Quick Review - Treasure Gardens

My old soap is finally finished, so I have to again give props to Lana at Unicorns Pride for her awesome Lemon lime soap which lasted me two and a half months of daily shower usage.

So, I broke into my bin of samples from my wonderful samplers, and reached in willy nilly (yes, I still use that term, and yes, that is how I choose my soap).  What I came out with was a lovely wrapped soap that came in my Sampler Village box recently: a FULL SIZED sample of Heavenly Honeysuckle soap from Treasure Gardens.  FULL SIZED!!

This soap gives of such a robust scent, it has scented my whole bathroom like honeysuckle, which I love.  The soap lathers wonderfully in the shower and leaves my skin feeling soft and clean.  the shape of this soap is perfect to fit in my hand, so I find myself not even using my scrubby much.

Another thing I love about this soap is that, though it smells wonderful and strong, it does not leave a strong scent clinging to my skin.  As a teacher, I need to be careful about the scents I wear (if any), and soap is usually the only thing I use as a scent before leaving the house.  This soap leaves jus tthe right amount of scent, as there's just enough that the hubby can smell it when he hugs me, but it does not come off of me in waves.  Perfect. In the past I have felt like I needed to stick with a very clean scent to avoid this, but again, my eyes have been opened to the soapy possibilities.

Treasure Gardens has a great little shop with gorgeous looking soaps and a few adorable shaped soaps that may end up in a Christmas stocking here. I encourage you to check them out.


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On a side note, I think I will do my reviews like this more often.  I felt like I was avoiding full sized samples because they take so long to get through, and I wanted to keep up my reviews, but it was taking a lot of the fun out of the reviewing.  Now, I will just write a review as I open up and use something.  Sound good?  Good.

Reviews of the Month!

As I put off and put off writing my reviews the last few weeks, I started thinking to myself: WHY? Why am I putting off my reviews?  The answer was quite simple and obvious: I just don't use that many new things in a week.  I am a creature of habit, and also a creature of pack ratting. 

I have so many new things going on in my life right now. I am trying to start a new career, the house is under construction, and we are still getting used to living in Houston.  School is over in a few weeks, and I am going back to school for the first time in 10 years on the 24th.  Because so much else in my life is new and exciting (and scary), for many of my every day routines, I am in a "default to what you know works" stage to help me try to find a sense of stability.

So, I am scaling back to one review a month for a while.  This month, there just isn't that much new to review.  I got a lot of exciting things in my samplers this month, but I haven't gotten to many of them yet.  I will just have to tell you what I HAVE used and loved.

The first soap I used was from Wicked Soaps, and it was wonderful. The sample was a good sized hunk that lasted me for more than two weeks.  It lathered up really well, and had a great scent throw.  Though the soap was a fuschia and black blend, there was no color transfer to my scrubby or shower.  I really enjoyed this soap.  Wicked Soaps has all sorts of products on their Etsy Page, so I am sure you can find something you will love there.  There is a Pink Sugar Sampler I have my eye on, and the husband has been given a not-so-subtle hint for Mother's day.

Another soap that I used this month was a new glycerine soap from The Bubble Room.  The soap I used is called "You Have My Heart", and it is this gorgeous iridescent white with a pink heart in the center.  Don't ask me how they did that with soap, but it came out really cool. Again, the soap sample was a good sized chunk, so over a week later, I am still using the same soap.  Many of the Bubble Room's soaps are vibrant fun colors, and my kids are constantly begging to use the samples I get from them from Sampler Village. The Bubble room has a fun and whimsical style, and is great for people who are still a child at heart.

The only other new product I used this month was some tarts I got from a new candle supplier.  The Gingerbread Cupboard sent these absolutely adorable shaped tarts out in both the Little Black Boxes and Sampler Village, and I was SUPER PSYCHED to get their tarts in each.  They have excellent scent throw, and are some of the cleanest molded tarts I have ever seen.  Their shapes are adorable, and it's obvious that a lot of thought and care went into them. 

