Stop & Chat: August 29-30 Quickie - World of Warcraft Legion Invasions

The 28th I actually got the cleaning done that I wanted to. Since then I've been playing quite a lot of World of Warcraft. The expansion pack is a few hours from going live as I type this, so I've been participating in the pre-expansion pack content.

Beezy Tarts - French Lavender & Honey

Scent Description: A dupe of the popular Bath & Body Works scent.

Date Received: May 17, 2016

Weight Melted: 0.9 oz

Location of Warmer: Kitchen, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 5/5 This is one of my favorite scents from Bath and Body Works. How could I not like it in authentic wax form?

Warm Sniff: 5/5 No surprises once melted. I was hit with some surprisingly strong memories from April/May 2014 while melting this, which I'm not sure if I should be happy or sad about. It was a difficult time because M was gone, but it was a good time because I grew a lot as a person.

Scent Strength: 1/3 This was surprisingly light, given how strong I feel the BBW version is. Not bad, but I was surprised.

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

Melting Power: 5/5 I got about 10 hours of scent from half a tart cup. Score!

Repurchase: Yes! I'm glad I picked up two of this!

Glitterati - Plum Delicious/Tea & Cakes

Scent Description: Plums, strawberry, hints of peaches and apple, sweet vanilla, rich red berries/none available.

Date Received: June 22, 2016

Weight Melted: 0.6 oz

Location of Warmer: Kitchen, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 4/5 A faintly sweet and fruity tea blend. Hints ever so slightly at what could be bakery. It almost seems like a sophisticated perfume.

Warm Sniff: 4/5 All of the notes soften up and meld together, but it's pretty much the same scent. This made for a nice backdrop while I cleaned the house.

Scent Strength: 1/3

Scent Throw: 2.5/3 This filled the kitchen/dining area, office, and most of the hallway.

Melting Power: 3/5 I got about 5 hours of scent from the quarter chunk I melted.

Repurchase: Yes indeedy! I will probably melt a little more next time just to make sure this throws further and melts a little longer. Bad Liz! You have too much wax to be skimping out on your melts like this!

Stop & Chat: August 26-28

See that squinty eye? Bunny's not amused with my constant picture taking.

We had a lovely surprise roll in on Friday: cooler weather! I woke up Friday morning to a text from M, telling me to open up the house windows. I checked the weather and it was 70F out! It felt ah-may-zing!

Haul: Etude House August 2016

This is a prime example of why samples are awesome, both for consumers and businesses. In my last haul post I mentioned receiving a freebie of the Toning White C skincare set. I loved it so much I went back and bought full sizes in the skincare set. Thus, this haul!

The price breakdown of each product will be a little different. I will share the price in USD found on the international Etude House storefront, the price I pay here in Korea in both Won and USD, as well as the sale pricing I paid on the particular day I went to the store. That's a lot of numbers and I don't blame you if you think it's too much information, but I think it's good to include all of this information, both for other people and for my own records. This blog doubles as a personal diary, after all. ;)

Another side note, the English translations of each products' purpose might not flow very well. I still included it so you could get an idea of each products' purpose.

Let's move on to what I got... even though you can see it all right here. Shh, we all know you're just here for the pictures. :P

Lasting Scent Candles - Caribbean Cupcake

Scent Description: Island fruits, buttery cake batter.

Date Received: April 8, 2016

Weight Melted: 0.9 oz

Location of Warmer: Living room, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 4/5 A pleasing, tropical cake blend that is perfect for the end of summer heat!

Warm Sniff: 4/5 No surprises once this was melted. Well... there was a surprise, but not in the scent that was presented to me.

Scent Strength: 2.5/3

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

Melting Power: ?/5 More on this in just a moment.

Repurchase: Unfortunately, no. While this was melting I noticed a developing headache that only got worse as time went on. After some troubleshooting, I theorized that my headache was due to the wax. After some trial and error (and some much regretted attempts at melting this scent again) I can conclude that something about this scent gives me migraine level headaches. It's been several days since I last tried to melt this tart, and I'm still dealing with the aftereffects. I'm really bummed because 1. I really loved this scent, and 2. I had finally eradicated my headaches for several weeks before melting this.

I've never had wax that's given me a headache before, so I hope that this was just a one-off thing and I haven't unleashed a beast on my sinuses and brain.

