April 8, 2016

Weight Melted: 0.7 oz

Location of Warmer: Living room, in tealight warmer.

Cold Sniff: 5/5 Sweet and delectable bakery style lavender.

Warm Sniff: 5/5 No surprises here.

Scent Strength: 1/3

Scent Throw: >3/3 This filled the entire living room, sun room, hallway, and part of the kitchen/dining area.

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

Repurchase: Yes! I've already melted through the rest of my tart cup and wish I had more! Surprising, really, because I don't typically melt bakery scents while it's hot. We've been keeping the ACs completely off in the house and it's slightly unbearable. Only slightly. It's worth not having a $500 electricity bill, though. :)

Stop & Chat: June 9-17

Ark: Survival Evolved has officially been on Steam for one year. Of course, it's still in Early Access/Alpha/Whatever-you-want-to-call-it which means it isn't technically released, but that's not important. My main point is, I've been playing this game for about a year now, and that past year has absolutely flown by for various reasons. I think this post will be quite short as there's not much I can talk about.

Lasting Scent Candles - Harmony

Scent Description: Citrus, lavender, tropical aromas.

Date Received: April 8, 2016

Weight Melted: 0.8 oz

Location of Warmer: Kitchen, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 3.5/5 Very heavy on the citrus and tropical, with a light backdrop of sweet lavender.

Warm Sniff: 3.5/5 No surprises once melted, though the lavender became a little stronger.

Scent Strength: 2/3

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

Melting Power: 5/5 I got about 10 hours from this melt.

Repurchase: Yes! This was a pleasant, uplifting scent with just enough soothing qualities to it to make me reach for it again.

Candles From the Keeping Room - Chocolate Lavender

Scent Description: None available.

Date Received: February 2016

Weight Melted: 0.9 oz

Location of Warmer: Guest room, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 4/5 An intriguing blend of chocolate and lavender mixed with something else that's a mix of musky and creamy.

Warm Sniff: 4/5 No surprises once melted. The chocolate is more of a milk chocolate variety. The lavender is sweet. A surprisingly pleasant blend.

Scent Strength: 2/3

Scent Throw: >3/3 This filled the guest room, entryway, hallway, part of the kitchen/dining area, and office.

Melting Power: 4/5 This lasted for about 6 and a half hours.

Repurchase: Yes! In fact, I already did repurchase this scent, albeit from a different vendor.  If Carol offers this scent the next time I'm looking to buy from her, I will definitely pick some up.

Haul: Doorihanji in Insa-dong!

See that piece of Hanji above? I made that with the items I am about to show you. This store even has an online storefront for those who are curious: doorihanji.co.kr. It's all in Hangul, of course, but using Google Translate has helped me navigate the page enough to find prices. Looking at the page, though, I realize that I definitely get a cheaper price in store. I know I did not pay the price on the website for my paper.

Anyways, on to what I got! I will try and include the prices I paid. I even have a handwritten itemized receipt. The only problem is my receipt is in Hangul, and it's not written big enough for a translator app to pick up on. Sooo.... I might be guestimating on some of these items! :) (But Liz, why don't you just learn Korean? Shhh, I am. I still don't know enough to understand what I'm reading)

Vintage Chic Scents - Going Hollywood

Scent Description: Strawberry coconut cream marshmallow zucchini bread.

Date Poured: February 8, 2016

Weight Melted: 0.9 oz

Location of Warmer: Living room, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 4/5 Sweet and creamy strawberries with just a hint of coconut. No ZB to be found.

Warm Sniff: 4/5 Zucchini bread showed up as this melted, but it wasn't the icky tortilla chip ZB!! YAY! The end result was a creamy strawberry & coconut base sprinkled with sweet & soft bread.

Scent Strength: 1/3

Scent Throw: 1/3 This filled some of the living room.

Melting Power: <3/5. I wasn't in the living room for too much of the day while melting this, but I did notice that it did not throw very far nor did the scent last long. I noticed that the scent had died off before my tealight warmer burned out.

Repurchase: No. :( Bummer, because I finally found a ZB that didn't make me want to hurl my warmer out the window. The performance wasn't very strong. I'll melt another chunk of this in a different location to see if that helps, but for now it's a non-repurchase.

Sniff My Tarts - Pink Fairy Dust/Ice Cream Scoop Bread/Lavender Berry

Scent Description: "SMT Blend"/creamy vanilla, almond, sugar cane, cake batter/the combination of fruits and floral.

Date Received: March 7, 2016

Weight Melted: 0.9 oz

Location of Warmer: Kitchen, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 3/5 A very slight wax tone to it. A little ice cream, a little cake batter. Just a hint of lavender berry. No hint of pink fairy dust.

Warm Sniff: 4/5 The fairy dust is just so slightly there. I wish it were more prominent, but this still turned into a lovely blend. Sweet lavender and ice cream with just a hint of fairy dust. Overall a very light scent

Scent Strength: 1/3

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

Melting Power: 3/5 This lasted about 5 hours.

Repurchase: Yes! Even with how light the blend was, it smelled nice and was unique from other scents I've melted, enough so that I wouldn't mind repurchasing.

Haul: Beezy Tarts March 2016

Ah, Beezy. The vendor whose wax I seemed to always get in destashes but never ordered directly from.
This year I aimed to change a lot of my previous experiences with vendor wax and ordered directly from said vendors. Sniff My Tarts was one of those vendors. Beezy is another.