As you can see, I haven't been using too many new things, so I am going to try to keep updating the blog with other postings, on my many other interests, and on some of my other purrchases and things I use.  Thanks so much, and Hopefully, in June I will have a huge list of wonderful handmade products to review!

The Case for Multiple Samplers

Ok, I admit it.  I am one of those horrible people that contributors to samplers secretly have a serious dislike of.  Yes, it's true, I am a "multiple sampler buyer" (cue Psycho shower music).

For those of you not in the know, I am talking about home made item samplers, like Little Black Boxes or Sampler Village. They are boxes of sample sized (and sometimes full sized) products that have been donated to these samplers as a means of promotion. Sellers send samples to these box sellers in the hopes that, by providing samples to potential customers, this will lead to future purchases of full sized products.

I am all about samplers.  I think they are an awesome idea.  I have discovered sellers who I buy from almost religiously through finding their products in samplers.  I also love that some of the samplers are more geared towards a certain type of buyer, (for example, The Sampler tends to have more card and jewelry samples).  I even like a lot of the themes the sampler sellers have come up with for cohesion of items.

Now, the idea is, a seller buys a sampler box, they use the usually awesome samples in the box, and then they go off and buy more items they liked from the sellers that are in the box. For the sellers, the more people who are exposed to their products, the more likely a sale will result from their donations.

So, because of this, I know sellers are not too thrilled with people who buy multiple boxes of samplers filled with their donated items. Less exposure is never a good thing in advertising and promotion.

However, every month I find myself buying multiple boxes from at least one seller.  Yes, I do feel vaguely guilty about it, but I am going to continue doing it. Why? For a number of reasons.

Multiples of the same sampler do not always contain the same things.  Some sellers send in multiple scents. I may not like one of them.  If I get 2 boxes, and one is a scent I do not care for, but one is, higher probability that I will buy.  Some samplers, you do not get everything in one box, multiples expose me to more sellers.  and sometimes, if it is something relatively small, an extra is a good thing to help me decide to buy.  I also sometimes get a sample of something I think someone I know would love, and there's nothing better than having an extra sample to pass along to someone who may eventually buy.

Since money is tight here, I have a certain amount of money put aside every month for purchases of items from samplers.  Yes, I do get a backlog eventually of all of the great things I want, but I love having lots of options. I also love discovering new items to review and new sellers to buy from.

So, I encourage you to buy from the sellers in the boxes when you buy the samplers. Keep this great idea alive, and support handmade. And if you buy multiple boxes, be sure you are doing so to aid future purchases, not so you can just have more soap in the house. The actual producer of that sample sent it to the sampler for free.  Let them see some return on your use of their product.

Long Over Due

Hello my faithful readers. I'm sorry to tell you that this past month, I have really not done a lot of reviewing.  I have a few VERY LOVELY items coming up, probably on Monday, but right now, I am in a crazy state of mind.

As you may or may not be aware, I am heading back to work. As I plan to be a teacher, this is the big time for interviews, job fairs, and signing up for those summer classes you have to take for the next steps towards certification.  We are also int he middle of having some work done on our house, and painting 4 rooms.  With being so busy, I have been using what little free time I have as a little bit more time for myself, and I have been spending any extra afternoon time with my kiddos. 

I promise, the reviews and tutorials will get up and running on a regular basis again VERY soon. I just ordered this month's samplers, and a few etsy and eBay treats for myself.  I'm sure I will want to share with you!

Thank you so much for your support and for following.

What the....

Hello my wonderful readers!! 

You may have noticed that I haven't been around for a while.  Well, I had a no reviews week, then the kids were on spring break and we went to Las Vegas.  Since I went away, I didn't use any new items, so instead I will tell you about my handmade travel toiletries.

When I travel, I have a bunch of handmade samples that I travel with that I know I love.  Too often, I have broken out or had issues with hotel toiletries, so I let the husband use them and I bring my own.

