[Body Products] Fortune Cookie Soaps "We're All Mad Here 2.0" Whipped Cream

 

In spring of 2015 Fortune Cookie Soaps released their Wonderland soap box. Now they are back doing a 2.0 line, and have sent out some samples of their whipped creams. I was lucky enough to get the "We're All Mad Here 2.0" in a recent order and I love, love, love this stuff. I have almost used this entire sample because it smells so good!

 

I was so intrigued by the whipped creams when I started looking at Fortune Cookie Soaps products last year. I wasn't sure at first if it was like Lush's  body conditioners or more like a lotion. It is a lotion or body butter style thick cream that is super moisturizing! (they also have some with Aloe in them!) The webpage describes this fragrance as "Playful mint waters and natural leafy green notes perform a masterful balancing act with musky rich cedarwood." for the original run, and the 2.0 Also has hints of watermelon in it!. This stuff smells amazing, funny enough with the scent description this would not have been one I would pick up based on the fragrance description, but I do love this and hope to get some once it is released

 

The cream is a two colored swirl in the container, the bottom being purple and the top being pink. And this stuff is super moisturizing, it is thick and soaks into the skin without a residue or oily feeling, which is great! 

 

It reminds me a lot of a mixture between lotion and body butter, it isn't runny but it isn't that super thickness you get either.  It, to me, is the perfect blend. You can check out Fortune Cookie Soaps here, and the Wonderland 2.0 line will be out eventually (no actual date from them) so keep an eye out for it and the other fragrances they will have!

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[Tea Review] August Uncommon Teas "Dark Iris"

I am always looking for new teas to try, and I stumbled across August Uncommon Teas on Facebook, they were offering a free sample of their tea, so I said why not? and gave it a try. With their free sample you got to pick which tea you wanted to try so I grabbed their "Dark Iris" Tea. Dark Iris is one of their Gourmand teas, it says it is a "Rich oolong with peach, pistachio and lime", to me this sounded interesting as a tea!

 

The sample came in a resealable bag with 14g of tea, which on the bag says makes 4 cups of tea. The smell of the dry tea was strong. It has a very lime scent to it and a nutty scent. I wasnt quite sure about this tea upon smelling it.

 

The back of the bag says the tea "Tastes Like: peach, crème fraîche, iris, lime blossom" so I was still of course intrigued and willing to give it a try. The smell of the tea once steeped was not as strong on the nose and had a very good lime/peach/nuttiness to it. 

 

The taste was very pleasing, Lime and Peachy, with a hint of nuttiness to it.  I am not a huge nut fan when it comes to my teas but this I would drink again, at least finishing off what I have of it. This seems more like a chill, and relax after work tea than something I would make for myself in the morning. 

 

August Uncommon Tea is a company out of Los Angeles, Ca. They have a few different varieties of tea on their webpage and rotate them out, making them in small batches, so if "Dark Iris" is something you think you would like I would go check it out, a sample size is $4.00 and a tin of it is $29.00. They also have a lot of other interesting sounding teas on their site as well! Check them out here.

[Kickstarter] Purrista Pawfee Cat Plush by Kimchi Kawaii

 

Back in January I found out about a really cure Kickstarter that was going on from artist Kimchi Kawaii. It was to get all her really cute Cat cafe inspired art made into plushies! There was a large variety of plushies, mainly a cute cat as a coffee cup, but the one that caught my eye was a stretch goal, The Mewcaron! I had to have this cute kitty French Macaron, so I waited until she met the goal for it and pledged $30 to get the cute little guy! I also got a really fun sticker as well. The kickstarter did amazingly well making $ 23,107!!! That's a lot of plush kitties!

 

This little guy is super soft and squishy and 8 inches tall! And look how happy he is! Kimchi Kawaii has also stated designing a purple and green one as well that each have different expressions!

 

The sticker I received is of the Catpuccino, which was the main goal for the kickstarter! This sticker is super cute and will find a good home on something of mine very soon! 