Stop & Chat: Hamster Update

Bunny doesn't like to stay still so she's never in focus.

It's so amazing to see how the hamsters have warmed up to M, me, and life in our household. It's also fun to notice the differences between their personalities, although Hammy is still undergoing some changes.

Olde Primitive Treasures - Buttered Blackberry Jam Bear Claws

Scent Description: None available.

Date Received: March 1, 2016

Weight Melted: 2.2 oz

Location of Warmer: Living room, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 4/5 A nice blackberry bakery scent with a hint of what could be chocolates and syrup.

Warm Sniff: 1/5 I can't say I got much once this was melted. It had a very fake vanilla note that some vanilla/cake scents tend to have.

Scent Strength: 0/3 I couldn't smell it to tell you how strong it is.

Scent Throw: 0/3 It didn't throw. At all. I had to shove my nose into my wax dish to smell anything, and then I only got that fake cake/vanilla note.

Melting Power: 0/5 If it can't throw or perform, how can it have any melting power? I did not let this melt for very long at all before I dumped it.

Repurchase: Sadly, no. I don't think I've had wax perform this badly before. I'm glad this wasn't the first tart I tried from OPT, otherwise I would have never ordered again.

Glitterati - Lavender/Ice Cream Scoop Bread

Scent Description: A well-rounded herbal scent of lavender blossoms/none available.

Date Received: June 22, 2016

Weight Melted: 0.5 oz

Location of Warmer: Living room, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 3.5/5 Crunchy bakery mixed with herbal lavender. I was a bit apprehensive at how crunchy the bakery smelled.

Warm Sniff: 4/5 The crunchiness toned down and the rest of those ice cream notes helped taper down those iffy notes. This was a pleasant non-metallic herbal lavender and sweet bread!

Scent Strength: 2/3

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

Melting Power: 4/5 I got a little over 6 hours of scent from 1/5 of a chunk. Why am I cutting my chunks so small? Probably because I've bought into the Glitterati hyper and want to get the most mileage out of my unicorn wax. LOL

Repurchase: Yes! I'll probably buy this in a full bag the next time my name comes up on the customs list. (Note to self 1 year from now: buy full bag of this.)

Orly - Cupcakes and Unicorns over Etude - #21

Direct sunlight.

 I can't take a dark cream and not layer something shimmery, glittery, and/or sparkly over it! That's just not my style.

Orly Cupcakes and Unicorns is a clear based layering polish with tiny duochrome flakes that range between gold, pink, magenta, and orange. Mixed in are some red bar glitters as well.

Indirect sunlight.

It's hard to quantify how many layers this is. While I applied to each nail only once, I had to pat the glitters on in thick layers to get all of the bar glitter to come off of my brush. Anyone who messes with big glitters knows what I'm talking about. Taking the application style into consideration, this was nothing out of the ordinary. I did not put a top coat over this, and it dried surprisingly smooth with some nice shine to it. I'm used to glitters like this needing a top coat.

Vintage Chic Scents - The Blob

Scent Description: Pomegranate blackberry marshmallow

Date Poured: February 8, 2016

Weight Melted: 0.8 oz

Location of Warmer: Living room, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 4.5/5 A super sweet concoction with just a little hint of tart blackberries to give it a bite.

Warm Sniff: 4.5/5 No surprises here. You know, I thought I was moving away from sweet scents. I can see now that is very much not the case.

Scent Strength: 1.5/3

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

Melting Power: 4/5 I got about 6 hours of scent from a quarter rose.

Repurchase: Yup! If I ever get back to consistently melting. I feel like I've made no dents in my stash this summer. Why, then, did I buy from TBG? Because I have no self control and I was reaching the end of a month and had money leftover from my 'allowance.' I'm very good at making adult decisions. LOL

Etude House - #21

Direct sunlight.

This lovely color from Etude is probably my favorite out of the colors I picked up in my haul. Not only is the formula great, the color makes my heart bleed. I think it's because this is a vampy shade and that seems to be big in the Fall.

Indirect sunlight.

This polish could almost be called a jelly, if you're able to apply a layer thinly and evenly enough. I wouldn't call it that, however, as I'm not quite able to get that first layer to apply evenly.

These pictures have two coats and no top coat. As you can see, it levels out nicely and has a beautiful shine to it.