The first thing I travel with is shine on shampoo and daily conditioner from Heaven and Earth Essentials. (scent this trip: citrus splash)  If I am traveling for a week, I also bring the damage remedy conditioner.  I like for them all to be the same scent, and HAEE has a BUNCH of different scents. As another bonus, the shampoo is a paste, so you don't need to fit it into the little quart ziploc bag the airlines are in love with.

I have gone a number of ways with soap.  I usually just grab a small sample of a soap that I know I love.  the little samples are the best, because they last about a week (the small slivers are great for a weekend), so you don't have to worry about bringing home the soap. This trip, it was a small soap sample from Metropolis Soap Company, whose soap I really love. Even the Dh has been brought over to the "dark side" by their Black Horror Soap.

For lotion, I prefer lotion that is in a pot.  though it can get under my nails, I have had a lot less issues with bag explosion with pot lotions.  This trip, it was Main Element Love's Rise and shine body and hand lotion. The scent worked really well with my shampoo and conditioner, and the little lotion pot fit well in my travel purse.

Perfume is always in the form of a little sample or two (depending on trip plans).  I have HUNDREDS of samples, from designer to handmade.  This trip, I took along two samples, one was August Sultry Sumer by Lemon Lollipop for day wear (Actually, I think the official scent is through their other company "four seasons fragrance," but the sample was from Lemon Lollipop), and the other was Dark Rapture by the Scent Diva (now known as the Soap Box) for evening wear. On a random aside, Dark Rapture perfume was the first thing I ever bought from an etsy seller after getting a sample in a sampler box.

My cosmetics are commercial, because I like the way I can get almost everything into a small compact.  Toothpaste is Aquafresh, and my sunblock is also commercial and a special one for super sensitive skin. Toss in a few Shout Wipes and my prescription meds, and that pretty much makes up my travel toiletries.

This trip was also a little bit special in the packing, because I knew we were staying in our timeshare. There is a HUGE soaking tub in the main bathroom, so I brought a few bath bombs from Sheba's Secrets. I let my daughter take a "fizzy bath" for the first time last month, and she is HOOKED! Both she and I had a few "fizzy baths" that week.

Also, again because we knew we would be in the timeshare, I brounght a silicone trivet, a little matchbook and a travel candle by Mrs Tattooed Geek. (Black Orchid).  These candles are great for getting the "hotel" smell out, and the "home" smell into your room.  The candle is in a tin, so there are no worries about wax spillage, and they last a LONG time.  Like I said, I brought ONE candle for the entire week.

So, sorry there are no reviews to write right now, but they will be back after next week! Have a great weekend!

New Feature!

You may have noticed, but I have put links to the four samplers I have ordered on the bottom right side of this blog.  No more hunting for good samplers.  If I find more good sampler sellers, I will be sure to include them.

This week is going to be light on reviews, as I am finishing using some BIG samples, and between the hubby getting a job offer and me going on interviews, we didn't really get a chance to use many new things this week.  I've also been noticing that I have extra samples from sellers that I have already reviewed.  Though it is really hard for me, since I already KNOW that they are great, I have been trying to passs them over for new samples I have never used. My drawers are getting full, and I have had a few bad experiences lately, so I think I am going to allow myself to re-use some of these sellers' samples every once in a while. I also may start featuring a single seller every once in a while, especially if I have had a universally good experience with them.

I'll keep checking etsy and ebay and looking for new people to tell you about too!

I think I will also keep up with the pattern free sewing tutorials.  I am in the process of rearranging my sewing room (again), to get everythig to fit, but I will try to make time to get s few things made and a few tutorials written up.  let me know if there's anything you would really like to see.

Have a great weekend!

This Week's Reviews 3/2/10

Woo!  I had a bit of a panic this morning!  Turns out my husband, trying to be neat and tidy, threw out all of my assorted wrappers and business cards from this week's samples.  Fortunately, I found and rescued them, and, after a bit of the world's most stupid sounding argument....

