Lightning Round Reviews #28: Lake Providence Lodge Round-Up (P-Z)!

I'm back with part 2 of my Lake Providence Lodge wax melts round-up! Come and take a look!

Peppermint ~ Crisp, refreshing and strong! A true peppermint. 

Lake Providence Lodge's Peppermint
Cold Rating: 10/10
Lit Rating: 10/10
Throw Rating: 10/10
Overall Rating: 10/10; insane throw. Perfect and crisp, just like the essential oil. Must be a fan of true peppermint scents as this is the only scent to be had. Incredible nighttime melt. Smells SO FREAKING GOOD. Cut this baby in half for longevity. Lasts many, many hours. Clean, but not astringent in a cleaner way. Brilliant peppermint scent!!!

Pistachio Punch ~ A fruity and sweet blend of pistachios, ripe red cherries, juicy oranges and fresh pineapple. 

Lake Providence Lodge's Pistachio Punch
Cold Rating: 7/10
Lit Rating: 7/10
Throw Rating: 7/10
Overall Rating: 7/10; super fruity melody! Pineapple and pistachio go good together. Melted this in the bathroom and it lasted about 5-6 hours. Lingered even after it was gone in the back bedroom. You need to love tropical scents as well as pistachio. Almost wonder how this would be with serendipity!

Pomegranate Cider ~ Our Pomegranate warmed up a bit with fresh pressed apples and a little spice.

Lake Providence Lodge's Pomegranate Cider
Cold Rating: 8/10
Lit Rating: 8.5/10
Throw Rating: 8/10
Overall Rating: 8/10; underrated spicy fruit scent. Not like apple at all, more dark and mysterious. Spicy, but not too terribly spicy as it is muted slightly by the pomegranate. Also, an underrated fruit to begin with. Lasted 6 hours in the bedroom with strong throw.

Pumpkin Butter ~ Made from scratch apple butter blended with pumpkin spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, clove and warm vanilla.

Lake Providence Lodge's Pumpkin Butter
Cold Rating: 6/10
Lit Rating: 6/10
Throw Rating: 6/10
Overall Rating: 7.5/10; much lighter on the spices than I had anticipated, I think they are relegated to a background note here since the apple butter and pumpkin are the starts. Sort of buttery, even though it's not a butter scent? Fruity, but also a bit more depth to it. Not  my favorite melt. Lasted 4 hours before I pulled it.

Rainbow Sherbet ~ This smells just like the sherbet mom served us that came out of the square ice cream box. Raspberry, lemon, lime and orange blended with a touch of our Strawberry makes this the perfect fruity sherbet.

Lake Providence Lodge's Rainbow Sherbet
Cold Rating: 7/10
Lit Rating: 7/10
Throw Rating: 7/10
Overall Rating: 7/10; crazy accurate to the frozen treat. Strong, fruity, in your face scent. Raspberry and citrus to the max. Great for a summers day! Lasted 7 hours in the bedroom. I should have cut this one in half because it would have been a good "whole house" scent if I had distributed it between 2 warmers. Liked this, but not a repurchase.

Rhubarb ~ Crisp and tart. This is a slightly sweet, but earthy scent. Rhubarb, freshly picked from the garden. 

Lake Providence Lodge's Rhubarb
Cold Rating: 7/10
Lit Rating: 7.5/10
Throw Rating: 7/10
Overall Rating: 7/10; being the only late 20-something who likes rhubarb, I can attest it is truly the most underrated vegetable/fruit out there. Mix this with sugar and cinnamon in a pie? OOhhhhh baby! So good. It's an acquired taste, so lots of people probably won't like this scent because, like figs, this is a sweet-fruity scent, but is earthy, too. I like this one. It's got a medium-high throw for the bedroom. Could have used some spice, for my taste.

Sparkling Lemonade ~ Ice cold lemonade with a touch of fizzy citrus soda added.

Lake Providence Lodge's Sparkling Lemonade
Cold Rating: 7.5/10
Lit Rating: 7.5/10
Throw Rating: 7.5/10
Overall Rating: 7.5/10; very sparkly, don't believe me? Smell it for yourself. It's insanely bubbly. Also, the lemon note is great, not astringent or cleaner-y like others. Our house smelled excellent for the duration of this melt, but this scent did get a little tedious. Lasted 6 hours. Liked this, but not a repurchase.

Strawberry ~ Smells like a big bowl of ripe strawberries that have been sliced and sugared. Very fresh and fruity!

Lake Providence Lodge's Strawberry
Cold Rating: 8/10
Lit Rating: 8.5/10
Throw Rating: 8/10
Overall Rating: 8/10; surprisingly wonderful! Sweet, fruity, just a teensy weensy bit candied. I loved this scent!! Melted this in the bathroom and it made the house smell excellent. I wish I had another one of these and a toasted marshmallow to melt these together. Lasted 8.5 hours.