Etude House - #50

Direct sunlight

This nail polish was an absolute nightmare to photograph, but oh honey was it worth it. 40 photos and this is the only one that shows the polish's true potential.

Etude House's #50 is a navy blue based nail polish with tiny duochrome flecks that range between magenta, purple, and blue. In the picture I used three coats and no top coat, so this polish is slightly less opaque than Etude's other nail polish offerings. The layers even out beautifully, however, and does not leave the nail feeling thick. The formula was great, with no pooling, gloppyness, or weird bubbles and clumps. This gets an A+ in my book!

Stop & Chat: August 16-19 - Garden 5, EMart, IPark... Everywhere

I got a very special package on Tuesday that I will be blogging about soon. In any case, Tuesday was spent waiting for that package. I'm actually disappointed in myself. I spent so much time worried about that package that I didn't really do anything. I watched YouTube all day and played the various Halo games with my siblings. Technology is so awesome, so long as you don't become completely entrenched in it.

Anyways, on to the rest of my week!

Willow Metals - Deep Purple Amethyst Studs

After Julie's post about Willow Metals, I couldn't help but meander my way to Heather's Etsy store and take a peek myself. Imagine my pleasure when I saw this lovely set of earrings for the low cost of $19!

These earrings have 5mm African Amethyst cabochons set in a sterling silver bezel. As Julie pointed out in her post, these are a comfortable wear.

I also have to take some time to gush over the packaging. The earrings came in a bubble mailer that had a sprinkling of lavender and rosebuds in it, leaving everything smelling absolutely divine. Within the mailer was this little package with a simple yet beautiful wrapping of tissue paper and yarn. Within that bag was the purple cloth drawstring you can see in the top picture, which had the earrings within. Between each layer (except the one between purple drawstring and earrings) was a healthy coating of bubble wrap. I appreciate all the care taken to make sure these earrings got to me in South Korea in one piece. I will definitely be buying from Willow Metals again in the future!

Have you checked out Willow Metals yet?

Etude House - #83

Indirect sunlight.

Etude House's #83 is a bright blue with a world of application issues.

In the shade.

 Pictured is two coats with no top coat. I had issues with the layers not leveling out properly and the polish looked gloppy in some areas. To its credit, the polish is incredibly pigmented, but I think that lends itself to the polish's inability to level out. I have yet to try this with a topcoat as I don't actually have a topcoat that I like at the moment, but I'm hoping that once I do the issues with the formula won't be as noticeable on the nail.

Still a gorgeous color, though!

Sniff My Tarts - Jack Frost/Candy Cane/Winter Green

Scent Description: Creamy mint, vanilla/Christmas candy canes/cool, crisp notes that will export you to the forests of the frozen alps.

Date Received: March 7, 2016

Weight Melted: 0.8 oz

Location of Warmer: Living room, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 5/5 Candy canes, strong mint, and the hint of one of my favorite hard candies? Yes, please!

Warm Sniff: 5/5 This swayed between a candy cane blend and a generic minty blend. The wintergreen continued to be a background player, making this a very minty, very cool weather kind of melt. The vanilla toned down some of that typical minty bite, but not so much that it lost its cool. Hehehehe. See what I did there?

Scent Strength: 2.5/3

Scent Throw: 3/3 This filled the entire living room and some of the bedroom.

Melting Power: 4/5 I got about 7 hours of scent from one chunk.

Repurchase: Yaaas! Sorry, I've been watching a lot of Nikkie Tutorials. This was a perfect melt for a day where it wasn't too hot for a warmer yet still hot enough to make one wish for cooler days. I may or may not have broken out my Fall box early. It's sitting next to my living room warmer, taunting me with its promises of cooler days and more wax melting. I haven't melted anything from this box yet, but each day I'm tempted a little more. Please forgive me, Deb!

Etude House - #25

Indirect sunlight.

 The first of my Etude polishes, this is an interesting color. I picked it up thinking it was purple, but now that I've worn it and photographed it I've noticed it's very nudish. Maybe mauve? You tell me. LOL

Direct sunlight.

In the shade.

This is one polish I love, but the formula can be a bit tricky to work with. It levels out nicely, but is prone to bubbles as you can probably tell in the pictures. There is a small window to apply the next layer of polish. Apply too soon and the polish will be streaky and uneven. Apply too late and the polish gets gloppy. If you let the first layer dry beyond that glop timeframe it'll be fine, but it takes a few minutes. If you apply nail polish as fast as I do, it can become inconvenient when the polish doesn't dry to the right consistency on your timeline. It's a relatively minor problem but I'm picky, dangit! All of the pictures above feature two coats and no top coat, so you can see that the polish is incredibly shiny.