 

I know Kimchi Kawaii has a few other cute coffee cat inspired plushies that they are working on, and if you follow them on facebook you get to see some cute sketches that she posts of ideas as well! You can check them out here online!

 

[Tea Travels] Just Because IYQ in Myrtle Beach SC

 

While visiting Myrtle Beach back in May, I stumbled across this fun little Tea Room called "Just Because IYQ". I was not able to find any tea shops or tea rooms while looking online, but luckily drove by this one and saw it from the road after eating lunch so decided to stop in.  

 

The Tea Room was very cute and colorful, with artwork and local boutique type items along the walls. They also had a large selection of Tea Forte Teas, which were what they also served in the Tea Room.

 

I got a yummy Cherry Mazipan Tea, which was delicious, and also got a yummy orange cranberry scone as well, since I had just eaten lunch before finding this cute little place. They also had these cute metal birds with lemon wedges in them, they were for easily getting the lemon juice out and into your water or tea! 

 

The tea and scones were well prepared and very wonderfully presented. Everything about this little place was lovely, they had a large variety of tea and everything from small tea sandwiches to scones and other small deserts.  So you could also have a lovely meal there. The service was friendly and the nice lady serving us made sure we were well taken care of. 

 

This was a surprising little find, and I am glad I did since it was so cute and the food (and tea) were really good! It was quiet and a nice place to just sit and talk and enjoy the people you were with. 

 

And like I mentioned above, the also sell tea. They have a wide selection and variety of Tea Forte Teas, from large cans of them to sampler sets. 

You can find "Just Because IYQ" online here and check them out if you are in Myrtle Beach SC.

[Beauty] BB Bag May 2016

May was the second month I have been getting the BB Bag, and I am thrilled with this monthly subscription bag that comes with 6 full sized Korean beauty products in it. May's theme was Festival Friendly Finds. The bag had six wonderful products and a few I absolutely loved and was very happy to try out and now use regularly in my beauty regimen.

 

Milky Dress SOS Blemish Cream ($9.00) I had never heard of this blemish cream, but I was willing to try it out since I had a blemish on my skin. I put this cream on it when I went to bed, and it did help bring it down. I used it for two nights and the blemish had gone away. This cream worked wonderfully and I have used it a few times since I got my BB Bag and it has continued to impress me.

The Saem Healing Garden Tea Cleansing Tissue ($8.00). I use makeup cleansing tissues regularly and has run out before getting my BB Bag so I was excited to get something that I normally use. I had never tried this brand however. These wipes worked great, they are not as wet as some I have tried, but they felt good on the skin, and there are a lot of them so they will last me for awhile. One thing I love about this bag is that I get products I will use and not just set aside, like these. 

Kinepin Beauty Nail Company Nail Kit ($6.00). I use a lot of nail wraps so products that help me do my nails are always wanted. This kit comes with a variety of tools for doing your nails from the little stick to push down your cuticles to the finger/toe separators, and so on. All are decent quality and will get used so Yay! 

 

Prelab Toning Peeling Tap ($20.00). This was the one item I wasnt quite sure about when I was looking at it. They seem to be a face washing and moisturizer. You wet your face, then squeeze these little tabs and they exfoliate and moisturize the skin, you then rinse off the product and discard the little tab. I have used them a few times and they seem to be good. 

 The Saem Fresh Bamboo Smooth Gel ($15.00) This is a face and body moisturizer. The consistency is like aloe gel to me. It is to help moisturize dry dull skin. I love the cooling effect that the gel has on my skin when I use it, and the packaging is also pretty cool, since it is a giant piece of bamboo. 

Nail Polish ($7.00) I got a light pink nail polish in my set this month. The color is pretty and will get used by either me or my mother in the future, since nail polish (and nail wraps) are worn pretty regularly by myself. 

 

So far I have not been disappointed in the BB Bag, I really like all the item and am super excited for next month (which also had a food beauty theme so of course I am REALLY excited about that.) The bag is $24.99 a month and comes with six full sized products. You can check it out here.

