Forever Red: Vanilla Rum; a quick look.

Hi, hello there. 

I recently purchased some of the discounted Vanilla Rum products that were released by B&BW for the winter season to try them out as I love the original Forever Red. Below are my thoughts!

Out of the bottle, the body cream smells essentially like a thick, creamy vanilla with a deeper hint of rum than the original, however it lacks the fruity notes mixed in. On my skin, before it dries it smells, well, basically like I've spilled a shot of rum on myself. And not in a good way. It's very strong, very alcohol smelling. The point of the Vanilla Rum of course, was the focus on the rum aspect of Forever Red and the fruity is completely gone to my nose, replaced with a thick floral. Quite frankly, I find the scent headache inducing. I had tried the EDT in store one day after work as I smelled horribly of grease and chalked up the alcohol smell as mostly the EDT itself. It sadly wasn't. 

If I had one wish for this scent, it'd be to make it slightly weaker. Perhaps the strength is a plus but I can honestly barely smell much else besides rum. I love rum as much as the next gal but I'm not so sure I want to smell like I've just come from the bar or spilled a drink. 

It takes a while for the scent to die down a little, where it's a bit more bearable and less boozy and I quite like it at that point but it takes some will to make it through the first hour or so of application. 

Bottom line: I don't care for it and I'll stick to the original Forever Red. Just glad I stuck to the mini mist instead of breaking out the full size mist.

First Impressions: Forever Sunshine

Hey guys! Can you tell I'm off work? I hope so by my posting frequency. Lol. 

Today, I'd like to give an initial review of Forever Sunshine. I've used it a few times and I feel like talking about it. 

Upon first sniff of the TMC at the store, I smelled something extremely familiar. Quite good. Almost spicy. It wasn't until I got it home that I placed it. It smelled like gingerbread to me! Weird right? It's probably the "hint of praline". The back says "A fresh blend of golden apricot, pink peonies and a hint of praline that captures the romance of warm days that linger into cool autumn." I'll say. Though I gotta be honest, I don't get a summery feel out of this.  I

To me, I feel like I'm reminded of when the cooler weather comes and there are no more warm days, school starting back up, pumpkins appearing in the supermarkets. It doesn't feel like summer to me at all. However inappropriately named I find this scent, I find that I am amazed by it. I don't really know what apricots smell like but to me, I get this sweet and spicy blast of yummy. I can definitely smell the floral in the FFM but again, I get more of the dessert reminiscent goodness than flowers and fruit out of this scent. I certainly have no complaints. 

I will say this is quite a strong scent. It's very heavy and in your face. It'll certainly go a distance with you too, but it doesn't simply fade, when it's gone, it's GONE! Also, headache/migraine sufferers beware, this one might bring on a headache! 

If you're like me and haven't tried this one because you got into B&BW after it left stores, now's your chance to sniff before you buy! It's available in stores for $5 ea. including the FFM until August 4th! 

I give this a pretty good out of awesome. 

Hm. I ought to come up with a scale...

To do.

Product Review: Sugar Berry Smash

I meant to review this before work but I ran out of time so here it is now. 

I say product but I really mean scent. Well, it IS three products. Ah well, you guys get where I am going with this. 

Without further ado. When I got this home, I smelled the mist and compared it to my Sweet on Paris shimmer mist after seeing the numerous comparisons to it. I liked SoP. Well, what I got of it which was only that one mist so having a dupe would satisfy me. Smelling them side by side, it was very, very similar. Barely noticed any differences! I let PIC smell them to and he asked me if they were the same thing! Interesting. 

The shower gel of course is a typical B&BW shower gel. While the scent itself isn't extremely in your face a la Malibu Heat style, it's pleasant. It's very sweet but not powerful enough to be nauseating. I smell a heavy berry scent laced with sugar, a slight bit of orange and topped with whipped cream. 

The lotion also is very sweet, very nice. I notice differences in consistencies to the lotions, some leave a greasy feeling, some are sticky almost. This is neither. To be honest, as far as the lotion itself goes, forget the scent, it's the best lotion I've used from there. It soaks in quickly and doesn't leave any weird residues or stickiness about it. As for the scent, again we have a very sweet berry fragrance going on and it's once again quite tame but noticeable. I wore it this morning and can still smell it on my skin despite working with food all day. On the dry down, it's a light, creamy vanilla. Fantastic!

