Project Wax

Some of the YouTubers I follow have been posting videos about this thing called  "Project Wax;" I'm not entirely sure who started it or thought of the idea, so if you happen to be the inventor of this wonderful idea, please let me know and I will give you the credit you deserve!

Project Wax is actually a genius idea.

The concept behind this is simple: you take all of the tarts, clamshells, scalloped melts...basically any type of wax you either want to burn/are hoarding and holding onto for no reason, or have forgotten about/pushed aside, or the wax you don't really want to keep any longer, and put them in a special bag or box. The contents of this bag or box must be used and emptied IN FULL in order to make another wax purchase.

For my Project Wax #1, I'm trying to melt my fall and winter scents during the actual season, but also switch it up a bit. I've been waiting for my last few orders to come in because of longer turnaround times. Now that they are here, I can start my Project Wax bag. I've noticed a lot of YouTubers try and get done with their bags/boxes as quickly as possible, but I'm just trying to destash, so it'll take me as long as it'll take me.

Here's a list of what I've acquired from samplers, orders, and destashes...just keep in mind, I did not purchase all of this! I might actually add some eventually, so I will update it about once a week until I'm done! :)

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*Project Wax #1* (start date: November 13, 2012)

Kim's Tarts
-Christmas Wish (3 pack)
-Fruit Loops (3 pack)
-Farmhouse Cider (3 pack)
-Trick of Treat (3 pack)
-Chestnuts and Brown Sugar sample
-Leaves sample
-Praline Pound Cake sample
-White Christmas (3 pack)
-Christmas Splendor (3 pack)
-Christmas Eve (3 pack)

Ollie's Soaps
-Pumpkin Souffle sample (2 pumpkins)
-Lemon Cheesecake sample
-Grapefruit Melon sample
-Peppermint Apple sample scalloped tart
-Pink Peppermint scalloped tart
-Zucchini Bread Noelscalloped tart
-Brandied Pear scalloped tart

Front Porch
-Buttercream and Coconut
-Amish Friendship Bread
-Lime Cookies
-Pumpkin Eggnog
-Purple and Pink Wine
-Lavender

Scentsy
-Pumpkin Marshmallow bar
-Autumn Sunset bar

Candles From The Keeping Room
-Pumpkin and Pralines

Streetman Candle Company
-Pumpkin Sugar Cookie
-Strawberry Sugar

Rincon Scents
-Mango Cooler

Dutch Candle Company
-Autumn Forest

Crabby Candle Company
-Sweet Potato Pie

Distinctly Pink Aroma Melt
-Have a Berry Merry Christmas 

Yankee Candle
-Fresh Cut Roses
-Mistletoe
-Farmer's Market
-Autumn Leaves
-Christmas at the Beach
-Balsam and Cedar


Pics, Petals & Scents
-Cozy Fall Nights 

JMae's Candles and Soaps
-Lemon Poppyseed
-Pineapple Orchid

Keone Candle
-Buttered Rum clamshell

My Candle Box
-Tinsel Me Pink itty bitty soy drops

The Miserable Life of a Candle

My husband sent me this funny picture and I thought I'd share it with all of you.

Sad, but true! :)

Have a fabulous weekend, and happy melting!

Review: Kim's Tarts' Farmhouse Cider

My husband Josh has come around about my wax fetish..

[is fetish the right word? Habit? Love? Addiction? Problem? Bueller??]

At first, I don't think he saw the point. While we want our house to smell lovely and not like a trash can, I don't know if he exactly got why I like candles and wax. Of course, I'm purely speculating...maybe he's understood the entire time but was simply giving me a hard time! Some people like fine cigars, sports cards, movie memorabilia...I like candles and wax. 

I've started trying to include him more in my scent travels...

[Travels? Is THAT the right word?? Exploits? Cravings? Adventures? BUELLER???]

Instead of me always picking the scent of the day/night based on what we each like, he's been picking what we melt/burn lately! So, last night, when I read the contents from my Project Wax bag (I'll explain this in my next post), he picked Kim's Tarts' Farmhouse Cider. An excellent choice, my fine feathered friend...now I KNOW this is not the right phrase, it's just something I always say. :)

...I really wish I could review this scent better. We wanted to love it...

Per Kim's Tarts website, the notes for this scent are: "Fresh, ground cinnamon, generously sprinkled over tasty hot apple cider. Allspice, fresh clove bud, and drips of Vermont maple complete this flavorful treat. The scent of hot spiced cider warms the soul. SUPER STRONG!" To me, this fragrance pretty much sounded like a dupe for the Bath & Body Works scent with the same name. What we expected to get was an overwhelming spicy apple scent, dripping with fall delight...something that would run us out of the room because it was so strong...