Summer Fruit Salad ~ Sugar sprinkled oranges, grapefruit, strawberries, melon, peaches and kiwi.

Lake Providence Lodge's Summer Fruit Salad
Cold Rating: 8/10
Lit Rating: 8/10
Throw Rating: 8/10
Overall Rating: 8/10; another amazing fruit scent! This is a melange of fruits to the point where you can see them in your head as you're melting this. So strong. In your face with scent. Melony. Not enough kiwi scents in wax! Lasted 6 hours. Liked this, but not a repurchase.

The Cabin ~ A wonderful scent of cozy and warm spices including allspice, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Like Fall at the Lodge curled up under a quilt by the stone fireplace.

Lake Providence Lodge's The Cabin
Cold Rating: 8/10
Lit Rating: 8.5/10
Throw Rating: 8/10
Overall Rating: 8/10; as you'll notice, most of the LPL wax tarts have high reviews. This is not a coincidence because they are such a consistently outrageously excellent vendor. The Cabin is probably my second favorite spicy scent from LPL: appley, spicy, all it needs is a cup of cocoa and some snowflakes! Awesome throw, smells great, repurchase for sure.

Toasted Vanilla Bean ~ Fresh vanilla beans warmed with toasted marshmallow and caramel.

Lake Providence Lodge's Toasted Vanilla Bean
Cold Rating: 7.5/10
Lit Rating: 7.5/10
Throw Rating: 7.5/10
Overall Rating: 7.5/10; a great toasted vanilla bean scent! Creamy, rich, sweet, only slightly toasted to me. The bedroom smelled really nice melting this. Nothing I should have cut in half. Decent medium-strong throw.
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I have some other LPL tarts yet to melt, so I will review those as I finish them! Thanks for reading!

Subscription Box Corner: October 2015's Vellabox Review!

Howdy, friends! It's almost Halloween, yay! And then, Turkey day! And finally, CHRISTMAS!!! WOOHOO!!!

I have been having tons of fun receiving my Vellabox subscription box each month. It seems like they always feature interesting, new vendors and scents to me, which I love! This October, in lieu of purchasing the Treatsie service, I allocated the money from that box to "upping" my Vellabox subscription from the Standard box ($10/month + $2 shipping) to the Aficionado (1 monthly candle around 8 ounces with a 50ish hour burn time for $20/month). In a hasty decision, I screwed something up with my subscription and emailed the company with a question about my mess up. In less time than it took to craft my email to them, I had a response and a very swift resolution. Let me just say, the customer service from Vellabox has always been outstanding and I really appreciate everything they do to put out a quality product! :)

Let's take a looksie inside the box!

The outside, bigger box!

A lovely card donned the inside flap of the box. "Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness." GREAT quote!!

The card with this month's content. I couldn't help but be a little jealous of this month's standard offering, APPLE PUMPKIN. Gah! Maybe I just need to get both the standard and the aficionado boxes, LOL!

This month's contents came with a gorgeous plaid wrapping, the perfect look for fall in every way. It makes my Southern California heart ache that somewhere in the country, people can wear stuff like this and get away with it. Here? It'll be 87 degrees this weekend. *sad tears*

October's candle is from a new to me company called One Grid Candle Company. This is a 10 ounce soy wax blend candle made in the USA. They offer "candles with a purpose." Isn't that just about the coolest phrase? The candle is touted as  "premium," and with a scent like tea & tobacco, well, it's obviously luxurious, too!

Side view of the gorgeous label and their "mission statement."

As per their company website, "With every candle purchase, OneGrid will deliver a solar light to a person living without electricity in a rural part of the world. One World. One Light. One Grid." This is such an amazing idea! I love that this company gives back and it will make buyers feel like they are contributing to their cause in some small way.

The fragrance of this candle is black tea and rich, earthy tobacco, and let me tell you, they mean it. The fragrant, sort of sweet tobacco melanges nicely with the unmistakable black tea fragrance with smaller background notes of sage and a slight spice to create an alluring, intoxicating blend. I wouldn't have ever picked this scent for myself, but boy oh boy, is it ever good. It's a very mature scent, not at all like the cotton candy funnel cake bubble gum sherbet scents most online wax vendors are known for popularly.

I love this scent! I have burned it just 3 times for the recommended 3-4 hour stretches, but each time, it has easily filled the kitchen and living room with a wonderful, medium-strong scent. It took a while to pool out each burn, but I am so impressed by this candle, it doesn't matter how long it takes to pool out. I can't wait to place my own order and feel good about doing it knowing I am making a difference, however small it may be.

