October Band of Bloggers

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, it was a dark and stormy night. So dark and stormy, in fact, the power had gone out, and you had naught but a handful of scented three-wick candles with which to light your way. As you crept down the darkened hallway of the cabin in the woods along the picturesque shores of Crystal Lake that you and your randy teenage friends rented from the eerily helpful maintenance man back at the abandoned service station with all the weird pelts hanging outside, you caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of your eye. Whirling madly about, you brandished your glass jar of Pumpkin Cupcake Crunch, set to square off against any number of undead, masked killers with nothing but the three-wick in your hand and your own blazing moxie. Then, with a chuckle of embarrassed relief, you realized it was just your lucky Chucky Doll figurine – must have fallen off the shelf when that puzzle doodad covered in all the bizarre symbols you found in the basement behind the walled-up root cellar tipped over. Pressing a hand to your fluttering heart, you shook your head as you contemplated the massive, flammable waxcident that nearly was – heavens, THAT certainly could have been messy!

And then THAT’S when one of your friends came banging through the swinging door of the kitchen, catching you square in the back, throwing you forward and the candle up, and out, and then eventually down, where it exploded in a geyser of molten wax, covering everything in the livingroom with burnt orange pumpkin spice, including the creepy two-way mirror and the snarling wolf head affixed to the wall. Congratulations; now you’re really in a horror movie!

Oh, we’ve all been there, and not just waxies, but anyone who enjoys a hobby that occasionally errs towards the messy and dangerous (jest not, glitter glue burns are a real thing!) So this month, in honour of Halloween, we’re taking a look at our most monstrous pastime nightmares – the waxcidents and beauty blunders and crafting calamities that haunt our hobby dreams. What’s the worst hobby hazard you’ve ever suffered? And do you have any magical tips for cleaning Pumpkin Cupcake Crunch out of carpet fibers (or wolf fur)?

To put it bluntly, years ago, my husband and I did not exactly have our acts together.  Both of our jobs were stressful and time consuming, and we each spent about three hours on public transportation every day simply trying to get to and from our jobs.  By the time we’d straggle in the door in the evenings, there was barely anything left in the tank with regards to socialization or non-cheese-based nutrition or basic maintenance of our home.  We were just beat, and it was really starting to show itself, not just in our expanding waistlines and Netflix backlog, but around our apartment, which was beginning to take on the air of an 850 square foot, dust-covered storage space.  We “lost” one of the cats one day; turns out she was just napping under some abandoned construction materials.

All that to say I wasn’t particularly surprised the day my husband, carrying a fully-liquid glass jar of some pumpkin-based scented candle from the livingroom to the front door, tripped over the detritus of our lives, hurling the entirety of the candle directly into the coat closet doors, where it rapidly solidified into a burnt orange waterfall stretched out over about two and a half vertical feet.  Sweet.

Okay, so rust-coloured pumpkin shit happens, that’s life.  But as some sort of testament to our “Everything’s crap; I’m out!” approach to life, we NEVER cleaned it up.  Not then, in the moments after the waxcident, and certainly not over the next TWO YEARS.  So every person who came to our door – the only way in and out of our home – got a gigantic eyeful of what looked like burnt orange vomit running down our cupboard doors.  Our friends are such kind people; they never uttered a peep about their neglectful friends.  We eventually just replaced the doors altogether (you’ll also be glad to know we ditched a number of the bad and stressful habits that were dragging us down, and life is – knock on wood – much calmer now.  Cleaner, too.)  But, you know, as is always the case, that friggin’ candle mess smelled amazing for YEARS.  Talk about throwing power (and I don’t just mean my husband’s overhand lob!)

Today, in honour of the now-upon-us haunting season, I’m finally breaking into this clamshell of The Rumpkin, a lavender-pumpkin blend from Moo Scents.  I’ve been saving this sweet and delicious herb and spice blend for ages now because of the spooky label, with that adorable little witch alighting off the cupola roof.  Also because Moo Scents is regrettably no longer in business, so when she’s done, she’s done.  What a great scent, though.  Pumpkin and lavender, who knew?

If you have a story to share about the worst hobby-related catastrophe you’ve ever suffered, please leave a cringe-worthy comment in the section below! And we hope you’ll visit these Band of Bloggers blogs and help support the blogger community.

Amanda at Thrifty Polished

Jaybird at The Candle Enthusiast

Julie at The Redolent Mermaid

Lauren at LoloLovesScents

Liz at Furianne

Sandra – me! – at Finger Candy

If you are a blogger and would like to join us for our monthly Band of Bloggers posts, please feel free to contact us.