I would say this is a repurchase, but the logical part of my brain knows how long it'll take me to go through this bottle of polish and I have yet to repurchase a nail polish in the 6 years I've been consistently following nail polish/nail art.

Stop & Chat: August Happenings

I know, I'm a horrible photographer. How dare I take a vertical picture!!

Something miraculous has happened with the weather today and instead of it being 33+ Celsius in the house, it's stayed below 31. As a result, the office actually feels quite nice. So I'm taking this opportunity to catch up on my blogging and breathe some life into this place. It's not forgotten, just very much put on the back burner. I feel like everything I post has a complaint about the weather. I would apologize for that, but I'm really not sorry. When you're spending $400+ a month on electricity and your house is still above 85 degrees you'd complain, too.

Haul: Etude House July 2016

Oh, girl. Have I got a basket of complaints for you! Not about these products. Just about life and hot-as-balls-temperatures and photography woes. How am I supposed to take pictures when it is constantly overcast/raining? How am I supposed to write out a blog post when just thinking about sitting in the office makes me sweat in all the wrong places? My temporary solution has turned into bringing out the laptop. Which involved stealing it from M's work bag LOL. He is not a happy camper today. Anyways, that rant is for another post and another time.

Today I'm going to talk to you guys about my lovely haul from Etude House! This was the same store I had the lovely experience I talked about in this Stop & Chat post. Just thinking about it gives me (and my face) a warm glow.

Anyways, let's move on to what I got!

Band of Bloggers - Vol. 8/August 2016

Welcome to the August 2016 edition of Band of Bloggers! Record temperatures across the globe have us feeling the heat and looking forward to Autumn, especially those delicious scents that make our homes feel warm and cozy. 

This month we are sharing our favorite fall blend and also the vendor we would turn to first to order this blend. 

In the non-wax related category, we're each recommending a book that we have read and loved. 

  

Please join in and comment with your number one fall blend and definitely give us your best book recommendations!

My favorite fall blend would have to be any blend with Balsam and Cedar. I melted it for several fall seasons after my mother and I stocked up on the candles from Bath and Body Works at their Semi-Annual sale. What, they were $2.50 for a 3-wick and 25¢ for the tiny candles! You can't tell me you wouldn't stock up if a scent you liked was that cheap. ;)

White Fang by Jack London

"In the desolate, frozen wilds of northwest Canada, White Fang, a part-dog, part-wolf cub soon finds himself the sole survivor of a litter of five. In his lonely world, he soon learned to follow the harsh law of the North—kill or be killed.

But nothing in his young life prepared him for the cruelty of the bully Beauty Smith, who buys White Fang from his Indian master and turns him into a vicious killer—a pit dog forced to fight for money.

Will White Fang ever know the kindness of a gentle master or will he die a fierce deadly killer?

A classic adventure novel detailing the savagery of life in the northern wilds. Its central character is a ferocious and magnificent creature, through whose experiences we feel the harsh rhythms and patterns of wilderness life among animals and men."

This book is an oldie (published in 1906) but a heartwarming story in its own little way. I have read this book several times since my first reading in 2011 when it was assigned for one of my classes. Since then I have picked up a very old copy of the book from the thrift store and cherished it as if it were a children's tale. It is, of course, not a children's tale, but it's one of those stories that has stuck with my since the day I read it.

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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.

Haul: Candles From the Keeping Room July 2016

This haul wasn't exactly planned. I happened to be on Facebook when Carol posted that the website was open, and after I consulted my handy blogging group of friends I decided to go ahead and place an order. I am in need of Fall scents, after all.

This order was placed on July 16 and it shipped on July 17. Carol and I had a pleasant exchange after she had some difficulties creating her shipping label for my purchase, and she insisted that I let her know when my package arrived safely.

Let's get to looking at the lovely wax!

Stop & Chat: July 30 - August 1

Saturday M was off and I wanted to check out an arts and crafts market that I had heard about. So off we went to the local Garden 5. Except this time we went to a separate building of the establishment - the Garden 5 Life.