Lighten Up Shoppe also sent along a bonus gift for the Aficionado box in the form of a lavender epsom salt bath soak packet. A couple pieces had fallen out of the bag and onto my bed, but I see no holes in the bag. I threw it in a ziploc just in case. I don't take baths, unfortunately, so I will have to pass this on to someone else. Anyone want it? ;)
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There's my October Vellabox, Aficionado style! Have you subscribed? Have you heard of/purchased from One Grid?

Subscription Box Corner: September 2015's Flicker Box Review!

It took me a while to try some of the stuff from September's Flicker Box because a few of the items didn't appeal to be at first, so I kept them in my wax room and didn't look back. Anyways, let's jump into the box's contents!

The box.

September's theme was County Fair. This immediately made me nervous because caramel and popcorn scents are terrible to my nose. I'm probably the only person

Copper & Kraft has been featured in this box before. This Cotton Candy is a larger candle than the Funnel Cake one below. It's surprisingly accurate on cold sniff. Unfortunately, the throw is light, which was my concern when I saw this. It's sweetness is infrequent, though nice. Bummer. I will keep burning this one and see if it improves.

Not my normal kind of scent, Funnel Cake is surprisingly realistic as well! Their bakery scents are real nice. This one is a little sweet, a little fried, very bakery, quite nice! I don't know if I'd choose this for myself, but I don't hate it. Medium throw, sometimes sporadic wisps of scent.

Eco Candle Company has been featured in this box as well. I had so-so luck with my first candle from them, so it was exciting to see some more products from them.

Apple Orchard is a clean, crisp apple scent. It's nice, but a little one note. I have burned this about half a dozen times and I've had the same results every time. It's weird that when these candles burn, there are always holes/bubbles underneath the wax. Not a big deal, but one time one of them seemed to POP really loudly and it scared us, lol. I like the look and packaging of this brand.

Melted Caramel tea lights! Yay! These smell soooooooooo good! Very accurate and sticky smelling. Though I like these, the throw seems to dissipate over time. Great little burns. Also, 10 of them is a bit much. I will be giving some of these to friends!
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There's my review! Have you tried this subscription box yet? Anything calling to you?

Lightning Round Reviews #27: Lake Providence Lodge Round-Up (A-O)!

I haven't done a Lightning Round Reviews post since January, so let's rectify this situation! Today, I am featuring some older melts from Lake Providence Lodge letters A-O. The rest will be up another day!! Note: the date on these tarts is the date I received them in the mail, but they have been melted throughout the last year with notes included in my notebook!

Apple Cinnamon ~ Simple and delicious cinnamon dusted apple slices. There is no crust or bakery, just apples and cinnamon. 

Lake Providence Lodge's Apple Cinnamon
Cold Rating: 6/10
Lit Rating: 6/10
Throw Rating: 6.5/10
Overall Rating: 6/10; middle of the road apple cinnamon scent, nothing extreme, but not bad, just your average cinnamon apple blend.

Apple Pie ~ Just like a warm from the oven baked apple pie. You will smell it all-apples, spices and crust. 

Lake Providence Lodge's Apple Pie
Cold Rating: 6.5/10
Lit Rating: 7/10
Throw Rating: 7/10
Overall Rating: 7/10; even though this has a crusty note to it, I loved it! It has a good throw, an excellent scent, and really smelled authentic!

Apple Spice ~ Perfectly ripe apples tossed with warm spices. 

Lake Providence Lodge's Apple Spice
Cold Rating: 9/10
Lit Rating: 10/10
Throw Rating: 9/10
Overall Rating: 9/10; impeccable scent. Wonderful! Smelled so good, much better than Apple Cinnamon. More spices, more to love! Heavy on the cinnamon.

Cider Lake ~ Spiced and sweet cider blended with sugary caramel. 

Lake Providence Lodge's Cider Lake
Cold Rating: 7/10
Lit Rating: 7/10
Throw Rating: 7/10
Overall Rating: 8/10; you have to love caramel to like this one. I wasn't bothered by it as much here as I usually am with caramel scents, so this was nice, but it is a very authentic caramel apple scent. Sweet, juicy apples, very strong!

Country Cottage ~ Sweet cinnamon blended with vanilla, caramel, a touch of cider and maple syrup. 

Lake Providence Lodge's Country Cottage
Cold Rating: 10/10
Lit Rating: 10/10
Throw Rating: 10/10
Overall Rating: 10/10; rivals my beloved The Lodge's Kitchen, but each are different in their own way. It is sweet and spicy together in a perfect dance of fallness.

Cranberry Lime ~ Sweet and tart cranberries blended with a squeeze of lime juice. 

Lake Providence Lodge's Cranberry Lime
Cold Rating: 7/10
Lit Rating: 7.5/10
Throw Rating: 7.5/10
Overall Rating: 7.5/10; heavy lime meets sweet cranberry with a bit of tartness in there, too. Quite pungent on the citrus front, but I loved it. Really exceeded my expectations.