 

September Band of Bloggers

Welcome back to the September Band of Bloggers! It’s that time of year again. School is starting back up. Trees are starting to turn. North America is recovering from the apocalypse brought on by the eclipse. Wait, what?

The eclipse that visited most of the United States on August 21st has been described as a once in a lifetime experience. The next eclipse to cover the US from coast to coast will not come until 2045.

That brings us to our question this month. What is your once in a lifetime experience?

Fifteen or so years ago (so another lifetime; in the case of my friends with children, many lifetimes) I was floundering.  Fresh off a journalism degree I wasn’t using and wracked with grief over the end of a four-year romantic relationship, I had moved downtown with some dear high school friends for a fresh start.  Except (probably much to the annoyance of my friends) I was having a terrible time starting over, at least for the first couple of months.  I’ve always been one of those serial monogamy types, and this was the first time since I had started dating at 16 that I didn’t have a boyfriend.  That the relationship had never been a grand one was totally besides the point, and despite the best efforts of my too-patient pals and parents, I was determined to be lonely and miserable, and I was obviously going to die alone and then be eaten by wild dogs.  It was all so very Bridget Jones.  I clearly needed to get the hell out of town.

At the time I was working as a court reporter.  Bored, terminally frumpy woman (they’re always women) clacking away in the corner of the courtroom?  That was me (except I liked to think I was fashionably frumpy.)  I worked out of an office that acted as a sort of neutral courtroom for the lawyers and their clients doing pre-trial examinations – that’s the deeply boring, paperwork-intensive side of the law.  They’d also frequently send reporters on out-of-office cases to such exotic locales as three blocks away, but sometimes to places a bit farther flung.

And THAT is how I wound up standing in the pitch black, -25 degree chill of a frozen Iqaluit afternoon three days before Christmas, contemplating the seriousness of the gigantic “DO NOT FEED THE POLAR BEARS!” sign that greeted me on arrival.

Iqaluit, for the unaware (and that would be everybody; Canadians barely know it’s there) is the capital city of Nunavut, a territory in the far north that used to go by the name Frobisher Bay.  It’s Nunavut’s largest city – nay, its ONLY city – and bears a population of about 7,500 people, most of them employees of the Government of Canada (that’s why I was there, to take the testimony of some people involved in a lawsuit with the GOC.) Despite sitting well outside the Arctic Circle, Iqaluit’s climate is a tundra one – lots of snow, little vegetation and no trees (the permafrost won’t allow their roots to take hold.) During the winter months (so everything that’s not June, July and August) it’s not unusual for the temperatures to dip into the -30s or -40s, and when I was there at the end of December, the sun had set to full black by two in the afternoon.  There is an ice road that leads out of town that is literally called The Road to Nowhere.  It is, by virtue of the unforgiving climate and its remoteness, a rather ugly city.  Also, there are apparently polar bears, and we are not to feed them.

So what once-in-a-lifetime things does a fish out of Ontario water do when she’s thrown head-first into the frozen, turquoise waters of the far north?

Well, I did my job, for one, but even that came with its own “Only in Iqaluit” moments, such as when I stood outside the courthouse in the deep, snow-muffled silence of an early Arctic morn, sharing a cup of coffee with the courthouse clerk as he explained how this frozen spit of land had captured his formerly city-dwelling heart.  Or when I glanced out the window of the courtroom later on that day and saw a mangy dog dragging a severed caribou head down the street.

In hindsight, the entire trip was an exercise in surrealism.  My flight in was a delight, the likes of which I will probably never enjoy again – totally empty plane, save for maybe nine other passengers, three seats to myself, a really fantastic lunch, nice little post-nosh tipple(s) and a low, low approaching altitude that allowed me to gaze out the window at the wonder of all that neon turquoise water showing through the cracks in the ice and snow.

I walked the town in snowpants and Kodiak boots for three hours until I realized I had already seen everything.  I bought a $9 bag of potato chips at the North Mart (not making light of the very real problem of food deserts in the far north.)  I stood in a 6 a.m., two-person scrum (which itself was considered quite the turnout) as an accused murderer was brought to the courthouse.  I watched the sun rise at 10 am, cutting a weak, low path across the horizon, before setting to pitch blackness again three hours later.  I sat in my hotel room one night, blissfully crunching overpriced chips and watching silly teen movies on cable, and put together a scrapbook gift for a friend.  Every cab ride in the city cost $5, no matter where you were going or how long you were in the vehicle.  I shared a delicious breakfast of Arctic Char eggs benedict with a Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada in the diningroom of a four-star hotel at 6:30 in the morning.  Later on that day we marched up to the Subway together for lunch; at the time it was the best performing franchise in Canada, and was a top five contender for all of North America.

