Trying Thirty Street Crafts

So I mentioned a few posts before that since I had broken my wax ban, I would consider placing an order with Thirty Street Crafts during their restock. And yes, I did place an order! It's on the small side with only 8 items (cameo tarts, chunks, cupcakes) but I think it's a good variety to sample from a new company. Jessica Cates is the owner and she's really on the ball with updates of the restock and the shipping status of received orders on her Facebook page. She was also really nice to let me submit my order via email because of an administrative error on her website when I was trying to order. Her TAT is also amazing, my order was shipped before the sale even ended! Now, that's a really good example of forward planning!

I also placed another order with Enchanted Candle Company! I don't know what it is about Enchanted that makes me go a little crazy but I haven't received my second order yet and I put my name down for a 2lb mystery lot. Debra is closing up shop for a couple of months and put up her remaining stock for flash sales over the weekend. I am excited to see what's in my box, I am hoping for some samples from the new Liberty line!

Oh, and as I am drafting this post, I got tagged in the next batch of Rosegirls orders from the June opening! I can't believe I managed to submit my order that fast! I am so excited now, all my orders can be consolidated together to save on shipping!

Oh My Rosegirls!

Oh my, I can't believe I forgot to tell you about my Rosegirls order from the most recent opening. I am still partially in shock that I managed to get my order in before the website closed. All those stories about relentless website stalking, enormous orders, limited spaces, 5-minute openings and people unable to order even after a year, is more than enough to scare anyone off. My strategy going into this opening was to keep everything simple and only select scents from RG's House Blends list rather than trying to custom blend anything. After going through the list of blends, I narrowed it down to 10 blends in bakery bags, which makes this my biggest wax quantity order to date!

I love that Rosegirls has such a great selection of Apple blends and I got a whole bunch of them. Also despite my lack of fondness for bakery blends, I had to try the super popular Monster Cookie Fluffs Puffs and Koopa Troopa Assault. The Lavender Cupcakes with Honey Frosting was my wildcard scent, I can't wait to see how that will be.

Alice in Wonderland Blend of Honeydew and Cotton Candy Frosting

Apple Colada Blend of Green Apple and other tropical fruits

Blueberry Hill Blend of Boo Berry and Frankenberry

Koopa Troopa Assault Blend of Raspberry Sauce, Sweet Lemon Confection, Pomegranate and Smoothie

Lavender Cupcakes with Honey Frosting Blend of Lavender Cuppa Cake and Wild Honey Bee

Macintosh Madness and Rosegirls Garden Blend of Macintosh apples and roses.

Monster Cookie Fluff Puffs Blend of Smoothie and Monster Cookie

Singing in the Rain RG Secret Blend

Summer Daze Blend of Starfruit, Green Apple and Sugared Apple

Sunny Days Blend of Strawberry Jam and Satsuma

OOPS!

I broke my wax ban.

Usually I am better at controlling my online shopping tendencies but this time I crumbled. If I was thinking ahead when I decided to go on the wax ban, I should have known better than to try and do a wax ban during the 4th of July when there are sales aplenty. So I succumbed to two really awesome sales, a 20% off at Ten Digit Creations and a 25% off at Enchanted Candle Co.

The TDC sale is on till tomorrow, 5 July, and it applies to all items on the website. I have been dying to re-order from TDC ever since I got back into wax but wanted to try out other new companies first. This sale was the perfect excuse to order. I got two sets of the Single Tart Special where you get to choose 13 individual tarts for a special price. I was gravitating towards unique fresh and fruity scents that most other vendors don't offer: Aloe & Green Tea, Apple Harvest, Avocado & Sea Salt, Bamboo & Sugar Cane, Bartlett Pear, Berry Verbena, Chamomile Apple, Fruit Loops, Green Tea & Willow, Honey Lemon, Lavender Apple, Lavender Mint, Lemon Marshmallow, Muscadine, Orange Blossom, Peppermint Meringue, Pink Sands, Red Mac Apple, Sea Berry, Sea Salt & Rice Flower, Serendipity, Sugar Milk, Sugared Jasmine, Twisted Lemon, Vanilla Lime and Violet Vixen.