Cranberry Spice ~ Cinnamon and spice soaked sweet cranberries. 

Lake Providence Lodge's Cranberry Spice
Cold Rating: 7.5/10
Lit Rating: 7.5/10
Throw Rating: 7.5/10
Overall Rating: 7.5/10; sort of reminds me of a craft store, but in a non offensive way. Very spicy, sweet and mildly tart, if I didn't know this was cranberry, I might not have known because it was in the bathroom and I wasn't paying much attention to it until I walked by the room.

Cupcake ~ Cupcakes made with white cake and buttercream frosting. 

Lake Providence Lodge's Cupcake
Cold Rating: 8/10
Lit Rating: 7/10
Throw Rating: 7/10
Overall Rating: 7/10; this smelled sooooooooooooo good on cold sniff, I was a bit let down by its final product. Most bakery lover will love this either way, but to me, it was a bit *too* bakery. Still, the buttercream frosting scent was excellent mixed in with this!

Iced Pumpkin Cookie ~ Vanilla sugar cookie combined with fresh pumpkin and apple, hints of cinnamon and clove. 

Lake Providence Lodge's Iced Pumpkin Cookie
Cold Rating: 6/10
Lit Rating: 6.5/10
Throw Rating: 6/10
Overall Rating: 6/10; this scent wax extremely buttery, like, more than you can imagine it would be. The spices were nice, but I couldn't get over the butter note.

Lime Slices ~ Tart and sweet. A delicious, clean lime scent! 

Lake Providence Lodge's Lime Slices
Cold Rating: 7/10
Lit Rating: 7.5/10
Throw Rating: 7/10
Overall Rating: 7/10; quite a strong lime scent, and yes, it does manage to smell a bit clean! You have to love lime for this one as there are no other notes, but it's insane how accurate LPL's scents are.

Melted Marshmallow ~ Lightly warmed, sugar-y marshmallows. A delicious and rich vanilla scent.

Lake Providence Lodge's Melted Marshmallow
Cold Rating: 8/10
Lit Rating: 8.5/10
Throw Rating: 8.5/10
Overall Rating: 8.5/10; an amaaaaaaaaaaaazing marshmallow scent, this scent shot was dripping with ooey gooey goodness. Sweet, creamy, this would be an excellent blender. YUM!!!

Mulberry Spice ~ Warmed mulberries, steeped in syrupy brown sugar and cinnamon just waiting to become a cobbler. 

Lake Providence Lodge's Mulberry Spice
Cold Rating: 7.5/10
Lit Rating: 7.5/10
Throw Rating: 7.5/10
Overall Rating: 7.5/10; I'm not sure I'd know what a mulberry was if it bit me where the sun don't shine, but I really liked this scent! It had a nice spice mixed with the sweet berry, but it sort of reminded me a little like cranberry. Good, though!

Swift & Supersonically Snappy Short Review #96: Rosegirls' Watermelon Koolaid

Ok, so everything I said about "October being in full swing," I LIED. Well, more accurately, the weatherpeople lied. I hate having heat in the fall. :(

Rosegirls' Watermelon Koolid
Cold Rating: 6.5/10
Lit Rating: 8.5/10
Throw Rating: 8/10
Overall Rating: 7.5/10; pleasantly surprised about this one! One cold sniff, I disliked this, but came back to it many weeks later and melted it...with fantastic results! The throw was a solid one, the scent was a great mix of RG's excellent watermelon scent plus a cherry, sort of fake in a good way smelling koolaid scent. Really interesting! The best waxy friends anyone could ask for. Melting this in the dead of fall because IT HAS BEEN OVER 90 DEGREES PLEASE GIVE US REAL WEATHER. Wishing the rumors of an El Nino were true. Needing more RG for fall stock-up. Mini melters? Lots of chunks per bag, a gorgeous rosy pink colored wax. A couple of these left, might save for spring?

Swift & Supersonically Snappy Short Review #95: Lake Providence Lodge's Autumn Spice

October is in full swing, and I am starting to add fall and winter scents to my melting piles!!!

Lake Providence Lodge's Autumn Spice
Cold Rating: 8/10
Lit Rating: 8.5/10
Throw Rating: 8.5/10
Overall Rating: 8.5/10; true to its description, Autumn Spice boasts an alluring cinnamon aroma. Spices range from nutmeg to clove, fruits are apple in nature if there are any as a base note. LOVE this, but not as much as The Lodge's Kitchen. Warm, inviting scent. Again, a killer throw on this one. The definition of comforting. Snuggling by the fire with your pets, loved ones, a mug of spiced apple cider spiked with cinnamon whiskey....oh, I'm just describing my Tuesday night, minus the fire. Exactly what fall smells like when I picture it in my head. I think I will buy some cinnamon pinecones this year!!!!!