On the day I headed out of town, two days before Christmas, I joined a city-wide exodus of bureaucrats fleeing the frozen north for (barely) warmer holiday climes down south. It seemed like the entire city emptied out in about five hours.  After checking my bags and securing my seat home, I spent those five hours in a nearby coffee shop/karaoke parlour/tanning salon, where I sipped tea, ate a scrumptious blueberry scone and contemplated asking the proprietors if they’d be willing to rename their establishment the Fake ‘n’ Bakery.

On the flight home – no empty plane this time, that’s for sure – through a massive snowstorm, I experienced turbulence so extreme, I really thought my end had come.  I suppose that’s normal when your plane is bucking wildly from side to side and dropping what feels like 20 feet at a time.  Also when the cargo hold is packed full of howling dogs and screaming cats and the flight attendants suspend all food service when your chicken cordon bleu flies up to the ceiling and then just sticks there.

My favourite part of the trip, though?  Like everybody, coming home.  Seeing my parents’ smiling, relieved faces at the airport, and then walking through the door of my apartment late on the evening of the 23rd to find that my friends had prepared an amazing holiday dinner and decorated the molting ficus.  Home really is where the heart is.  No place like it, as Dorothy might say.

That, coincidentally, was the moment I decided to drop my whole “woe is me” romantic bullshit and rejoin the human race as something other than a mopey dick.  The people I loved were making every effort to boost my fragile self-esteem, and I could certainly do likewise.  Besides, I had just conquered the far north!  Severed caribou heads, man – that kind of thing changes a person!  Four fun-filled, glorious, halcyon months later I met Mr. Finger Candy, and the rest is happy history.

So there we have it, that once-in-a-lifetime event that I was actually fortunate enough to experience firsthand.  Never saw a single polar bear, though. 😉

If you’d like to play along at home, please feel free to answer this question in the comment section below, and we hope you’ll visit these Band of Blogger blogs and help support the blogger community!

Amanda at Thrifty Polished

Jaybird at The Candle Enthusiast

Julie at The Redolent Mermaid

Lauren at LoloLovesScents

Liz at Furianne

Sandra – me! – at Finger Candy

If you are a blogger and would like to join the Band of Bloggers for our monthly posts, please contact us.

August Band of Bloggers

Pop quiz, hotshot: How well do you know your favourite Band of Bloggerette? Sure, we’re all reasonably up to date on each other’s interests, hobbies and the pretty, glittery things that make our hearts go pitter pat, but when it comes to the vitally important markers of a person’s character – favourite band, desert island scent, fight stance in the zombie apocalypse – how well do we truly know our virtual neighbours? 🙂 Let’s delve into 10 deeply random questions and find out, shall we?

1. No really, zombie apocalypse survival strategy: Fight or flight?

I always enjoy the assumption that in the event of such an unlikely scenario playing out, we all instantly turn into master marksman crack shots with nothing but pure ice water running through our veins.  I think the most likely course of action, in a world in which zombies are up and lumbering about, would be to tuck myself into the very furthest corner of a closet and just quietly go insane.  Then my cat will eat me.

2. You’ve been a bad, bad kitty and you have just one final meal coming your way. What’s on your plate?

My mom will be delighted to know that just about everything on my final meal menu is one of her delicious creations.  To start, bruschetta with heirloom tomatoes and lots of garlic.  Bit of Romano cheese on top.  Starter flute of Kir Royale.  Obscenely garlicky Caesar salad, made with raw egg yolks.  Spaghettini Amatraciana (tomatoes, bacon, white wine, more garlic) with a side of fried chicken.  Another Kir Royale.  Big slice of mom’s apple pie, maybe two.  Coffee, strong, black and sugared.  Goin’ out in simple, delicious style with this one.

3. Aside from wax (or nail polish, or crafting supplies, or beauty products) what item do you have major multiples of?

Life in a condominium apartment presents certain storage challenges, the main challenge being there is none.  So cleaning house, in the literal and figurative senses, has been a casual ongoing project of mine for some years now.  As such, I have very few multiples of anything.  But at one point three or so years ago, I had five nearly identical, horizontally-striped, A-line t-shirt dresses hanging in my closet.  So comfortable!  I use the pilled, stretched-out guys today as swim cover-ups.