The ECC sale was only live for 4 hours and although I have only melted a clamshell from the company, I felt like I liked the scents enough to warrant a second purchase. It wasn't a particularly big order but it include scents from the new Fathers of Disney line and some of the scents I missed out in my previous order. I got Darth, Marlin, The Sultan's Moroccan Massage Oil, Walt's Lemon Meringue Pie, No.17 Cherry Tree Lane, Lavender and Chamomile, Napa Valley, Wildberry Tea, Something Fruity and Icy Peppermint.

So now that I have broke my wax ban, I have decided I am going to keep on breaking it to order from the Thirty Street Crafts opening in a couple of weeks. Thirty Street Crafts have been getting a good bit of buzz lately and their blends are really complex types which I love. Whether I order will depend on the scents that's going to be available so we will see!

On a more exciting note, I am officially on vacation! Yay! My last vacation was in November 2013 and I have been really looking forward to this even though it doesn't feel quite real yet. I am going to be at home for most of next week before flying to Australia, Gold Coast and Brisbane to be exact, for a holiday with friends and catching up with family. Eek! I can't wait, I need to start packing!

May-Hem.

I thought I would stop ordering in May and just wait for my outstanding orders to be shipped. Obviously I thought wrong because May could be my biggest haul to date. Now I am wondering if I should be patient and wait for all orders to be shipped together or to split the orders into two shipments. If I am patient, it might give me half a chance to work my way through my current stash a little bit more. But really, who wants to wait for their wax goodies!

Vintage Chic Scents | Flash Sale
VCS had 14 lots up for flash sale on Wednesday, random.org style. I threw my hat into the ring for the lots that were below $20 for the fun of it, and what do you know, I actually won Lot #1! The lot consists of 10 rose tarts and is a good mix of original and new scent blends like Smart Cookie, GG on Gilligan's, Tiki Volcano Bowl, Rose's Powder Room, 1927, Imagene's Lemon Serendipity Cream, Blue Hawaii Camu Camu, Film Noir, Lucy and Ethel, Pineapple Brown Sugar Cookie.

Enchanted Candle Co.
I heard about Enchanted Candle Co. a few weeks back during what was either their first or second opening. I was immediately charmed by the theme and elegance of the company and the scent blends that Debra (the owner) had concocted. When Debra re-stocked earlier this week, I couldn't help myself! I got scents from the Mary Poppins, Winnie the Pooh, Mothers of Disney and Everyday collections.

Cherry Blossom Moon | Flash Sale
Cherry Blossom Moon had a flash sale a couple weeks ago and I played after hearing really good things about CBM and interacting with Angela (the owner) in Facebook groups. After winning a few items from the flash sale, I asked Angela if I could add on a few more items to my items to make the shipping more worthwhile. Angela graciously agreed so now I am waiting for a little bit for her to fill up the bag with mystery items.

Sniff My Tarts | Mystery Bag
I am number 2 on the list! So close!

Rosegirls | Assorted Sampler
I am number 20 on the list, if RG continues at their current pace, I am thinking it might be my turn in another two or three weeks. Fingers crossed.

Uh-Oh, Addiction.

So you are probably familiar with this, you have reached a time in your life when you go, uh oh, there is more than enough wax to last for a good long while yet you can't seem to stop yourself from ordering more. I am at that point right now, I just can't resist! Here's some of my recent orders:

Rosegirls | Assorted Sampler

It's a good time to be a Rosegirls newbie. Instead of having to slug it out at one of their super-fast, super-scary openings, the first re-opening of the store since I re-joined the wax community were for 2lb mystery chunk samplers, either in Fruity/Bakery or Assorted. I was on the site promptly during the re-opening and I managed to place my order for 1 Assorted sampler within 2 mins, making me 53 on the list of over 200 orders. The TAT has yet to be announced but I hope my order will ship within April.

