Review: The Melting Fairy Wax Co. Subscription Box #1 (Beta Tester)!

As I mentioned earlier in this post, I was contacted by the lovely people at The Melting Fairy Wax Co., a new wax subscription box service in beta testing mode, and they asked me if I wanted to test out their first box for them! Of course, I said yes!
[One thing I gotta mention...I wish I knew who I was talking to! I feel bad saying "lovely people, it sounds so informal! So, whoever you are, I'd love to know your name. :)]

Anywho, here's my unboxing of their first box! I apologize that this is up a few weeks after I received it, but with the madness of the holidays, everything sort of got pushed aside in my wax room to make space for wrapping paper, a mountain of tape, and gift tags! ;)

Please note, I did receive this box for free to test out by The Melting Fairy Wax Co., but all the thoughts and opinions on this post are my own!

I wanted to showcase this company's adorable label, so here it is! I love how colorful it is. The fairy is simple, yet sticks with the name of the company. Very cool!

Right off the bat, when I got the package, I thought, WOW, HOW TINY! I wondered how everything could have possibly fit in there. When I opened this the package, I didn't expect all of my goodies to fit in there, to be quite honest. One thing that often gets lost in the shipping of wax is how it's packaged. We've all had that one package that came in shambles, right? Well, it's quite the opposite with this box. Everything was packaged very neatly and I sincerely appreciate that. Plus, as I got to thinking, less packaging = less chance for things to move around in transit = no broken wax = happy Lolo!

Now, as you can see from the above photo towards the left side of the box, everything else (besides one chunk which I will go into detail about below) came in foil wrappers like little cupcakes would as opposed to scent shots, clamshells, or other types of containers. I have to admit...I sort of loathe these foil wrappers. While they are quite dainty and cute appearance-wise, they are very messy to deal with. Even if you're trying really, really hard not to be, wax seems to get everywhere. I've tried twice to be very careful and it doesn't matter, wax ends up all over the place. Maybe in the future, these will be phased out, but they were really convenient for shipping in such a small package. AHHH, conflicted!

At the top of the package was a little note explaining the company's beta testing, as well as this month's custom blend, Hansel & Gretel's Cinnamon Buttercream Cookie Crumbles (what a mouthful!). I like the detailed notes about melting, the howto's, basically. The owners recommend using a 17-24 watt melter, which is perfect because, as you know, I swear by my 24 watt hot plate. They also have a Twitter page, so follow them here if you'd like!

All of the wax came in small bags with a sticky-flaps for easy closing and opening. Here's the month's featured chunk, Hansel & Gretel's Cinnamon Buttercream Cookie Crumbles. One of the chunky pieces fell off in transit, just one! I stuck it back in its little wax crevice for the photo's sake. This scent smells amazing on cold sniff, and as you know, I'm not typically a bakery fan. I have smelled Hansel & Gretel's House blends in the past, and if memory serves, it's a combination of graham crackers, buttercream, candied goodness...it's a very sweet scent overall. I think it's the addition of the cinnamon buttercream that makes this work so well for my nose. The cinnamon sort of cuts through all the bakery goodness and gives it more dimension. I swear I almost get a hint of coffee as a background note! The cookie in this chunk is a buttery one, but it's not so overpowering that it has that buttered popcorn type of smell. Really like this, can't wait to melt it!

I was asked to pick out 5 scents that I wanted to try. My first inclination was to search for anything peppermint, and I found just that: Peppermint Fluff, which is described as "a fun and fluffy pepperminty scent with notes of vanilla marshmallows, violet and white florals, and huckleberries." Generally, I think of peppermint fluff as mint and marshmallow, but WOW, what an unexpected description, amirite? Violet? White florals? I had to get this. On cold sniff, the peppermint is absolutely sweetened, but I can't tell if it's by the fluffiness of the vanilla marshmallow or the very light touch of a violet-y note in the background. After I was done sniffing this, I almost smelled a floral laundry detergent in my nostrils that took a while to go away. Weird, huh? I can't say definitively if I dig this based on cold sniff, so I will go into more detail once it's melted, but I'd give it about a 6.5/10 on cold sniff. It's nice, but not too overpowering....and still a strange mix I can't quite put my finger on!