4. You’ve just won the lottery. Before best friends you didn’t even know you had begin to show up on your doorstep, what’s the first thing you buy without even thinking twice?

That gigantic Disney vacation I’m always going on about, just with a completely blind eye to money.  As in it will be no object.  First class plane tickets so we don’t get tased and thrown off our flight.  The best rooms in the most top-of-the-line resorts.  Reservations at Club 33, Disney’s not-so-secret supper club.  A night’s stay in Cinderella’s castle suite.  Fifty grand to close down the Haunted Mansion for three hours so we can ride it 13 times in a row solo.  And a couple of bucks to throw at Gaston after he massages my aching shoulders.  Gotta put those muscles – every last inch of them covered with hair – to good use. 😉

5. Biggest celebrity crush? This can be anybody – an actress, a musician, a fictional character from a favourite movie, book or television show, or maybe even an historical figure.

I tend to like ’em dirty and deranged – Edward Norton as Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden, Keith Flint of The Prodigy and, most recently, Jon Hamm in Baby Driver.  But at the moment, quite contrary to my usual crush type, it’s Keegan-Michael Key.  I just think he’s so handsome.  Great eyes, kind, open face.  Very little trace of the dirtbag.  I feel like Buffy dating Riley – something’s just a bit off, and it might be the absence of scuzzbucket.

6. Flats or heels? Or are you running barefoot through life like some sort of hippie?

Flats these days (especially when they’re as cute as the adorable ice cream slip-ons below.)  But a decade or so ago, heels all the time, and none of this wedge platform malarkey either – bona fide stilettos, and the more impractical, the better.  I have this one pair of Ralph Lauren sandals that are naught but two flimsy bands of satin wrapped around a razor thin heel.  They retailed for $475 15 or so years ago, but I nabbed them at an outlet for $25!  That wearing them for any longer than half an hour is akin to your feet being whipped by a thousand angry Lilliputians is besides the point – they’re devastatingly sexy (if you can walk in them, and I can) and whadda deal. 🙂

7. Whether it was created through a customs order or simple pick-and-mix blending at home, what’s the greatest scent blend you’ve ever stumbled upon?

Based off a Rosegirls’ scent they made last year, perhaps the year before, I created a stupendous custom blend with Sniff My Tarts that was – and is, although my stores are running low – one of the best darn smelling things to ever grace my nose – Mango Sorbet, Coconut Cream Pie and Vanilla Waffle Cone.  It’s tart and juicy, with hints of crispy sugar cone and unidentifiably delicious creamy things, and I still can’t get over how well my decorated sheet cake turned out, both in terms of scent and aesthetics.  Lovely.

8. It’s snack time!  Are you reaching for the sweet or the salty?

Salty, always salty.  Preferably salty, deep fried and starch-based.  And I wonder why I have a weight problem (no, actually, I don’t wonder; I think this makes it pretty clear!)

9. What’s a personal style moment you’d never care to re-live?

I think I’ve always looked darn cute, no matter the style-of-the-moment.  In grade 9 I even managed to rock ankle-zip jeans and a pink Northern Reflections sweatshirt with an embroidered LOON on the front.  Or maybe I just thought I was rocking it?  But I went through a bit of an unfortunate punk lite period after university that suited me in sensibility, if not style.  Because there was very little of the latter, just a weird affinity for armfuls of cheap, studded leather cuffs and Emily the Strange hoodies (I shouldn’t knock the hoodie; I wore my cat ear’d (and paw’d) Emily the Strange zip-up on my first date with Mr. Finger Candy.)  My hair also stuck straight up (and out) in an odd, product-enabled kind of spiky faux-hawk that made me look like a mad scientist who’s been electrocuted by her own creation.

10. You are going to live in a biodome beneath the sea for the next three years and have been allotted space for just ONE book (tiny dome!)  What cherished book will keep you entertained for the next 1095 days?

Under the Dome by Stephen King.  A very on-the-nose choice, I realize, but also a favourite novel, and a gigantic beast of one, at that – clocking in at a massive 1072 pages, it represents the best value for your bitty biodome buck.

If you’d like to play along at home, please feel free to answer these questions in the comment section below, and we hope you’ll visit these Band of Blogger blogs and help support the blogger community!