Two Timing Tart | Spring Clean Mystery Bag
I recently joined Two Timing Tart's new facebook group, the first thing I saw was $15 mystery bags being offered by Becky in clean, fresh and floral scents. Some of the scents include Rose Red Lemon Jam Snow Taffy, Lemon Juniper, Violet Mojito and Ocean Cotton. How am I to resist that! Plus, I really wanted to try Two Timing Tart's new wax formula. I love their scents and really want them to work for me! Order has already been shipped as I type this!

Sniff My Tarts | Mystery Bag
When SMT announced the smaller 1.5lb Mystery Bag sign-up list a month ago on their facebook group, I put myself on the list as soon as I saw the post. Again, I was about 50-something on the list. After almost a month, I am no.10! I am hoping it gets to my turn within these two weeks.

Fragrance Obsessed's Destash
One of my favourite wax bloggers, Sunnee of the blog Fragrance Obsessed recently decided to offer a pay-for-shipping-only destash on her blog. She released two phases so far and will have more to come in the next week or so. So far, I managed to snag Orchid Lake's Peanut Butter Cup (scent shot), Streetman Candle Co's Happy (large bundt) and I Heart Wax's Serendipity Peppermint. All these are new-to-me vendors and scents. My pile is a little small because I have been rather slow and missed most of the good stuff. Better luck this week!

In addition to all these, my order during The Bathing Garden's Alice in Wonderland themed March restock will be shipping out this week! Obviously I am set for a good long while but L3 will be opening up their custom list on 1 May and I really want to get on that one! Maybe that will be my last order, after that, no more for the summer! I can haz some self-control right?

One Sick, Lucky Day

I am home sick today with a viral throat infection but I am totally cheered up by two winnings on Facebook.

1. A prominent member of the wax community, Jessica, had a personal tragedy and some of her friends banded together to organise an auction to raise money to help her through this tough time. I placed a few bids over the weekend, with my last bid about two hours before the auction closed. I didn't think I would win because I expected a last minute flurry of bids but somehow I won one of the lots. I am so happy to be able to contribute and as a bonus get a great box of wax. I won the lot contributed by Audrey and except for Super Tarts, every vendor is new to me - Up The Creek, Sugar & Spice Gourmet, Sassy Girl Aroma, Rosegirls (!!), Vintage Chic Scents, Candles from the Keeping Room and Bit of Bliss.

2. A few hours later, after coming back from the doctor, I saw a notification that I had won a lot in the Vintage Chic Scents flash sale. I am super excited about this because the way the VCS website is set up doesn't allow for a non-US billing address, which makes me unable to order from them at the moment. My only hope is to try them through destashes or winning a Facebook flash sales, and I did! Whoo! The flash sale lot included 11 scent shots and 1 rose tart. The scents are a mystery which is driving me nuts! I can't wait to find out what I got.

Scored Some Super Tarts

I can't believe how lucky I am, I managed to score some Super Tarts during their Thursday night restock! I had been warned that Super Tarts' items fly off their virtual shelves very quickly so I tried to keep my expectations low. This was my first time participating in a limited-RTS stock opening and I went in without any strategy whatsoever.

I logged onto their website as Brandy (the owner) began loading the website with the products. I started opening up separate tabs for the scents that I wanted, thinking that I would refresh each tab and add the scent shot to my cart. I missed the moment when the store opened so by the time I went through my tabs, I only managed to get about 4 scents from my wishlist. I went through the website again for more scents to add onto the order and finally checked out with these 8 scents.

Citrus Explosion
Cucumber Mint
Honeydew Ya?
Pina Colada
Sugar Cookie
Sun Ripened Raspberries
Sweet Lolli
Vanilla Spearmint

On hindsight, I probably should have been a little calmer and waited for items to be released from carts or to have gone back into the site after the first 10 minutes to get more because Brandy allows shipping to be combined so that I could have made my shipping a little more worth it. In any case, I am still really excited that I managed to order from such a popular vendor, their tarts are so adorable looking and I am looking forward to getting them!

