The Bathing Garden - Illusions of the Labyrinth

Scent Description: Mandarin, musk, sugar, and a woodsy violet.

Weight Melted: 1.1 oz

Location of Warmer: Kitchen, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 4/5 A delicious citrus and wood blend.

Warm Sniff: 4/5 A pleasant, soft mix of sweet, citrusy woods with an even gentler overlay of violets.

Scent Strength: 1/3 I almost poured this wax out early because I thought I couldn't smell it. Then, I went outside on the porch to grab something and noticed the scent as I came in. Fair warning to those of you who haven't melted this before! If you're in the room it's melting in, it's so gentle you won't notice it's there after a while. Leave the area and come back to double check and see if the scent is actually there.

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

Melting Power: 4/5 Two cubes lasted about 7 hours.

Repurchase: Yes! Such a soothing, gentle scent. I melted this in the middle of a five hour deep cleaning session and it really helped calm me down when I was getting overwhelmed.

The Bathing Garden - Evernight

Scent Description: Lavender and lilac are highlighted with a touch of eucalyptus and blended with soft woods, white musk, and sugary vanilla.

Weight Melted: 1.0 oz

Location of Warmer: Kitchen, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 4.5/5 I'm a huge lavender fan, so anything lavender usually has me swooning.

Warm Sniff: 5/5 The lavender and lilac take the edge off the eucalyptus and the soft, musky vanilla gets to poke its head through. The woody notes are slight, but they're just noticeable enough to satisfy the nose.

Scent Strength: 2/3

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

Melting Power: 4/5 Two cubes lasted about 7.5 hours.

Repurchase: Yes! I'm in love!

Stop & Chat: Quetzalcoatlus, The Great Escape, and Cleaning!

This ginormous bird is the Quetzal, or Quetzalcoatlus, one of my favorite dinosaurs on Ark: Survival Evolved. You can have a platform saddle, which lets you build an air base of sorts and carry other creatures, as demonstrated by our brand new spino! Deb asked me to show the Quetz so she can see it the next time I blog, and I'm not one to say no to showcasing stuff from my video games so I went right to the game and captured several screenshots!

Candles From The Keeping Room - Blueberry Pumpkin Patch

Scent Description: An autumn blend of fresh, farm picked blueberries and ripe pumpkins.

Date Received: July 26, 2016

Weight Melted: 0.7 oz

Location of Warmer: Kitchen, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 4/5 A delicious blend of blueberry muffins and pumpkins. I'm surprised I pick up a bakery note; it's nowhere in the scent description.

Warm Sniff: 5/5 Absolutely delectable and almost 100% authentic blueberries. They permeated the air and wriggled their way into my heart, boasting of green gardens and fields of pumpkins. There's something about the blueberry in this that kept me walking through the kitchen, asking for more. I burned three tealight candles to make doubly (triply?) sure all of the scent was gone.

Scent Strength: 2.5/3

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

Melting Power: 5/5 16 hours of scent from this little tart. Color me impressed!

Repurchase: Most definitely! This was a melted hit!

Fall Fun Series - The Bathing Garden Mummy Mademoiselle Sugar Scrub

I felt it would be too repetitive writing about the same body care item so soon after my haul post. As today has gone by, however, I've realized that this is really the only fall body care item that has really caught my eye lately.

Mummy Mademoiselle in sugar scrub form smells like sweet and creamy strawberries. When rubbed on the skin, it manages to exfoliate without leaving the skin red and irritated. I've always had issues with rough products and my skin, so to find something that isn't too scratchy is a wonder I cherish every time it happens. My body thanks Shannon every time I use it.

I use this sugar scrub on my face every three to four days and it helps keep my skin looking and feeling bright and rejuvenated. That gentle exfoliation means I could scrub my face right before date night with M and not look like a tomato.

I'm at a loss for further words so how about instead I share the links to the other blogs participating in this series so you can check out what fall body care items they are loving!

Amanda at Thrifty Polished

Angela at Angela Kay

Ashley at The Bohemian Sassenach

Hayley at Polished At Heart

Jaybird at The Candle Enthusiast

Jessica at The Meltdown Blog

Julie at The Redolent Mermaid

Sandra at Finger Candy

Stephanie at Imperfectly Painted

Sunnee at Our Sunny Life

Haul: The Bathing Garden August 2016

This might be a bit out of season now that Halloween has passed, but my experience with Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas melts is they're fairly interchangeable in the cooler months. That works out if you seem to've fallen behind on melting.

This was a fairly monumental order for me because I finally decided to bite the bullet and try out some of Shannon's much praised bath and body!

I placed my order on August 4th and it shipped on September 15th, within her stated turn around time.