The spray is perhaps the sweetest out of all three. It's packaged in a shimmer mist bottle but doesn't have the glitter (thank goodness). Interesting. I spray some on me, then on my clothes and it lasts hours and hours. 

I have to see, when I heard of Summer Twist and Summer Chill, I was going bananas over Coconut Water Chill and wasn't interested in Summer Twist at all. Now I see that I was mistaken as I am terribly in love with this scent. To quote the lovely Candle Queen on B&BW Sistas page, "AMAZEBALLS!" out of ten.  

Now burning and will review later:

Product Review: Malibu Heat

I've got a product review brewing before I forget. I guess it's more of a general fragrance review as with body care I tend to review the steps I have in the scent. At any rate, I present my beloved Malibu Heat.

 

Looks like I did some damage for only having had it two months right? Admittedly I do use other stuff in between but I've been dedicated in using this a majority of the time. 

For those who haven't been reading along as long, and/or haven't checked back towards the back of my blog, when I first started up, I posted my first haul since launching the blog back in May when Pure Paradise first hit the sales floor with Malibu Heat. This is when I first picked it up. I hadn't been into B&BW long enough to see it the first time around (and if it was as the Winter SAS, I missed it completely as I didn't know what the heck I was doing.) but upon reading the fragrance notes, I knew I would be in for a treat. I tried and tried to get my hands on it as soon as possible but alas, I had to wait for the launch which is ok, it was worth the wait. 

Where do I start with this one? The description reads "A fresh blend of juicy pineapple, California orange, and coconut milk inspired by pink sunsets and twenty-seven miles of beautiful beach."

I gotta say, it smells really good. The scent varies highly dependent on which form you use. I noticed the lotion has a much stronger scent to it, heavier on the fruit while the TMC is nice and tame, with more of a coconut milk smell. The lotion dries down quicker to the musk smell, while the TMC lingers a while. I like both actually. While I prefer the TMC vastly to the regular lotions, I like the smell the lotion gives a lot better.

The shower gel is standard B&BW fare, pretty strong though. It doesn't last that long after shower (what really does? I mean you wash it off!) but it smells amazing when you use it. I would liken it to the scent of the lotion best. The FFM is a lot heavier on the musk scent but it does nicely when I spray it on my clothes for the day. I get a ton of compliments from this scent and I kind of sniff myself a lot when I'm wearing it too. -.-

Now for the hair mist and the scrub. The scrub is okay - after the flop I found the Beautiful Day body wash+scrub to be I was hesitant to try another but with a free item up to $16.50, I thought okay, I'll give it a go. Rinse thoroughly. I do mean thoroughly unless you want to find gritty little white flecks all over you when you're applying your lotion. It smells great and exfoliates nicely, but I follow it with the regular shower gel anyway to be on the safe side. I much prefer the TBS Malibu Smooth Body Scrub over this product. The hair mist I tend to use on my off days of hair washing since it can be drying due to the presence of sea salt. It doesn't really give me "beach waves" but it does do some nice things for my hair like breathe some life into otherwise flat and boring hair. It also cuts down a lot on the frizz for me and makes my hair smell like the rest of me. 

Bottom line: I was expecting to like Malibu Heat a lot when I first read up on it but I wasn't expecting it to become my go-to scent. As I've found myself to be a seasonal person, I'll probably calm my usage of it down but it's a definite hot weather winner for me. The dry down isn't nearly as nice as the top and mid but that's okay.

Product Review

An oldie as I am aware but a goodie nonetheless. Being as new as I am to B&BW, I missed the days when scents like Black Amethyst or Dark Kiss were in stores. Last SAS when I went hunting for leftover Twisted Peppermint items, I saw plenty of From Paris With Love (which I should've bought then!!) but never saw the aforementioned scents. Being too cowardly to order online in the event that I wouldn't like it, I refrained until this SAS. 

When the sneak peek came around, I took a chance and ordered these lovelies and almost ordered BA too but instead opted for Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin. I would've gotten to smell them before the SAS had UPS not decided that suddenly they want to require a signature for my B&BW purchase. So opening day of the SAS rolls around and I find by chance, a travel size Dark Kiss lotion and a travel size shower gel. I picked them up and smelled them and I knew it was going to be love from there! Stores even got them in stock for the SAS after about a week in!

