I definitely didn't order as much e-tailer stuff for the winter as I did last season! I did place two big orders with BI and CYS though since they were having such good sales. And my dear friend lipglossina also gave me an amazingly generous birthday gift of mostly bath and body stuff and tons of samples here and there, so lots to review! I've decided that any e-tailers that are listed in MUA's brand list in productville will not be reviewed here - I'll do reviews of them on MUA instead. :)
Bathed and Infused (all fluffs)
Cool Beans - LOVE this! At first the coffee was really strong, but once I let it cure it was great. And it doesn't turn on my skin - it actually smells like a Peppermint Mocha latte from Starbucks on me. Yummy!
Mint Chocolate Marshmallows - I like layering it with Philosophy's Mint Chocolate chip ice cream 3 in 1, but for some reason I can't really smell the chocolate. I get a creamy mint scent. Which isn't bad but I wanted something more mint-chocolatey.
Snowflake Cocktail - This was just eh for me in the container. I smelled mostly amaretto at first, then for some odd reason, graham crackers. On my skin it smelled like unflavored oatmeal, yuck! Up for swap it went.
I also got body mists in Hot Cocoa, Pumpkin Pie and Gingerbread Creme and a body scrub in Gingerbread Creme. Since I love the Pumpkin Pie and Gingerbread Creme in the fluffs I was pretty sure they'd work in the mists, and they do! So yummy. I had never tried Hot Cocoa in any form but I really love it. It's more chocolatey and less creamy than CH's Melting Marshmallow Hot Chocolate, and it layers well with both that and the Wickedly Hot Chocolate lotion from BBW. Next year I may get it in a fluff rather than my usual CH! My only complaint about the body mists is that they don't last too long, I literally can't smell them after about half an hour. Oh well, guess that's what the perfumes are for! The new whipped sugar scrub is great too, nice and scrubby and not oily, just how I like my scrubs. :D
I also tried lotion samples of Wedding Cake and Hayride. Hayride is a nice green woodsy scent and no, it doesn't smell like hay! Just an outdoorsy kind of scent without being too masculine. It's nice but I'm not into those types of scents. Wedding Cake was non-existent. I mean I had my nose in the container and couldn't smell anything! I think after sniffing it a few times I did get a faint sweet smell, but that was it. There are plenty of e-tailers who do great wedding cake scents so I'd skip BI's version.
CYS (emollients)
Birthday Cake - smells delicious in the container. It's not great on me but it's not bad either so I'm hanging onto it until I find something better.
Cioccolato e Cocco - I had such high hopes for this but I didn't even try it on - it's just a weird spicy chocolate scent.
Coffee Mocha - Basic coffee scent, I didn't smell any chocolate. It wasn't horrid on me but not good enough for me to hang onto since I have and love SDE's Caramel Latte. I wouldn't recommend getting it though since while it was okay, it was nothing outstanding.
Frangelico Streusel - I thought this would be more of a hazelnut blend, but all I get is straight hazelnut.
One Accord - This was a LE holiday blend of chocolate and mint. I didn't even bother to try it on as the mint seemed really off to me.
Then I got all of these in the perfumes:
Eggnog - yikes! I don't know if it's my nose or what, but this isn't good. In the bottle it sort of resembles eggnog but smells more like spicy pancakes - I got a weird, very off, maple note in it. On my skin it was positively gross, it went medicinal/plastic on me. Ugh.
Joyful Heart - Still on the fence with this. I think the coconut goes a bit musty on me - it's not nearly as nice on me as it is on lipglossina! Sigh. I'll have to try it a few more times though.
State of Grace - so wonderful in the bottle and not great on me. The orange is just too sweet or something. I had the same problem with CYS's plain Blood Orange scent so I should have known better, but I was so hoping this would work on me.
Vanilla Bean Noel - This is great. It's one of the only vanilla scents that works on me and so much better than BBW's version. However, I mistakenly thought I could layer this over all foody scents. I put it on over BI's Cool Beans and it was truly disgusting. So take note: don't mix this with coffee scents!
I also got a white sugar scrub in Yellow Cake. I have no idea why it's so plastic-y but it is. :( I swapped for the emollient in it too, which I have yet to try on, but I'm betting that won't be great either. Oh well. Lipglossina gave me a sample of the Behomoth scrub in Cafe Dacquoise, which I really liked. I may have to try that in an emollient/cream next year. She also passed along a sample of the emollient in Toasted Marshmallow, which is really yummy and I most likely will order that next year too.
So those were my two big winter orders thus far. But my fellow bath and body fiend passed along so many goodies my way and I finally got around to trying some of them! I was so happy to get Wylde Ivy's Sugar Cake in both lotion and EDP form as part of my Christmas present. It smells like a nice vanilla cake in the container. On me it smells almost identical to CYS's VBN, like a clean vanilla. While I'm still hunting for the perfect foody cake scent, this is great to layer with Philosophy's Vanilla Birthday Cake 3 in 1. For my b-day she got me Chocolate Fatale scrub to go with Phil. Double Rich Hot Cocoa and my various hot chocolate moisturizers, which I love. Next year I may try BI's scrub in Hot Cocoa, but this one is really delicious! It's a different texture too, it's like a paste rather than sugar, but it exfoliates well and isn't greasy. She also got me Chocolate Mint Creme scrub. This does smell like mint chocolate but there seems to be some kind of strange nutty undertone that I don't get with the Chocolate Fatale. Still, it's pretty good and I want to try this in a moisturizer. More birthday presents were Auntie Rhubarb Rum Coco-Nilla scrub and full size (!) jar of lotion. I'm in love with both and was so sad when one morning, due to extreme lack of sleep, I managed to knock the entire container of scrub from my bathroom shelf into the toilet. Now there was nothing in the toilet at the time, mind you, and the container was shut tight, but that just grossed me out so much I immediately tossed the whole thing. I was sooooo sad. :( Fortunately I keep my moisturizers in the master closet so there's no chance I'll drop those into the toilet. Anyway, in the scrub Rum Coco-Nilla smells like vanilla extract with a hint of coconut, totally delicious. In the lotion it smells the same in the container, but on my skin the coconut really comes out and it smells just like CH's Coconut Milk/Vanilla Cream blend or CSP's Coco Extreme perfume, both of which I love. The lotion itself is amazing - lightweight but incredibly moisturizing and not greasy. I must try more Auntie Rhubarb scents in the lotion since I love the formula so much!