Next, we have Apple Strudel. Seriously how can you go wrong with cinnamon and apples? That is one of my favorite scent combinations, so this was another no-brainer pick for me. Apple Strudel's description is "a simple and spicy blend of apples, sugar, cinnamon, and baked crust." Sugar and apples are the first notes I get here, with cinnamon and crust bringing up the background notes. In fact, there's only a slight hint of crust, which I like...y'all know I'm not a fan of crust in wax. I'd give this a 6/10 on cold sniff strength. I do like this scent and am looking forward to it.

Fall Festival is, by far, my favorite scent of the ones that I picked. YUM! It is described as "a fresh blend of sparkling citrus notes, fruity notes of macintosh apples, raspberries, and peaches, spicy notes of cinnamon and clove buds, sweet vanilla, and blush rose." Citrus? Absolutely! Orange is definitely the strongest note in this. On second sniff, I get raspberries, juicy and delicious. Apple? A little bit. Peaches? Sure, maybe. Cinnamon and clove buds? It's there, but it's not super strong. Vanilla? Not really, I mainly get sweetness from the fruits here. Blush rose? I could see how these scents could come together to mimic a rosey scent. Now, this is a bit weaker than the first two, with a 5/10 on cold sniff...I found myself really smelling hard to smell all of these notes!

Noticing a theme, here? Apple Berry Cinnamon is "a very well balanced borderline floral fragrance with notes of apple, berry, and cinnamon. Not too sweet, not too spicy, this scent is just right!" I give this a 6.5/10 on cold sniff as well. It's not overpowering, but it's still pretty strong. The apples and berries come together and do create a touch of floral notes, but you also get the cinnamon in there, too. A melange of scents that definitely belong together, this one is another strange one! I don't know if it's the combination of spices and multiple fruits creating a floral undertone, but it's there again. This time, I know I like the combo, though. For some reason, I think this would be good melted in the bathroom!

Okay...I lied. Autumn Harvest is my favorite scent of the ones I picked. I think this eeks out Fall Festival because it's stronger on cold sniff. I give this one a 7/10. It's much simpler, just "the perfect combination of all the fall scents we’ve come to love. It is a fresh and citrusy blend of orange, cinnamon, and clove." That's it! Orange, clove, cinnamon. Nothing more, nothing less. And it's amazing! I will say, the orange in this is much more fresh, almost like a citronella type of orangey smell. I am in love with orange and spice blends, and this one is really good.

Along with the scents I chose, I also got two sample scents. Xmas Cheer "is reminiscent of all things christmas. Spicy and woody notes blended with fresh sweet apples form the perfect balance of fresh and woody notes in this wonderfully christmas blend." This gets a 7/10 on cold sniff. It smells really lovely, not too much woodsiness, not too much apple and I do get a bit of a cinnamon type note in this, too. I will say that the woodsy notes are sort of musky, which is okay for me, but it might be borderline cologney for some people. Quite good, and medium-high scent strength on cold sniff!

Finally, we have Apple Butter Pie. ERMAHGERD. This smells fantastic! It's described as something that "will remind you of your grandma’s freshly baked apple pie! Tart apples, apple butter, sweet milk, cinnamon, and pie crust make up this fragrance." While it's not the strongest scent on cold sniff (6/10, IMO), you get both apples and the pie crust on first whiff. It smells so good, so authentic! Some apple pie scents from other vendors seem really artificial, but not this one. I am super impressed by this scent. I don't get any of the sugar milk, per the scent description (thank goodness, I hate milk scents), the cinnamon, apple goodness, and pie crust are all present and accounted for. YUM!

That's my unboxing and cold sniff reviews for The Melting Fairy Wax Co.'s December #1 Box! YAY! I am really looking forward to melting these ans giving you my thoughts, so be on the lookout for those. Have you signed up for the company's box? I'd love to know what you picked for your boxes!