("you threw away my wrappers!" "Of course I did! They're empty and cluttering up the counter!" "I need them for my blog, dangit!" "Then why were they in a pile in the bathoom?" "who cares where they were?  I needed them! Stop throwing out my important stuff!" "How am I supposed to know that empty wrappers sitting in a pile on the counter in the bathroom are important?"......etc)

...and a quick trip to Michael's for an "important blog wrappers" basket (and some candlemaking supplies...but that's a different story for another blog), I got everything together and recorded in my special "good samples" book, and ready for this week's blog.  Don't you feel special now that you have had your own glimpse into my private, everyday life? Yeah, didn't think so.

This week's reviews are a bit different.  Along with this week being my "the Samplers are coming!" week, which always leads to lots of trying out of stuff, I also bought a bunch of new wickless candles from sellers on eBay this week. Of course, I had to try out one of EVERYTHING, so I have a LOT of candle sellers to review.  Way more than usual.  I am also going to review a new tea supplier whose tea I finally tried out this week.  Add to that, my normal weekly soap review and a lotion review, and we are talking a lot of sellers to review this week!!

So, let's get to it!

This week's soap was "Think Pink" by A Slice of Delight. This soap is an awesome looking and smelling layered soap of glycerine and oil based soaps.  It really looks like a piece of candy or jewelry! The colors are very vibrant and rich. I love it.

Now, I am one of those people whose skin always gets a little tight and dry from using glycerine soap, but it seems a lot less due to the layering of this soap with the oil based soap added into the layers. I also love how HUGE the sample I got in my Sampler from Sampler Village is. It's got to be about a 2oz sample! I feel like I am using a full sized bar of soap, not just a little sample!  Very cool. 

All of A Slice of Delight's soaps are so artistic and fun to look at, even though they are currently out of stock of the "Think Pink", I'm sure you'll find a soap to love. Also from now through Friday, 3/5/10 at midnight, if you mention "Marbled Nails" in your checkout, you will get a $.50 refund off of one regularly priced bar of soap!  A Slice of Delight's prices are already great, but, heck, anything helps, right! Thank you so much to A Slice of Delight for that generous offer!!

Last month in my samplers from Sampler Village, and again this week in my Little Black Box, I got some AWESOME looking samples from a company called Farm Hussy.  Well, their complete irreverence cracked me up, so I hd to try some of their samples.  I ended up trying their "Udderly Tickled Hand and Body Lotion" in "Love is a Heart Fertilizer" scent.  The husband has also been using their "cock-a-doodle-Don't Lip Balm" and he loves it.  Farm Hussy has all kinds of products and scents on their site, which is just adorable and makes me chuckle.



The Udderly Tickled lotion goes on smooth and is just scented enough to smell nice, but not so much that you end up being the only thing people can smell in an elevator. It leave skin feeling refreshed and moisturized, but not oily, which is VERY important to me.  I have naturally very oily skin, so I am not one of those people whose skin eventually absorbs the oils from most lotions, I just glisten and repel water until my next shower.

The reason the husband is using the Lip Balm is because it contains artificial sweeteners.  He loves it and has already asked me to buy him more after this tube runs out. I told him I will, but I am getting it made ithout the sweeteners in it. Farm Hussy was VERY quick, polite, and professional about replying to my inquiries regarding whether or not their flavor oils contained artificial sweeteners. As they add their own sweetener, Farm Hussy CAN make many of their lip balms without sweeteners, which is awesome and good to know.

This week, I have been fighting some sort of upper resp infection. In fact, I was sick for the entire month of February with something or another. Hmm...Well, at least it led to my drinking even more tea than usual.  THis is a good thing, since I went a little crazy over the holidays, and bought more tea that anyone could reasonably drink in a year....in my defense, a lot of it came free with the teapots....uh.....teaPOT! teaPOT!  Ok, teapots.  I bought myself 2 teapots for Christmas (one handmade and one BIG one from Pfalzgraff), my mother bought me a great glass teapot for blooming teas, my sister got me a special single serving brewing tea mug, and my son got me a froggie teapot.  I have a lot of teapots now.