[Tea Review] Lupicia's Rose Royal Tea

I purchased a lot of tea when I visited Hawaii, and I am working my way through them for some of my tea reviews. Many of the teas I purchased came from the Lupicia store in the Ala Moana Mall (you can find my store review here). Rose Royal was one of the sets of tea bags I purchased to try, since I wanted a variety of Tea bags and loose tea. 

The Rose Royal tea bag set came with six pyramid tea bags that are individually wrapped. it retails for $8.00 and comes in a lovely paper box.

The tea bags are the ones on the left in this photo. I also purchased a Sakura set that came with three extra tea bags, one of them The Rose Royal. Took this photo so you could see the variety in packaging that Lupicia does with their products. 

 

This tea, upon opening it up, smells super fruity and just like strawberries, and the smell maintained after being out of the package for a little bit while I waited on my water to heat. I love the smell of this and was so excited to try it!

 

The smell after steeping it was still fruity but the smell of black tea was also now coming through. The taste is a subtle strawberry taste, with a good quality black tea taste as well. I really enjoyed this tea and the fruit taste was not in my face so it was nice to have a with a fruit undertone, since I am not all for overly sweet teas, which is how some fruity teas come out. 

You can find out more about Rose Royal on Lupicia's webpage

[Nerdy Nails] Espionage Cosmetics June NEXUS!

 

This month Espionage decided to start something new, and offer a cheaper monthly nail wrap option. For $15.00 a month they send you 2 new nail wrap designs, you get a link to vote which one you like the best and that one becomes a normal design you can purchase. The awesome people at Espionage sent out a code for BOOM Box! subscribers to get their first NEXUS for free, me being the nail wrap loving person I am jumped on this and I got my NEXUS package today inside of my BOOM Box!

 

This months theme was "Formulaic" and has two sciencey nail wrap designs in it! I had no idea what to expect, but since I do a lot of the Mystery Packs from them, I figured I was OK, since I generally do not always know what I am getting anyways. 

 

We will start off with my favorite out of the two designs in this months NEXUS! I like both designs, but Euler's Formula was aesthetically my favorite of the two.  I generally go to darker colors or lighter ones when it comes to nail wraps. I am really excited to wear these!

 

 The second design is called Chemistry, and is Orange with atom designs and the periodic table on it. I like this design as well, but am not a fan of the color orange which was why the above design ended up being my favorite of the two, Ill still wear this one since the design on it is cute, but the color is just one I am not a huge fan off (now if this was in green or purple, OMG that would be awesome!)

Overall I am really excited to see the new designs that come out each month for NEXUS. If you are interested in it, it is $15.00 and you can find out more details on Espionage's BOOM Box! page here.

[Tea Review] The Whistling Kettle's Sencha Kyoto Cherry Rose

The Whistling Kettle is a small tea store and eatery in Ballston Spa, NY. I was lucky enough to get to visit it many months ago and really loved it! I will write about the actual eatery in another post, for now I am going to be talking about one of the teas I got while there! A delicious Green Tea called "Sencha Kyoto Cherry Rose". Now knowing me, there are two words in there that made me want to smell and try this tea, cherry and rose, because we all know those two items in a tea make me automatically want to love it!  

 

The packaging for the tea is a loose leaf resealable bag, they also sold their tea in tins as well.  This tea has an amazing fruity smell and a lovely color with rose petals in it. 

The flavor is a great fruity green tea, with hints of rose and cherry in it. If you steep it too long it can be bitter to some peoples likings, but I also like the bitter taste as well, so this tea was a win, win for me. The tea also has a lovely color to it after it has steeped.

 

This has been my go to tea for the last few weeks to take to work and drink on all day, it has a mild flavor and works well with drink it while eating or just drinking it on its own.

You can purchase Sencha Kyoto Cherry Rose and lots of other teas and tea wares on their webpage or visit one of The Whistling Kettles two locations, the info if on their webpage!