Moms Indulgence

MMMM, think of Summer. Up here in the Seattle area we’ve had a lot of snow this past week. Not too easy to think of Summer. lol But ordering the special will help with that.

Black Raspberry Vanilla is the scent of the month. A yummy scent of black raspberries and a hint of vanilla to mellow it out.

The special is two of my favorite items. Oatmeal soap and whipped body creme. Get a bar of black raspberry vanilla oatmeal soap & 4oz jar of whipped body creme for only $15.75. This includes shipping!

Visit the The Scented Tub and click on the specials tub.

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OH WOW, HOW CUTE!

When I opened my sampler box, this was immediately what my eye went to. Not only is it one of my perfect scents, basically anything with a cinnamon note to it will get me excited in a candle. lol But gosh darn if that isn’t the cutest little marketing tool. Not only is it a cute little muffing, but it’s two tone colored as well. Work went into the color scheme and I haven’t even talked about the scent yet.

The scent included in my sampler was Cinnamon, Nutmeg, and Clove. Wow, they really knew how to grab me quick. lol All my yummy bakery scents rolled into one little tart. Now I received one tart and this one little tart was fully scented for over 20 hours of burn time. These mini muffins come in packs of 4 for only $1.75. Considering that one little tart filled up my main living space of approx. 700 sq. ft. for over 20 burn hours, I can’t imagine what a few of them melting would do. And all that scent for such a low price tag. Makes it easy to grab different scents!

Visit Tara’s Scentsational Gifts for all the yummy flavors to choose from.

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I love candles. Bet that hasn’t come across. lol But not only do I love candles, I love yummy candles that I know someone handmade. I honestly LOVE helping a fellow woman in her quest to stay home and still provide for her family. I’m always on the lookout for homemade candles, but it is a difficult topic to use on the search engines. There are so many searches that come up and so many of them are quite spammy looking.

Out of the Box samplers are a dream come true for me. Homemade candles, bath and body products all sent to my house. Incredibly creative products and just the yummiest combination of scents.

Sample boxes sell out quickly so it’s a very good idea to get on the priority mailing list so you know the second the boxes go on sale and also any discounts offered.

So about each box. Here are just a few of the samples included in my box.

These are just a few of the items included in a sampler box I received. Further reviews of each product will be forthcoming. Each box includes an average of 13-15 generously sized samples. These are not all going to be tiny slivers of soap that are unusable or tarts so tiny you don’t smell them in the burner. In fact the mini-muffin tart I burned smelled up my house for three straight days of burning!

I was impressed by the quality of products and the sizes. I loved that these are sizes that I would be purchasing when I go to the website. Be ware though, the box sells out fast. The next box goes on sale April 10th, but again I encourage you to join the email list so you know it went live. The boxes won’t last long and there are limited quantities because of the quality of products.

Sample many etailers at once at Out of the Box, so you can find your favorites!

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Everyone knows candles are decorative, can smell great, and can function as a source of light and heat. However, most people aren’t aware that you can use candles to get certain results in your own life.

Colors play a huge role in this. For example, if you want a hot, romantic, passionate night with your partner, you will want to use red or orange candles, which are the colors of passion, to enhance the mood. Lighting a blue candle in the room would still provide some ambiance, but not as passionately as a red or orange candle would!

Pink is the color of love, and if you want to attract love in your life, you should burn pink candles. Pink is also the color of femininity and motherhood.

Yellow candles are great for energizing yourself! Yellow is a bright, happy color that encourages you to focus and energize.

Green candles symbolize money, and financial stability, as well as the home and hearth. If you want to bring money into your life, burning green candles will allow you to focus on this. They also are wonderful just for burning around the home to encourage a feeling of warmth and security.

Blue candles are wonderful for relaxation, serenity, healing, and emotional well-being. When you want to relax, light up a blue candle to encourage a feeling of wellness.

Purple is the color of intuition, prayer, and devotion. If you wish to meditate, or to use a candle when praying, the color purple is a good choice.

White candles are a symbol of purity (as when used in wedding ceremonies, etc.) and are good all-occasion candles. Black candles are good for ridding yourself of negativity, and bad habits.

Of course, scent plays a role in the use of candles for changes in your life as well. If you are a person who is highly sensitive or allergic to scents, an unscented candle is of course best. If you are not, however, fragrance can be a true enhancement to any candle, whether used symbolically or for aromatherapy purposes.

Fragrances that go well with red or orange candles, and enhance passion and energy are Jasmine, Cardamon, Cinnamon, Ylang-Ylang, Ginger, and Rose.

Great scents to go with pink candles for love are rose, jasmine, hyacinth, hibiscus, and rosewood.

Fragrances that work with yellow candles for energy are ginger, citrus scents (orange, lemon, grapefruit, etc.), and peppermint.

Scents to go with green candles for money or the home are basil, patchouli, and juniper, and many other “green” scents.

Fragrances used for serenity or healing to go with blue candles are very wide and varied. Some of those are lavender, chamomile, sandalwood, frankincense, lemongrass, cedarwood, and sage.