Amanda at Thrifty Polished

Jaybird at The Candle Enthusiast

Jessica at The Meltdown Blog

Julie at The Redolent Mermaid

Lauren at LoloLovesScents

Liz at Furianne

Sandra – me! – at Finger Candy

If you are a blogger and would like to join the Band of Bloggers for our monthly posts, please contact us.

July Band of Bloggers

As mid-summer approaches, my mind drifts to vacation times, getaways or mini excursions out and about.  One-tank trips.  Parks to explore.

Do you take a summer vacation or do small getaways?  What do you have planned?  If not, what would be your ideal vacation or retreat?  What are your favourite local haunts?  Give us some places to hang out!

No real summer plans this year (or any year; I don’t do summer very well) save just getting through the dang thing.

But!  My dream vacation?  The mere idea of which gets me up nearly every day at the butt crack of dawn to trawl the pool or pound the pavement in the hopes of whittling my arse down to a Doom Buggy-acceptable size?  The dream that is so potent, it practically comes with its own smell?

Disney.  Disney World, actually, classic Orlando styles (don’t get me started on the incongruities of someone who wilts like a pansy in the heat vacationing in central Florida.)  I used to go just about every year with my parents when I was a kid, and indeed, it’s where Mr. Finger Candy and I enjoyed two weeks of blissful – if humid – honeymooning, but we haven’t been in years.

Time to rectify that in a major way.  And we can start with something I have ALWAYS wanted to do, but which my parents – bless their otherwise terrifically indulgent souls – could never quite manage, 13 straight trips through my favourite place on Planet Earth, the Haunted Mansion.  I’m trying not to hype it up too much, or denigrate all of the other very, very important moments that have occurred in my life (graduating university, getting married, owning a home) but I think it’s going to be the very best day of my life. 😉

And not like they weren’t a lot of work or anything, but I’ll be sporting these nails when I do eventually get there, my second go at recreating the Mansion’s iconic Damask wallpaper, complete with eerily shifting eyes.

I am not going to lie…as summer starts revving up…I am catching myself daydreaming not only about vacation, but also fall scents.  I am sure it may be too early for some and others melt fall scents year round, but I must ask…where are you planning to order your fall smell goods from?  It can be vendor wax, candles, bath and body or perfumes.  Just spill!

Save a pending Sniff My Tarts custom order, 3/4 of which is mint-based (so more winter there) I have no outstanding orders.  But I’ve always wanted to get in on The Bathing Garden’s gore-geous collection of Halloween-themed bath and body care.  I’ve been so impressed with my two orders thus far, and I can’t wait to see what beautifully creepy little items they come up with for the upcoming haunting season.

Please feel free to answer these questions in the comment section below.

And we hope you’ll visit these Band of Bloggers blogs and help support the blogger community!

Amanda at Thrifty Polished

Jaybird at The Candle Enthusiast

Jessica at The Meltdown Blog

Julie at The Redolent Mermaid

Lauren at LoloLovesScents

Liz at Furianne

Sandra – me! – at Finger Candy

If you are a blogger and would like to join the Band of Bloggers for our monthly posts, please contact us.

June Band of Bloggers

Toes in the water, sunshine on the skin, evenings spent watching blinking fireflies or brilliant fireworks, all the little indulgences that only summer can bring.  As it’s arriving soon (in the northern hemisphere), for June we want to know the special ways you indulge during the summer months.  Any activities you look forward to?  For some, it involves dodging bugs, to searching for respite from soaring temps.  But for everyone, it means longer daylight hours.  What is your summer indulgence?

I’m not sure how much of an indulgence something can be if it cost 75 cents at the secondhand bookstore, but one of my favourite things to do in the summer is bury myself in a stack of Christopher Pike young adult thrillers and pretend I’m 12 years old again.  I was just discussing this with a friend the other day, but those beloved books (all published in the late ’80s and ’90s, for those not familiar with Pike’s work) really hold up quite well.  You know, provided you’re into Egyptology, time travel, teen cannibalism, lizard people from Mars, mild drug use, vampires, devastating childhood trauma and a hell of a lot of female characters named Ann.  Last summer, whilst in the midst of a major Pike-a-thon, I created this manicure.  I may have also rhapsodized a fair bit about my deep, abiding love for the 1980s YA teen thriller; you can find that post here.

Continuing with gratification, what’s the most indulgent fragrance purchase you have ever made or been gifted?  A special bottle of perfume, exclusive wax opening, or pricey, fancy pants candle?