Random Post: Merry Christmas, Waxy Friends!

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Josh, Freddo and I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas! YAY!!!!!!!!

I hope your day is filled with love, fun, and cheer! See you in a few days after the festivities, I can't wait to hear about your fun day!!

Random Picture Post: Non-Waxy Photos From the Last Few Weeks #8 (Food, Freddo, and Sky Edition)!

ONE MORE DAY, WOOHOO! Do you have any fun rituals or traditions you and your families do around the holidays? I'd love to know! :)

I have been collecting photos of things to show you all for about a month now, so I wanted to do the sharing now! After starting to view the photos from recently, I've noticed they are all of San Diego weather, food, and Freddo, LOL. Enjoy!

This is seriously one of the greatest ice creams I have ever tried. It tastes like a PB&J sandwich! YUM! You can only get ti at Target, and who knows how long it will be around.

This dog...he's so funny. He just started sitting right outside the door like this and I thought it was humorous. Like, why not come inside?! LOL, he wanted to sunbathe I guess.

Took this shot in Pacific Beach (a few miles away from our house) the day after it rained. Gorgeous palm trees in front of a beautiful blue sly!

These Candy Cane Tootsie Pops were another Christmas find from Target. Josh wasn't too sure, but I love them. They are quite tasty.

Freddo has been making it a habit of falling asleep in between my legs lately. It's adorable. This is us on our couch, sleeping while I have my Snuggie on. YES, I just said and OPENLY ADMITTED we BOTH own Snuggies. Don't knock it 'til you try it, friends. I thought they were the stupidest thing ever until I got one and now I'm obsessed. THEY ARE SO SOFT AND WONDERFUL.

This was the sky on Thanksgiving morning. Just lovely! Ignore the annoying cube in our next door neighbor's backyard....ugh, hate that thing.

We went with some friends a few weeks back to Buca di Beppo and got this enormous brownie to split among the 5 of us. The picture doesn't do its size justice...thing was massive!

Bought this Christmas tea on Amazon and I am currently obsessed. It's pretty spicy, but it's just really nice at the mid-day mark. Plus, it's for the Keurig! YAY!

...Freddo may or may not have gotten a costume (OR TWO) for Christmas. Here's his reindeer one! He only momentarily looked at us like, "WTF are you doing, humans?" LOL.

Another old picture, the first day of the Red Cup season at Starbucks with my momzy!

TOM THE TURKEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We went to Fiesta Island, which is an island/bonfire pit beachy type place right down the street from our house. From there, we could see this GIGANTIC peace sign Christmas decoration...so Josh and I went all around the neighborhood searching for it. HERE IT IS! Another picture that doesn't show the sheer sized of this bad boy...Fiesta Island is a few miles away and we could see this all the way from there!

Santa Freddo keeping watch!

Throwback! Christmastime two years ago, when Freddo fit into my brother's old PJs. AWWWWWWWWW.

Have you been Cronut (croissant/donut hybrid) crazy? I never thought much of them until I tried one....holy moly, these were amazing! I got them at a small deli/bakery by my mom's house. This is a honey glazed one....mmmmmm, Cronut...

Our new blender! Our old one crapped out on us (FINALLY, it was a sign that it died!), so we invested in a really good one that won't die every year. This is the Breville Hemisphere Control Blender. It's worth every penny if you blend a lot like we do!

Finally, I saw this on Facebook and laughed for about 2 hours about it. This is a screen grab from my phone, but you get the point. LOVE THE SWEDISH CHEF!!

Enjoy your Christmas eve, friends! <3

Haul: Up The Creek Scents Haul #2!

We're coming down to the Christmas wire, folks! I am so excited! What are your plans? We are having Christmas at our house this year and we are thrilled! I will be sure to post photos shortly after Christmas day! Again, I apologize for not posting so much lately (between blog posts AND comments on your blogs), it has been a madhouse this past few weeks!

Today, I have haul #2 from Up The Creek Scents! I had a couple of scents I wanted to repurchase, and when the shop opened up, I knew I needed to act fast. Hope you enjoy!