I placed this order on March 6 and it shipped on May 9. A nine week TAT (technically within the stated TAT of 35-40 business days) that felt longer than it actually was. I think it's just because I was worried about missing the package and it being sent back. Our mail center only holds mail for so long before it's returned, making it important that we check mail frequently.

I've had his wax sitting in front of me for about 3 weeks now, so I think I should finally get to posting about it, yes?

Stop & Chat: June 6-8 - Coex Aquarium

Monday was an exciting day for M and I. We went to the Coex aquarium, which is a 20 minute drive from our house!

The entrance to the aquarium is in the middle of Coex mall, which is a  basement level mall that sprawls several city blocks and lies underneath the Korea World Trade Center. This mall is unlike other ones we've been to in Korea in that it's very Westernized in design. Each store has its own set of walls and doors, versus in other malls where entire sections of the mall are completely open and one vendor/store melds into the next seamlessly. That plus the massive hallways made us feel like we were back in the States. I think I've touched on this before, but Korea is a very trusting country. While we were in Dongdaemun there were several times where we were left alone with merchandise or saw a closed stall with items still on display. At the electronics market, M and I were left alone in the middle of a computer parts store so the owner could go pick up an item we had just bought. M and I have talked several times about how this is completely different from back home, and it's nice to not feel like wherever we go we're being watched as if we have bad intentions.

Stop & Chat: May 31-June 5 - Dongdaemun Night Market & Midnight Gaming

This post is part gaming/tech talk, part Korea tourism. Which part is which? I don't know just yet. I'm still typing this up. :P

Tuesday I spent the day continuing to clean. At least, I think that's what I did. I honestly can't remember, and I just checked with M and he has no recollection, either. Perhaps the reason for our lapse in memory will become apparent in a little bit.

Sniff My Tarts - Sweet Lavender Coconut

The two on the left... I deleted my picture of this tart. I'm all sorts of scatterbrained lately.

Scent Description: None available.

Date Received: April 26, 2016

Weight Melted: 1.0 oz

Location of Warmer: Living room, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 5/5 A very sweet and creamy lavender. No coconut on cold sniff.

Warm Sniff: 5/5 The coconut only slightly came out. If I didn't know it was there I would never have noticed it.

Scent Strength: 1.5/3

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

Melting Power: 3/5 I gout about 5.5 hours of scent from one tart.

Repurchase: Probably not. The coconut wasn't strong enough to warrant me picking up this blend for any unique qualities it might offer.

Band of Bloggers - Vol. 6/June 2016

Welcome to the June edition of the Band of Bloggers!

We hope you have been enjoying this little monthly conversations of ours, as much as we enjoy having them. As always, we hope you will join in this month and chat with us.

I can't quite believe that we are officially at the half-way mark of 2016. I don't know about you but the past two months felt especially whirl-windy to me. In Singapore, June is the month to slow down and relax. All the schools are out and you can almost feel the country heave a collective sigh of relief. What are your summer plans, are you doing anywhere fun with family and friends? I am looking ahead to a month of packed weekends! A good friend of mine is getting married in early July and I am going to be a bridesmaid for the first time! We just did the dress fittings and we are getting deep into the final details for the big day!

Of course, with all the rushing around and the summer heat, hydration is going to be key to keeping healthy and glowing. I drink eight glasses of water on a regular basis (keeping a huge bottle on my desk helps) and my favourite drink is an ice(cold) lemon tea! Not surprisingly, I love tea-related scents as well. I find tea scents are such a subtle way to keep the room smelling fresh and feeling cool (does that make sense?).

And so with all that rambling, my question to you is what are your favourite drinks and drink scents? Do they correspond like mine?

Oooh, good question Michelle! I do find that I enjoy tea scents, though probably not as much as I enjoy drinking tea. I enjoy coffee as well, but that's an iffy thing in wax form. With Summer rearing its head I've found myself melting fizzy drink scents. So I suppose they only partially correspond, as I try not to drink too much soda and I don't melt a lot of coffee scents. You bet your butt when I find a good coffee blend I will be melting it, though!

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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.

Candles From the Keeping Room - Sea Mist and Lavender

Scent Description: A sea mist mixed with lavender.

Date Received: February 2016

Weight Melted: 1.1 oz

Location of Warmer: Kitchen, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 4/5 A clean type scent. Salty, herbal lavender. I think I automatically associate anything sea salt with detergent/clean because that's what all of my cleaning supplies smelled like growing up.

Warm Sniff: 4/5 No surprises when melted.

Scent Strength: 2/3

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

Melting Power: 4/5 This lasted for about 6 hours.

Repurchase: Yes! I'm a lavender fan, and now I've found a clean lavender blend to get me hyped for house cleaning!... why am I excited about this? What is wrong with me?

Candles From the Keeping Room - Treasures of the Orient

Scent Description: Sultry and complex, a scent reminiscent of mulled pomegranate and rich spices of the Far East are imported into your home. Grassy orange and almond top-notes, complemented by middle notes of creamy plum, sassafras and jasmine, then balanced with base-notes of powdery musk and sugary dried fruit.

Date Received: February 2016

Weight Melted: 0.9 oz

Location of Warmer: Kitchen, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 4/5 It was an interesting, musky scent.

Warm Sniff: 4/5 I'll be frank. It's been almost 3 weeks since I melted this, and I did not write any notes on how it smelled once it melted. I just remember that it smelled very Christmas appropriate, and I liked it.

Scent Strength: 1/3

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

Melting Power: 4/5 This melt lasted for about 7 hours.

Repurchase: Yes! I very much enjoyed it, even if I can't remember specifics about the scent... LOL