Every Christmas my parents gift me with a two-wick Voluspa candle in one of my favourite fragrances, French Bourbon Vanille.  This candle is a real luxury item – silky smooth, clean-burning coconut wax, a lush, gourmand fragrance, that beautiful mercury glass container – and it’s got the price tag to go along with it – $38 Canadian.

That my parents willingly – I’d say even gleefully – purchase this for me every year is nothing short of amazing, as they are not the type to splash out on something as banal as a candle.  My parents have always been exceedingly financially responsible.  It’s what has allowed them to enjoy a comfortable life, all while continuing to be quite generous with their only daughter (come on, you knew I was an only child!)

Having said that, my parents are still a long way off from Dickensian tightwads.  They spend their money on the things that matter to them; luxury candles simply aren’t one of those things.  Dollar Store firestarters will do just fine, thanks!  But my, do they love purchasing this candle every year.  I think it gives them a weirdly illicit little jolt – “Wayne!  We’re buying a $40 candle for our kid.  Is she bonkers or are we?”

Lastly, how would you indulge if $ was no object?  It could be a luxe fragrance you desire, a pampering spa package, a legendary retired scent, etc.  What is your dream way to treat yo’self?

If finances and environmental impact were of no concern, I’d enjoy freshly laundered linens every day, and fresh cut flowers thrice weekly.  Thrice!  I love bedding down in clean sheets (bolted downstairs at 9:30 pm on New Years Eve, actually, to throw a load in the machine so I could begin 2017 unencumbered by 2016’s scuzzy sheets) and fresh flowers are simple sunshine in a vase.  Love the little luxuries associated with both.

Please feel free to answer these questions for yourself in the comment section below.

And we hope you’ll visit these Band of Blogger blogs and help support the blogger community!

Amanda at Thrifty Polished

Jaybird at The Candle Enthusiast

Jessica at The Meltdown Blog

Julie at The Redolent Mermaid

Lauren at LoloLovesScents

Liz at Furianne

Sandra – me! – at Finger Candy

If you are a blogger and would like to join the Band of Bloggers for our monthly posts, please contact us.

May Band of Bloggers

May, May, May.  Welcome back ‘ol friend!  May is a turning point in the year for a lot of people.  The school year is almost over, summer is coming soon, and those mild months will still become scorchers.  The birthstone of May is the emerald, which symbolizes love and success.  This month, we’re focusing on these two things!

We all love something with all our hearts, so tell us what you love the most.  It could be the story of how you met your spouse/significant other, where you got your pet, or a nod to your parental units.

Had this prompt arrived in my inbox this time last week, I probably would have gleefully – and loudly – proclaimed COLD MEDS!!! to be my most favourite thing ever.  When you’re ill, they can be *just* the thing to get you up and on your feet (or partially hunched over and swaying, if you don’t overdo it.)  But I REALLY overdid it last weekend, optimistically snarfing down half a box of something that promised to banish my flu to the Land of Tissues and Cough Suppressant.  It, of course, did no such thing!  I just kept sneezing and coughing, sneezing and coughing.  The only difference was now?  I was LOADED.  Higher than I’ve ever been in my life, and not in a pleasant way – more in the “I can’t feel my tongue/Why are these neon fish swimming outside my window?” sort of way.  Can’t say I loved that very much, particularly as I’m now side-eyeing any and all cold meds like they’re pure poison.

But you know what I did love about my lost weekend?  The order confirmation that showed up from Sephora on Sunday morning informing me that at some point on Saturday night, I placed a not-insubstantial order for, well, a lot of shimmery blue makeup!  Items I had once placed on my wishlist as a bit of a lark (the aforementioned shimmery blue lipstick, a holographic powder palette, colour-shifting liquid metal-type eye shadow) were now speeding their way across Canada, directly into my hot (still so hot) little hands, and I had ZERO memory of having sat down and even made the order in the first place.

I’ve never shopped whilst intoxicated before, so this was definitely a new one for me.  Well, there was that time just out of university that my friend and I got (let’s not mince words) tanked and then went to the mall to see a movie, only for me to get completely waylaid by a catastrophically ugly $3,000 dress in the window of a nearby shop that I apparently needed to have RIGHT THEN.  But I certainly didn’t buy that dress, nor did I sneak back in the dead of night and surreptitiously purchase it under cover of hungover darkness.  Can’t say the same about my blue makeup bonanza!

Actually, there’s not much I can say about it at all, having apparently lost that bit of institutional shopping knowledge to the ever-shifting sands of accidental inebriation.  But unlike the $3,000 dress, I’ve got a use and a purpose for all these pie-in-the-sky goodies, and the story alone – hell, just the visual of me sitting there, eyes two tiny, watery slits, congested gob wide open, chin three inches off the keyboard – is a great one that I’m compelled to share!  My incredible weirdness is your entertainment gain!