One of the sellers whose tea I finally got around to trying the week is Bhak Tea. MAN, did I miss out by not trying them sooner!!  Their teas are fabulous.  I am especially hooked on their Vanilla Sunset Rooibos tea.  VERY yum.  I got myself one of their EXTREMELY reasonably priced tea samplers which came with a very cute bamboo tea strainer.  Working with them was very easy, and they really went out of their way to send me good quality tea on time for the holiday.

Like I mentioned earlier, this has been the week of candles. I got a bunch of new candles, both wickless and traditional to try out this week, and I went a little crazy on eBay after I found some sellers that were on eBay along with Etsy.  I am going to touch on all of them, so get ready.

The first seller is Delightful Scents. I had heard of Delightful scents before, but for some reason I had never bought from them or tried them out.  Then I got a little tart sample in my sampler from Sampler Village.  Well, let me tell you, this little tiny tart perfumed my ENTIRE house!  I was super impressed. The tarts I got from Delightful scents were of top excellent quality, and held their scent for a long time.  Delightful scents also carries traditional candles, incense, perfumes, tart burners and so much more.  They are really worth checking out, and are on my list of people to buy from as soon as my husband OKs any candles coming into my house again.....

Another wickless candle sample I got from Sampler Village was from Primitive Kountry.  Their "melties" are a good large size, and the scent lasted through three tea lights' worth of burn time.  Again, they have a lot of other products on their website.

The first seller I bought wickless candles from on eBay is RoseGirls Candles.  They have these lovely Chunk Tarts.  They are just hunks of highly scented wax that you can put on your tart burner. RoseGirls Candles has their own website where their prces are already really good and reasonable. Their tarts burn clean and put off an awesome sent.  HOWEVER, I admit, I found them on eBay. The price I paid on eBay was slightly better than their website, and I had to buy a whole flat rate box of tarts, but they are wonderful, and I am glad that I did.

Another seller who has plenty of products off of eBay, but who I found there, again, is Pamela's Palm Tarts and More. Pamela has some really nice tarts, and ships super fast.  She has hundreds of scents to choose from, and you can choose how many tarts you buy.  Although I put in a link to her Etsy shop, most of Pamela's selling right now seems to be on eBay (user name: "spfield01").  Her tarts are of good quality and are an excellent price. She also has glycerine soaps and tart burners in her store.

Amazingly, I also managed to buy some tarts from Pamela's SISTER, Pat.  Pat's eBay ID is "youareold", and I can't help but think that she is the younger of the sisters.  Pat also has some great, good quality wickless candles and tart burners in her eBay shop, and she ships just as fast as her sister.  I was seriously shocked at how quickly I got my huge orders in the mail from those two women..  The two sisters are in completely different parts of the country, but their commitment to quality and customer service is similar....as is their packaging. :)  Both women were really easy and fun to work with, and I recommend their products.

In all, it has been a great week for samples and purchases.  I hope you guys go check out these sellers, as I like all of their products, and I want them to be successful, if for no other reason thn the selfish one of wanting them to be there when I want to buy from them.  One of my favorite bath and body sellers and a company that I reviewed early on in my reviews, Capella's Garden has closed its doors for good, and I am bummed.  Yes, there are other great sellers I can buy from, and will, but it is always sad when a seller decides that they are done.  So, BUY from these sellers if you can, and keep them in business.  It will do us all a favor. You'll get some great products, they'll be able to make money and stay in business, and I will have sellers I know I can count on to buy from again.  WIN-WIN-WIN.

ETA: I got an email from Pamela and she informs me that she and Pat are IDENTICAL TWINS, and Pamela is 3 minutes older. Extra cool, as I have a weakness for twins, and especially identical twins, having married one, myself. :) Even cooler that they are both doing such similar things with the tarts.