...unfortunately, that was not the case. On cold sniff, the scent was virtually nonexistent. I added one of the 3 scalloped tarts to start into my 24-watt hot plate warmer and figured we'd try our luck anyways. Well, the first one was melted completely and I didn't even know it. If I put my nose almost directly on the wax, I could get a tiny hint of cinnamon, otherwise, nothin'. I added another tart to see if it yielded better results...then had to add the third and final tart when 2 didn't do squat. While the fragrance was fractionally improved with the addition of the remaining 2 tarts, this scent did almost nothing for us. It was really disappointing because the description promised strength where there was none. Onto the next thing!

Happy melting, everyone!

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Kim's Tarts Farmhouse Cider
Cold Rating: 2/10; this one had no fragrance at all. There was a slight hint of something in the middle tart in the bag of 3, but it was not anything included in the Farmhouse Cider description.
Lit Rating: 3/10; one point for each tart, I suppose. Disappointingly light scent after a raving description about strength.
Throw Rating: 2/10; again, you had to be ON TOP of the wax to get any throw.
Overall Rating: 2.5/10; it's hard to review something that basically has no throw, smell, or general use. But, this is 2 out of 3 tarts I've tried from Kim's Tarts that have had a less than average performance. I still have quite a few bags filled with tarts left to melt, and my hunch is I'd better do it fast or else there will be no scent in the wax left to review!

Review: Tiffany Candles' Hocus Pocus

Josh and I LOVE Halloween, and typically, we decorate our house with all sorts of awesomeness. But this year, with all that has been going on in the last two months, Halloween sort of came and went with no extravagance. We got a couple of horror movies got watched, but that's about it. We didn't decorate our house, we didn't get our little pup his Darth Vader costume, we didn't even take our Halloween box out of the closet...

In fact, Halloween just felt like a major bummer this year. The only trick-or-treaters we got at our house were our niece and nephew, which was the highlight of our night. It was so cool to see them all dressed up knocking at our door! There were other kids outside going door-to-door, but they passed us by, and it was depressing. The people in our apartment complex aren't very friendly.

The only other festive thing I did this year, during the day, was melt Tiffany Candles' Hocus Pocus. This scent shot is a sweet mix of caramel apple and candy corn.* Many of the YouTubers have done reviews raving about this scent, so in my very first order from this company, I made it a point to add it to my bag! The lusciousness of this scent really shines through in an unexpected mix of caramel and candy, but the apple fragrance is a bit muddled on cold sniff. Once it started warming, though, you get a powerful, consistent punch of pure, candy-coated heaven. This company, along with Front Porch Candle Co., really have my attention towards their bakery and sweet scents!

I had it going for 6 hours and the scent was so strong that I could not, in good conscience, throw it away. So, I did what any normal person would do and poured it back into the container...and all over the desk....and all over my shirt. OOPS, I guess I was just too excited and clingy to the one thing that made the holiday fabulous this year!

Here's to hoping next year's Halloween won't be a bummer, man!

*sidebar: Lewis Black does a HILARIOUS comedy bit about candy corn, you can view it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU6S3-cXtKs

**Also, Tiffany Candles now has a new blend of wax that DOES NOT NEED TO CURE! YAY!!! So, if you place an order, you can begin melting your goodies ASAP, instead of waiting a few weeks for the items to cure!

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Tiffany Candles Hocus Pocus
Cold Rating: 6/10; strong and sweet; interesting note: I almost got a hint of butter on cold sniff!
Lit Rating: 7.5/10; caramel goodness mixed with the timeless classic, candy corn; apple scent a bit muted, but it started to come through once it was melting.
Throw Rating: 7.5/10; traveled all over the house from the bedroom. Also, melted perfectly, and saved just as well, too! We got at least 6 hours of scent from this fragrance.
Overall Rating: 7/10; I wish I had more of this to melt! Josh, who is a fan of sweets, loved this one! Tiffany Candles has been consistent with excellent performance, a powerful throw, scent longevity, and each fragrance I melt from them makes me want to give them all my money. SO GOOD!!! :-)

Review: JMae's Pumpkin Spice tart

It's alright to burn your samples first, right? There's no rule that says you have to burn your purchased products first...

...Right???!

Because seriously, this pumpkin spice soy tart has been calling my name ever since I opened my package. This tart is adorable and in a cute pumpkin shape! I appreciate these little touches that set online vendors apart from the big named businesses.

Even though Halloween is over, that's no excuse to put pumpkin scents back in storage! Pumpkin and spice are two of my favorite scents, and they are even better when combined. JMae's pumpkin spice soy tart does have these two ingredients, but is, unfortunately, short lived. It only had fragrance for about 2 hours; plus, the scent didn't travel far, just to the doorway of the bedroom. This is not necessarily bad, but I would have liked a bigger scent throw when melting! The other thing is, instead of being scented with evenly with pumpkin and spice, it was heavy on the spice, which is fine...but I couldn't exactly place what spice it was. Maybe allspice? Maybe an all-purpose pumpkin pie spice, combining multiple spices? Something was off about it. To me, this scent invokes more of a cinnamon bun or cinnamon toast type of aroma, with subtle hints of pumpkin. It was semi-powerful, but faded fast. It also did that weird, not solidifying thing when I turned off the warmer. I have 3 tarts left from this company, so let's see how those stack up later on in the days to come!