Candles From the Keeping Room - Sweet Harvest Moon

Scent Description: None available.

Date Received: July 26, 2016


Weight Melted: 0.7 oz

Location of Warmer: Kitchen, in tealight warmer

Cold Sniff: 2/5 One of those weird fake chocolatey melts with a hint of something leafy.

Warm Sniff: 2.5/5 The chocolate was still there, but it was subdued by the smell of cinnamon and fake leaves, kind of like fake scented holiday decor you might get from a craft store. It definitely wasn't my cup of tea, though.

Scent Strength: 2/3

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

Melting Power: ?/5 I only let it go for about two hours before calling it quits and switching the wax out.

Repurchase: Nope. I really wasn't a fan of this and tossed the other half of the corn. Ah well, you win some and you lose some.

Stop & Chat: Thanksgiving Preparation!

What a surprise. Ark has made its way back into my gaming rotation. I'm getting ahead of myself, though, so let's backtrack to last week!

Band of Bloggers - Vol. 11/November 2016

Sweet, lovely November. Halloween has come and gone (hope you didn't gorge on candy!), the election is about to be over (it feels like it has been years!) and now, we're (technically) in the full swing of the holiday season! Thanksgiving will be here in just a few short weeks, and before you know it, it will be all Christmas all the time. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year.

The Band of Bloggers question for November is:

What does your ideal Thanksgiving day and table look like? What are you eating? Any candles or tarts burning/melting in the room? Who fills your table? Are you stressed? What does your house look like? How's the weather? Give us the deets!

Thanksgiving day is spent with people I love and care about. Turkey and ham are roasting in the oven. Pies are laid out on the buffet table. Mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, corn, and so much more than I can list or care to eat are there as well. I guess cranberry jam is there, though I don't like it. There are fancy place mats and dishes laid out on an expanded table that accommodates 10+ people. Anything scented like Leaves from B&BW scents the house alongside the wonderful aromas of food. The people are rather vague in my mind. M is there, but we could be at a table with his family or mine and I would be equally happy. This year several families are looking at getting together for Thanksgiving and having our own get together. If that falls through, M and I will still open our house up to his coworkers who are single or separated from family while here.

I would probably be stressed, as I always am during large gatherings. Should I be helping? Did I make this right? Did I remember so-and-so's name correctly? Is M okay? Did I offend anyone? Am I supposed to be doing something else? Is that little one okay cutting up the turkey? Did the other little one get her/himself in trouble playing by the glassware? What was that loud bang? *insert screams of confusion*

Our house has always been empty on Thanksgiving, except for 2013 and 2014. In 2013 we got together with our coworkers and played football. In 2014 I was home alone, as M was at AIT. So normally our house is pretty empty. It's also never decorated. This year is out of the ordinary. It's not only decorated, it should be full and bustling. Anyway, back to my answer. The house will start off nice and clean and set up to accommodate many people. It will be nicely decorated with fall -and leftover Halloween, let's face it- and just a little bit of winter/Christmas decor. The weather will be cold. I would prefer snow, but simply being cold is enough for me.

Let's see... Thanksgiving has always been the first day that we would start playing Christmas tunes in the house, so that's probably what I would want playing. After we've finished eating, football is usually thrown on the TV while we enter into our comatose states. The end of the day would be spent cleaning so Black Friday could be spent decorating the house and putting up the tree. The past few years I've actually participated in some of the Black Friday shopping, so that might be a thing if I see something I'm interested in. Wait. I'm in Korea and Black Friday isn't a thing here. I'll wait for Cyber Monday instead. :) Works out better, anyway. I can deal with internet traffic instead of crowded lines and stores.

Last but not least, there have to be video games. When I was younger, I would always spend part of my Thanksgiving on UO with my friends, and we would do a mock Thanksgiving meal and run some sort of dungeon together. Probably Blighted Grove or a champion spawn (Deb, I'm totally catering to you by including all of these details :P). I would also take time to play some games on the XBox with my siblings. We would mostly play Halo together, or watch a movie... series... marathon... Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, usually.

There's my rather long and complicated answer. I think I switched between 'ideal' and 'what used to be my norm' for a lot of these answers. Oh well!

______________________________________

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.

Thank you and have a wonderful weekend!

Haul: Lush Korea September 2016

Lush restock time! I foolishly let my shampoo run out and had to use drugstore stuff for about a week, and my scalp is still hating me for it. I'm also slowly checking into indie vendors for a good shampoo & conditioner solution, but until I find something that works I'm going to have to keep going back to Lush. This particular haul was a little bit of restocking, little bit of trying new things, little bit of "hey Liz wants to spoil herself so let her buy some bubble bars, dammit!"