Now, it's silly, but I like when vendors attach notes in their packages. Shannon has beautiful handwriting, plus, look at that adorable stationary!

My samples! I always like to get a sense of how a vendor's serendipity is, but I have been so "off" of it lately, I didn't order it. Well, it's good to see it as a sample. Her serendipity is very nice!

Marshmallow Coffee Ice Cream is just that, creeeeamy. The coffee note almost overpowers it, but it's got a nice sweetness to it. Not my type of scent, so I passed this along.

Peppermint Marshmallows smells very sweet, too! In fact, I can't wait to get to melting these items to see how the marshmallow smells while warmer. The peppermint is a sweeter one. Apple Marshmallow Serendipity Bread is very unique! What a strange bunch of scents to put together! The bread note in this is the one that jumps out at me right away...without the bread, I think I'd like this more. I also gave this away since I don't care for bread scents!

I got one chunk muffin in Cotton Candy Twinkies. Love this scent! You really can't go wrong with anything cotton candy, in my opinion. This smells quite authentic on that end, but I only pick up cake notes, not Twinkie ones. It's okay, it may be different melted! I will get at least 4 melts out of this muffin!

Now, I wanted to get a bag of brittle in Funnel Cake since I melted it before and LOVED it. I mean, it was so, so good...I basically stalked the site to see when Shannon would reopen so I could buy more of this scent. It's so great. I also wanted to see if she could blend pink sugar and peppermint together, and she did! Pink Peppermint here is a combination of pink sugar and Twisted Peppermint, which is a Bath & Body Works dupe, so it's sweeter, in my opinion. We will see how it smells while melting, but I am excited for it!

Another scent that's pretty incredible is Shannon's Vanilla Bean Noel dupe, so I got it in a 4 pack. Yay! I also took a chance on Watermelon Patch, which smells AMAZING on cold sniff. I am really into watermelon scents lately. This will be perfect for spring.

Now, onto the tart cups!

• Red Lipstick: this smells like very sweet fruits, like strawberries and candies and cherries and sugar. Very femininely sweet. Not sure how I like it, but maybe it will warm up to my liking!
• Whipped Bear Claws: this is a very delicate bakery scent with cinnamon notes to it. Smells like almond and cinnamon and whipped cream. Yum!
• Pink Marshmallows: simply delicious. One of my favorites from the order on cold sniff. Looking forward to it!

• Raw Cake Batter: insane! It smells exactly like cake batter! YUM. I want to eat this. MMmmmm, I can only imagine how good this will smell while warming. Perfect for bakery lovers.
• Blue Moon: blueberry something, I can't place it. I actually *like* this one. JESSI, DID YOU HEAR ME?? I like another blueberry scent. It's your fault. :P
• Gingerbread Cupcakes: light spice mixed with tons of gingerbread and cupcakes. Nice! You even get a nice whipped frosting note in it, too.
• Hot Toddy: not my favorite hot toddy scent, I must admit. Something about it seems off to me. But, smells can be deceiving. I will melt this soon and report back!

• Confetti Cake: a huge favorite amongst UTC fans.Another winner! It smells like a freshly opened box of cake mix. UGH, all this cake is making me hungry. Delish and luscious!
• Pink Fluffy Pom Poms: pink sugar, cotton candy, and pomegranate, how can you say no to this?! Love this one, very sweet but I think I will like it with the pink sugar in there.
• Pumpkin Apple Butter: not spicy, all I get is apple from this. Still, it's pretty good.

• Cap'n Crunch Berries: another that I got on a whim. Another one I'm not convinved about on cold sniff. Fruit Loops and Crunch Berries scents are different, I need to get that into my head. I just don't know...the berry smells strange to me.
• Lemon Iced Tea: ahhhhhhhh, refreshing! You get both the tea note and the lemon note. Very lovely. Another winner!
• Caramel Lemon: okay, I HAD to get this based on the weird scent combination. Caramel and lemon?! WHAT?? It sounds weird, but strangely, smells great! Excited for it, too.
• Twinkies: I hate to say it, but I only smell wax on cold sniff. I get maybe the faintest hint of filling, but that's it. Maybe with cure time, more will come out while warmed.