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JMae's Pumpkin Spice
Cold Rating: 4/10; the only scent I got on cold throw was some sort of spice that I couldn't put my finger on...it made me sad there was hardly any scent, but...
Lit Rating: 5/10; it was sort of bakery, sort of spicy, not really all that pumpkiny...I definitely got a hint of cinnamon, but I really couldn't place what the other scent was AND IT'S DRIVING ME CRAZY!
Throw Rating: 5/10; it stayed in the bedroom and didn't drift too far, just average.
Overall Rating: 5/10; I'm sad that I didn't get much out of this scent. Maybe it was an off day, but the scent only lasted about 2 hours and then it was gone. Poof...where did it go?! It stuck around pervasively at first, then fizzled out, as some tarts tend to do. It had a decent spicy scent, though!

Weekend Wax Review: November 2-4

I melted quite a few things this weekend.

Part of me wants to go through my stash of Tiffany Candles as slow as possible because I looooooooooooove their products. I have not found one scent from them that I haven't been in love with! This weekend, I melted: Hocus Pocus (caramel apple mixed with candy corn, very sweet but very fruity, too), Mulled Cider (a fantastic mix of apples, oranges, and spices, mainly clove and a hint of cinnamon, I think), and I burned my 4oz. jelly jar of Stress Relief some more.

From Bath & Body Works, I burned my 'Tis The Season candle, as well as Snowed In, and Leaves, which is always a great choice.

Yankee Candle also got a little bit of action this weekend: I burned my large tumbler of Midnight Jasmine for a few hours as well.

...I guess this weekend wax review includes Friday, too!

Ollie's Soaps got some love this weekend, too! Josh suggested I try Sinus Relief, since he was having allergy symptoms.

Finally, I melted a couple successful scents from Front Porch, which included Pink Peppermint, a newly discovered favorite of mine. Lavender Marshmallow, however, is my first negative experience with this company...it smelled like sweet bug spray to me! I guess you run that risk being a lavender fan!

Anywho, this is a day late and a dollar short, but have an awesome week! Happy melting!

Review: Bath & Body Works' Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin

Fall is such a great season. It is the beginning of holiday baking, allows us to carve pumpkins, excitement for Christmas starts looming, and is just filled with joy in general! Nothing says 'autumn' like a hearty pan of pumpkin cupcakes, cinnamon and spices filling the air, and a hot cup of apple cider to tide you over on a wispy, cool day.

Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin sure does the trick! It is much more muted than Spiced Pumpkin from Yankee Candle, but then again, the operative word of this candle is "SWEET." There is definitely vanilla cream in this fragrance, as indicated by the scent description, which is not off-putting at all! In fact, the vanilla does a good job at NOT being the superstar, as per usual. This is not to say I don't enjoy Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin, because I really do! It's strong without being imposing, pumpkiny without being hit in the face with a gourd, spicy without being choked with clove buds, etc; though the first scent note I get from this IS clove, I don't mind at all...it seems like a lot of the candle folk online do not like overly spicy scents...MORE FOR ME, then! :)

And hey, take a look at that burn! I have been having so many problems with Slatkin/White Barn/Bath& Body Works' wicks this year and I was surprised to see a candle that ACTUALLY worked well and fast. Probably half of the candles I've purchased this year from B&BW have had uneven burns, low scent throws because of uneven burns, thin and flimsy wicks...it's sort of been a tragedy. Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin had a fantastic burn, even when burned two or three days later! It was satisfying to get a candle that did what it was supposed to do.

Unfortunately, I waited too long to post this review, and this scent is no longer in a 14.5 oz. candle anymore. They released the fall candles right on the cusp of summer's end and quickly got rid of them to make room for the new winter lines. It's a shame because I had a few family members in mind who would have gotten a kick out of this fragrance. Oh well, onto the next scent line! If you can get your hands on this one, or it makes a triumphant return, go for it, you probably won't be disappointed!

Hey, candles at B&BW are 2/$20 again this week, and I'm not sure when it's ending. Check it out, you know where to find them!

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Bath & Body Works Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin
Cold Rating: 6/10; sweet and spicy, pumpkin is muted, but this is not a deterrent.
Lit Rating: 7/10; perfect harmony of all of fall's classic fragrances: spices, pumpkin, and vanilla! Also, had fantastic performance, which is worth noting during this year of awful burns.
Throw Rating: 6.5/10; it took a while for the throw to smack me in the face, but once it was there, there was no stopping it.
Overall Rating: 6.5/10; an all-around great fall scent: nothing more, nothing less! :)