Catching Some Crabby Candle Co.

Crabby Candle Co. was one of the new vendors that caught my eye when I re-entered the world of wax. In early January, I wasn't sure whether they were opened, the Facebook page stated they were preparing for an opening but no date or announcement was provided after that. But they must be properly opened now because yesterday, they posted a sale for 15% off all products (discount code: TeamCrabby) and free shipping over $25 (on-going till Friday, 21 Feb!), and I immediately clicked onto the site to plan my order.

Apple Clover
Bird of Paradise
Brandied Pear
Cactus & Sea Salt
Cherry Pez
Coconut Lime Verbena
Cookie Madness
Farmer's Market
Fruity Rings
Honeysuckle Pear
Ice Cream Scoop Bread
Lemon Squares
Macintosh Apples
Pink Dunes
Pink Peppermint
Raspberry Lemonade
Serendipity
Southern Iced Tea
Sugar Cookie
Vanilla Lavender

Crabby has a nice range of scents and I got 20 scent shots in all, a mix of dupes like Coconut Lime Verbena and Pink Dunes, new-to-me scents like Apple Clover, Bird of Paradise, Ice Cream Scoop Bread and Serendipity. I can also never resist ordering Fruit Loops (or Fruity Rings) and Cactus & Sea Salt in my quest to find a regular vendor for them.

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Anyone planning any orders? Because I am! I am hoping to catch the Super Tarts restock on Thursday evening (Friday morning for me). I am also looking at Tiffany Candles, Sweet Fixations, Nene's Kitchen Melts or L3 Waxy Wonders. All opinions and thoughts on these vendors are appreciated!

Back on the Front Porch

Because I wanted to test out if consolidating packages with comGateway would save me money rather than individually shipping the packages, I wanted to find another vendor with a reasonable turnaround time. Each package that arrives at my US address can only remain for 30 days and I can consolidate up to three packages.

At first I considered Vintage Chic Scents because they had a V-day themed restock but the current system doesn't allow for non-US billing addresses. In the end, I went back to Front Porch Candle Co. (first order in Dec 2011) to take advantage of their free US shipping and 10% off over $25.

I had a long list of scents that I wanted but most of them weren't available. I was hoping for Fruity Loops and Apple Orchard to be available in 4-packs but they were out. Still, I managed to order 16 tarts in various fruity combinations and snag two Fruity Loops.

Apples and Peaches
Blackberry Lemon Ice Cream
Butterfly Kisses
Cherry Limeade
Cotton Candy Apple Bread
Clover and Aloe
Fruity Loops x 2
Granny Smith Green Apple
Lavender Noel
Lemon Mallow Strawberry Bread
Loopy Marshmallow Bread
Margarita Marshmallow Noel
Pear
Pink Sugar
Sweet Dreams

The one thing about Front Porch is that its scent list doesn't seem to be complete. There are many blends that are offered for sale but not described. I find that doesn't help when I am trying to select alternative scents even if they are very generic like Apples and Peaches.

Trying Out Two Timing Tart

Hot on the heels of my The Bathing Garden order, I made another order at Two Timing Tart, another vendor I had always wanted to try. In fact, when I tried creating a new customer account, the system told me I already had an existing one. After logging in, I discovered I actually had a cart in progress!

Two Timing Tart used to ship internationally but they have recently stopped that practice. I was a little upset when I realised it because I had been working on a new cart and filling it up full of Doctor Who-inspired scents (if they smell as delicious as they sound, I am going to be ordering them all the time). I actually wrote an email to Becky asking if she would grant me an exception. About 10 minutes after sending off the email, I remembered that there are mail services out there that provide buyers with a US-shipping address to buy from US-only companies and then forwarding the packages to their respective home addresses. I spent a few days figuring out which company to use. After settling on comGateway, I found out on TTT's Facebook page that Becky would be discontinuing the wax she uses and would be having a sale on her remaining stock. I immediately jumped to it and ordered 12 scents in clamshells.