There's my haul, friends! Have you tried Up The Creek Scents? What do you like from Shannon, and what sounds intriguing? :)

Wickless Wednesday: Our Christmas Decorations!

This post has been a long time comin', folks.
We have had our Christmas decorations up since Thanksgiving.
I have been dying to share them with you, but haven't found the time. Well, here they are! These are our Christmas decorations, inside and out (and a pretty big post!), so I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

I will start with the kitchen. We have this adorable 3-wick candle holder on the island in our kitchen with a festive candle inside (I think it's Spiced Cider now, but I switch them all the time). I love the way this fits into any Christmas theme, modern or classic!

We have had this table cloth since we've been living together, so almost 5 years. We have this one, which is more whimsical, and another that my grandma gave us as a gift, which is more classy. Gotta love tablecloths!

A new purchase for us this year, kissing snowman salt and pepper shakers! Aren't these cute?! I saw them on Amazon and we just had to buy them. I think they were only about $10! You can buy them here (though they cost a bit more now).

Josh bought the items seen here (a stick of pine cones, a stick of red berries, some artificial snow, and a strand of small Christmas lights) and put together this really nice looking Christmas berry vase! The first photo is without the lights, the second photo has the lights on! We put this on our little corner stand in the kitchen for cool Christmasy decoration.

We bought this shatterproof wreath from Target to throw up on the garage door in the kitchen. It might not be typical Christmas colors, but it really ties the room together. We've had lots of compliments on this, too! You can buy this here.

Finally, we have these insanely cute chair covers featuring Santa and Mrs. Claus' faces. AGGHHHH!! They are purely decorative, like most of these things, but TELL ME you hate them, I dare you!

Moving on to the living room! This is what we've got on our front door, on the inside. No, Freddo, it's not a toy. Simple, yet fun!

Josh had the brilliant idea to wrap our already existing movie posters to make them look like presents! HOW CREATIVE! It was such a good idea, and again, we've gotten tons of compliments on these. All of the wrapping is movie themed, of course. ;)

Our stockings, mine, Freddo's, and Josh's! We have a couple things on the mantle, our stocking holders, the snowman candle holders I featured in my Bath & Body Works haul a couple weeks ago, and a really cool sparkly and feathery owl Josh got me from Target.

The tree in all its glory! We got a noble fir for the first time ever, AND IT IS FREAKING HUGE. I'm telling you, we barely have any room for our furniture. As you can see, our new Christmas tree topper is YODA! YAY!!!

Here it is all lit! I love the way it looks this year!

And now, the outside decorations! We wanted a wreath for the front door, and since gold is my favorite color and nothing in the house is really gold, we got this. LOVE!

It has always been a dream of mine to wrap the garage with a big, huge bow, AND WE DID IT this year! It came out so neat looking! It looks like a gigantic present! Very fun!

When we lived at our condo, we had this lantern, but it never worked. Well, it works here! It's solar powered and quite festive. Hangs perfectly right outside the door.

We got these LED Christmas bulbs for our stairway. They change from white to color, and are pretty damn bright! We just switched out our normal walkway lights for these!

THE LIGHTS! When Josh's mom was alive, we always wrapped these poles for her to look like candy canes. They are perfect for that, huh!? They came out awesome along with the icicle lights. It just looks stunning, if I do say so myself.

You can sort of see the office window from here, they are in mid blink. We have them on the SPAZZY setting...okay, not really, but THEY GO FAST!

Our main attraction, THE SNOWMAN! YAY! Well, we put him out, and the next morning, I thought....."hey, honey, doesn't it look like the snowman if flipping people off???" AMIRITE??? I've had some friends tell me they thought the same, LOL! Purely unintentional by us! Anywho, this little guy is SO FREAKING SPARKLY it's insane. I just love it!

And there you have it! I'd love to see your decorations, if you're willing to share. Let me know what you think, and Merry Christmas, friends! <3