Anyway, enough about that and let's get to the product. This smells absolutely divine. The shower gel is of course, typical B&BW shower gel fodder. I find this scent (along with Malibu Heat) to be among the stronger scents, lingering very faintly even once you step out of the shower. The lotion is another one of those that doesn't leave an oddly sticky feeling on my skin as some scents can - hence my strong preference for the TMC all except those run off your skin when you sweat...ew. The scent the lotion provides was strong enough that I didn't even need a fragrance mist to notice it hours later.

How would I describe the smell? Honestly I thought it was familiar! I had recently smelled something like it but couldn't put my finger on it. It's a sweet and slightly tart berry blend with a hint of Vanilla and musk. When I went into my bedroom, I realised why it smelled familiar - I purchased a Black Currant Vanilla Aromatherapy wallflower bulb some time ago and recently got around to using it. That's exactly what it smelled like to me. I tried the BCV lotion in store but found a different take on the scent so if I had to liken DK to something, it'd def be BCV wallflowers! 

Lovely fragrance! Like Malibu Heat, I get a lot of compliments off this scent. One gal stood next to me at work one day and was like, "Are you wearing Dark Kiss? I love that scent." What a nose!

Sometimes B&BW runs online exclusives for $6 specials which is okay but if you are a fan and can find this in store still (some do have it), you are better off with the 75% off price and passing up the shipping cost altogether. I stocked up.

White Barn Summer

White Barn Summer ... little, lighter cousin of Eucalyptus Mint. Already on clearance. I can't say I'm all that surprised though. While this candle has a nice scent, it'd be great if you could smell it better, or you know, if it'd burn better.

I was excited to get this one home to burn it but it was problem from first burn. The flames usually sit sort of low. If I move the candle slightly, the flames heighten but then they'll go back down after a few minutes. I had to keep dumping wax out of this over and over. It takes absolutely forever to pool completely and sometimes won't at all. And it's got virtually no throw unless you're right next to it.

Admittedly I've seen much worse as far as bad burning candles go, just look at Facebook and you'll see plenty of it! But it might as well be unscented

Sadly, this isn't a repurchase. I don't have very good luck out of White Barn candles thus far with the exception of Eucalyptus Mint.

A look at Lemon Zest

As a devotee to Orange Ginger, I never bothered to try Lemon Zest. As the old saying goes, if it's not broken, don't fix (or in this case, replace) it. I considered it off and on though. Since it's being retired this SAS, I thought well if I don't try it now, I'll never know and if I do then I can cry about it later. Or hoard it?

Here they are, excusing the dusty table.  

I've never used the Aromatherapy Sugar scrubs before, but at half off, it's at least worth a try right? So I started with the scrub which has A LOT of oil floating around. Even stirring it with the plastic popsicle stick I got from an associate barely mixed it up. Perhaps it's supposed to be like that? I only ever make my own sugar scrubs with the exception of trying the Mentha Body Buffer (which I was disappointed in) so I have no frame of reference. What I can say is that this scrub did very nicely for the bumps on the backs of my arms and my thighs and left my skin super soft, if a little greasy. I followed up by washing it off with the body wash, and then using the lotion.

I'd like to say that I decided to give this a go today mostly because it's only midday and I feel like just going to sleep. Of course I'm off work, but I already slept and my body's still trying to figure out what I'm doing to it's internal clock (oh shift work, I love thee.) so perfect opportunity for me! I came away feeling extremely refreshed and no longer groggy. I have to say I love B&BW's Aromatherapy a lot a lot. I'm rarely disappointed by it (Lavender Vanilla I'm looking at you.). One distinct difference in the lotion I found was that Orange Ginger has a slightly sticky feel to it where Lemon Zest does not! I approve highly. Luckily, the scent doesn't leave me feeling like something you should be mopping the floor with. I would liken it to more of an ... earthy take on lemon I think. Perhaps lent to the ginseng.

I'm pretty pleased with this and I'll have to get some more before the sale's over. I'll just go back to Orange Ginger when it's all gone but I will be slightly sad!