Hello Sweetie
Madman With A Box
Still Not Ginger
The Sound of Drums
Daydreamer
Drunk Photography
Drunk Texting
Drunk Tweeting
This One Time at Summer Camp
Captain Tightpants
Silk Sheets
Tease

US shipping was initially charged at $12.90 through the cart but Becky refunded me $3.92 a few days later. Total final shipping for 12 clamshells is $8.98. I ordered on 25 January and I just received an email stating that the package has arrived at my US address. 5 business days for filling the order and shipping it out. That's fast! Becky also included a note in my invoice acknowledging that she didn't see my shipping email earlier due to some problems with her website system, and that she had started filling out my order when she saw the email. Well, no harm done! :)

Diving into The Bathing Garden

The Bathing Garden has always been on my list of vendors to try out, being one of the few places that offers international shipping. I only knew it through its Etsy page and it always seem to be closed. But then I see wax bloggers and vloggers hauling from there, how did they do it while it's closed, there must be a secret way!

I clicked on the Facebook group link. I previously thought it was just a normal Facebook page where the owners would give updates and behind-the-scenes tidbits and never thought to click on it. Turns out it wasn't a page but a group (big difference!) and Shannon Michele (the owner) uses it to announce restocks and instructions on how to buy her products, and for the community to share and discuss TBG.

So I submitted my request to join. And am I incredibly lucky or what, a restock was announced just as I joined the group! Shannon had very specific instructions on how to order to make things easier on her side and I was rather nervous at her very long (and detailed) list of instructions. Luckily, some of her long-time customers posted some tips in the group for newbies on how to order and not mess up. I took the advice of copying and pasting her instructions list into my email and responding to each item to make sure nothing was missed out.

I ordered 10 tarts in all:

Marshmallow Cookie Jar
Sleepy
Vanilla Layered Root Beer Float
Vintage Circus
Lemon Curd & Rose Milk
Faerie Bonfire
Cleopatra's Cream Bath
The Olive Lemon Grove
Gardenia Coconut Cream
Ever Night

In total, 20 scents for wax tarts were offered in this restock. While I am not sure if this is standard, limited or more than usual, it does seem to have a good variety of scents. I selected only 8 scents during my first study of the scents offered and decided to add in Gardenia Coconut Cream and Ever Night later to make it an even 10. These two scents are not what I normally would choose, and to me, that's the good thing about restocks limited to certain scents, they force you out of your scent comfort zone to try new ones!

I emailed Shannon my order on 21 January, received her acknowledgement and paypal request on 23 January and paying on the same day. TAT is approximately 3 weeks from date of paypal payment. I guess I will receive this late February/early March depending on the international shipping.

Update (1 Feb 2014): A bit of discussion came up in the TBG FB group about some internationals having to pay customs on their packages. I sympathise with them, of course, it's a cross we have to bear on top of astronomical shipping charges but so far I have yet to encounter customs charges because my packages are below Singapore's custom limit of $400. Anyway, Shannon wrote a note to explain her international shipping practices and that she would be happy to refund if anyone wanted to cancel. She also said she would be checking with all internationals if they still wanted their packages to ship. To save her the time, some internationals confirmed with her directly on the post and I chimed in. Later she added that some internationals use a shipping service and I included what I know about comgateway. Now, this is the super cool part. After my comment, Shannon said she would be happy to switch my shipping option to US instead of the international option I had originally paid for! It probably would be easier for her to ship US but it's the gesture that touches me, and that she's thinking of her customers first and to help them save costs. After checking in with her about TAT to make sure it will reach in time, I switched my shipping options. This will be a good test whether it will save me money as compared to individual packages.