Ultimately, though, there was really no harm done here, and no foul either, this accidental bounty covered by some leftover birthday mad money.  I might not be chuckling quite so heartily if I had blown through actual budgeted funds, but as a one-off, I love it.  It is the thing I love the most right now. 🙂

In terms of success and keeping it blog-related, have you ever participated in and/or completed a “project wax” or spring wax/perfume/makeup/scented product purge?  Have you ever bought so much product you felt the need to use it all up before you bought again?

No to all of the above, an odd little bit of responsible adulting I chalk up to a couple of different factors – an overall lack of storage space in my apartment condo and my own deep, abiding desire to NOT have my death certificate read “Crushed to death by expired Lush shit.”  So I only ever tend to have on hand that which I can and do use.

We hope you visit these Band of Bloggers blogs and help support the blogger community!

Amanda at Thrifty Polished

Jaybird at The Candle Enthusiast

Jessica at The Meltdown Blog

Julie at The Redolent Mermaid

Lauren at LoloLovesScents

Liz at Furianne

Sandra – me! – at Finger Candy

If you are a blogger and would like to join the Band of Bloggers for our monthly posts, please feel free to contact us!

April Band of Bloggers

It’s that time of year again!  As the warmer weather soothes stiff joints and brushes off the last vestiges of winter, homes beg for the same fresh start everyone promised themselves at the beginning of the year.  Clothes are donated, rooms are scrubbed, and yards are tended.  While the fauna leave their winter dens or return from long migrations, the world blooms with new growth in vibrant splashes of colour.

For April’s Band of Bloggers post, we will answer a few questions about Spring and the ever-loved Spring cleaning.  Feel free to join in and answer these questions in the comments below!

Do you decorate for Spring?

Save some specific Easter decorations that I pull out around the end of March, it’s ALWAYS Spring in my apartment – lots of raspberry red, robin’s egg blue and a pink I like to refer to as “Strawberry Fluff.”  This spattered egg wreath actually sits on a little decorative shelf above the second bedroom bed year-round.  My best friend once commented that I have the perfectly decorated single girl’s apartment – remarkable, as I live with a man, and a pretty messy one at that!

Are there any products you find yourself reaching for as the weather warms?  This can be anything; food, clothing, bath and body, wax, you name it!

I suppose like most people shrugging off the final frosty bits of winter, I start to lean towards fresh, fruity and floral scents for both my person and my home.  After finishing off a bottle of hand soap the other day, I reached into my extras drawer and pulled out two choices – some fruity berry thing, bursting with Springtime freshness, and a beautiful Bath & Body Works scent by the name of Winter White Woods, an unexpected favourite of mine that smells like a still copse of snow-laden birch trees.  Glancing outside, I saw that the actual birch trees surrounding my building were laden with snow themselves, so back into the drawer Winter White Woods went – perhaps best to put a bit of distance between winter and Winter, yes?

Do you participate in the Spring cleaning craze?

Living in a condo apartment building, I thankfully have very few Spring maintenance duties to attend to.  But before the summer spiders arrive and drive me back indoors, I sweep down the balconies, wash the windows and frames, maybe set out a few pots of pansies (which I haven’t in years; my dear, late kitty, Porky, LOVED to nibble on freshly potted pansies – would actually race me to the balcony door so she could rip off their little lion’s heads like the savage predator she was – and I haven’t had the heart to buy any since her passing.  Maybe this year.  Miss you, Pork Chop.)

Don’t forget to visit these fellow participants in the Band of Bloggers and help support the blogger community!

Amanda at Thrifty Polished

Jaybird at The Candle Enthusiast

Julie at The Redolent Mermaid

Lauren at LoloLovesScents

Liz at Furianne

Sandra – me! – at Finger Candy

If you are a blogger and would like to join the Band of Bloggers for our monthly posts, please contact us.

March Band of Bloggers

Welcome to the March edition of Band of Bloggers!  Hopefully this month begins to bring more temperate weather and the first signs of spring!  In my neck of the woods, conditions have been alternating between crazy heavy rain/high winds and beautiful sunshine and blooming flowers.  I hope the weather will stabilize a bit this month.  Since the month of March usually holds the first signs of spring, that begs the question:

What scents are your favourite scents to melt and wear for spring?

Are you a fan of traditional spring scents such as florals, fresh/clean, earthy, herbal, etc.?

Do you consider yourself a seasonal melter (melting scents traditionally associated with a particular season)?

I wouldn’t consider myself a seasonal melter, if only because every time I try to really immerse myself in the hallmark scents of a season (pumpkin and apple in the fall, mint and trees in the winter) I go into complete olfactory overload and swear that if I ever smell another (apple, it’s usually apple) scent, I’m hurling all my warmers off the balcony.  Bit dramatic, that, but I think we’ve all been there.

 So no, not a seasonal melter, but as we move into the warmer spring months (how funny that we’re now talking about the spring – after two weeks of way-above-normal winter temperatures, the mercury plummeted overnight to -20) I do tend to gravitate towards some of the lighter, fresher and cleaner scents in my wax collection (said collection still being 99 percent fruity-bakery, so take that with a large grain of, um, sugar.)

Here I pulled two favourite new fragrances from my recent Sniff My Tarts order, a large frosted sugar cookie in Lavender Marshmallow Cake and Lemon Cake Pops, and a bag of no-fuss chunks (adorable little petit four-shaped confections) in Mango, Blackberry and Twinkies.  Customs both, they’re fruity, fresh and beautifully layered – perfect AND perfectly unassuming background scents, the kind of fragrances that make you think, “I don’t know what that is, but it smells flippin’ GREAT in here.”  Definitely my kind of spring scents. 🙂

We hope you’ll join the fun and leave your own answer in the comments below!  And we hope you’ll visit these Band of Blogger blogs and help support the blogger community!

Amanda at Thrifty Polished

Jaybird at The Candle Enthusiast

Julie at The Redolent Mermaid

Lauren at LoloLovesScents

Liz at Furianne

Sandra – me! – at Finger Candy

If you are a blogger and would like to join us for our monthly posts, please don’t hesitate to contact any one of us.

February Band of Bloggers

Back in the Fall I reached out to a group of ladies whose blogs I had been lurking about for quite some time. Nail stuff, smelly waxy stuff, sparkly stuff, makeup stuff, and then occasionally that annoying old thing we call day-to-day life, it was all on display, and with some kind, funny and thoughtful voices backing it up, to boot.  It was through this group that I joined up with the Fall Fun Series, and then through that series that I’ve now joined up with the Band of Bloggers, a fun, friendly and supportive group of mostly wax and fragrance bloggers who get together once a month to talk about all things deliciously scented.  Below you’ll find my thoughts on this month’s question, as well as links to the other participating blogs – please do check them out!

Welcome to the February edition of Band of Bloggers!  You’re probably getting tired of winter already as we start this new month.  Maybe your thoughts are already turning towards spring, or maybe you’re all about Valentine’s at the moment.  Hearts and roses, chocolates and cards, and special someones making you smile…with all that love floating around, our question this month is quite simple.

What scent are you *loving* at the moment?  It can be anything from wax, to perfume, to body care, to…whatever!

Mango!  Mango, mango, mango.  Huh, funny how words lose all meaning the more you say them.  Mmmmmmmmango!

But truly, after once again burning myself out (heh) on seasonal scents (tree! mint! cookies!) I’m now all about tart and fruity bakery blends.  I’m particularly fond of the Mango Sorbet fragrance oil that most vendors seem to use, which is good, as I’ve two custom orders coming my way in the next few weeks, and mango features prominently in both.  Sweet and juicy, with a nice little kick of tartness to keep them from becoming completely saccharine, mango scents lean tropical, but without the floral notes that can nudge tropical fruits into pina colada territory (a place I don’t ever care to visit; pina coladas are a waste of alcohol, and virgin pina coladas are a waste of ice!)  One of my favourite mango scents is Rosegirls’ Mango Coconut Waffle Cone, and it smells exactly as delicious as it sounds – crisp, sugary, fresh-from-the-oven waffle cones heaped with tart, cool and creamy mango sorbet, sprinkled with a dusting of shredded coconut.  It’s friggin’ fantastic.

We hope you’ll join the fun and leave your own answer in the comments below.

And we hope you’ll visit these Band of Blogger blogs and help support the blogger community!

Amanda at Thrifty Polished

Jaybird at The Candle Enthusiast

Julie at The Redolent Mermaid

Lauren at LoloLovesScents

Liz at Furianne

Sandra – me! – at Finger Candy

And if you’d like to join in on the Band of Bloggers fun, please don’t hesitate to contact any one of us!