Scents for prayer and intuition really should depend on the individual, however many widely accepted fragrances for these are dragon’s blood, frankincense & myrrh, sandalwood, cypress and spruce.

Now that you know what colors can encourage, and what fragrances can help with, your life you can use any combination of these to bring about changes in your life for the better!

Stephanie Davies is a 27 year old Missourian with a loving husband and an 8 year old son. She currently owns her own business, Mystickal Incense & More, and sells handmade candles, incense, bath & body products and more at http://www.mystickalincense.com

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You may have heard stories recently about the benefits of soy wax, or about how paraffin wax is unhealthy or not good for you. In this article we will examine the myths and rumors and give the straight facts on both soy and paraffin wax candles and allow you to see what the truth and fuss is all about.

Before we start, it is important for you to know what the actual difference is between soy and paraffin waxes, and to see how each are produced. Let’s start with paraffin wax, the most common wax to create candles with today. If you purchase a candle that isn’t marked as soy, beeswax, or any other special blend of wax, chances are that you have purchased a candle that is made from a paraffin blend of wax.

Paraffin wax is a heavy hydrocarbon that comes from crude oil. Paraffin waxes are produced by refining or separating the waxes out of crude mineral oils. Obtained from the ground, crude oil is a compositionally varied product, consisting of a mixture of hydrocarbons. Another name for crude oil is fossil fuel. Crude oil is transported to refineries where it is refined into finished products by complex processes. One of the many products derived from refining is lubricating oil. It is from the lube oil refining process that petroleum waxes are derived. There are three general categories of petroleum wax that are obtained from lube oil refining. They include paraffin, microcrystalline and petrolatum. Paraffin waxes are derived from the light lubricating oil distillates. Paraffin waxes contain predominantly straight-chain hydrocarbons with an average chain length of 20 to 30 carbon atoms.

Soy wax, on the other hand is made from vegetable matter. Soy wax is a vegetable wax made from the oil of soybeans. After harvesting, the beans are cleaned, cracked, de-hulled, and rolled into flakes. The oil is then extracted from the flakes and hydrogenated. The hydrogenation process converts some of the fatty acids in the oil from unsaturated to saturated. This process dramatically alters the melting point of the oil, making it a solid at room temperature. The leftover bean husks are commonly used as animal feed. The U.S. grows the vast majority of the world’s soybeans, primarily in Illinois, Iowa, and Indiana.

So now that you know how both soy and paraffin candles are made, let’s take a look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of both types.

There are a lot of myths surrounding soy candles. Most of these are designed to sell soy candles better, and have very little truth in them. A great example is the great “no soot” myth. Sites that sell soy candles love to say that there is absolutely no soot produced with a soy candle. However, there is no truth and all hype to that claim. Absolutely, positively, and most importantly, scientifically, all organic compounds when burned will emit some carbon (soot) due to incomplete combustion. Sooting is primarily a factor of wick length and disturbance of the flame’s steady teardrop shape. There is no such thing as a soot-free candle. Further, while soy wax is all-natural and will not produce the thick black soot that you see on some paraffin containers, it does produce soot. An important fact to remember is that not all soot is black. Soot can be a “white soot” that cannot be seen with the naked eye. Soy wax will produce little black soot - unless the candle is improperly wicked, made, or burnt, but it may produce white soot.

But before you get scared of soot, let me tell you, that soot is in fact not harmful to you. Candle soot is composed primarily of elemental carbon particles, and is similar to the soot given off by kitchen toasters and cooking oils. These everyday household sources of soot are not considered a health concern, and are chemically different from the soot formed by the burning of diesel fuel, coal, gasoline, etc. So the myth of “soot free soy candles” is not only inaccurate, but simply an effort by some companies to scare the general public into buying their candles.

With that being said, there are some benefits to purchasing soy wax candles. While petroleum based paraffin wax is a limited resource, soy wax is a renewable resource that is limited only by how many soybeans we can grow. It is also beneficial to farmers who sell soybean crops, as well as lasting almost twice as long as paraffin wax.

However, soy wax is naturally a “soft” wax. While container candles, tealights, and small tarts may be made entirely of soy, it is extremely difficult to make good pillar candles and votives out of 100% pure soy wax. Additives are used to make them better, but in most cases, paraffin wax is still a much better solution for those types of candles. In my own company, Mystickal Incense & More, we use a blend of 50% soy wax and 50% paraffin wax for our free-standing candles.

In the end, both paraffin wax and soy wax are both good choices for candle wax. Neither is more “environmentally friendly” than the other, as there has never been scientific evidence that paraffin wax is harmful to your health in any way at all. It is a personal choice of which type you prefer to use, and both types hold scent and dye just as well. The only benefit that there is in all reality, is that container candles using soy wax do burn longer. And it does benefit the farmers of the Mid-western United States. However, most other claims regarding soy wax are false and/or misleading.

Stephanie Davies is a 28 year old work at home mom to a 9 year old boy in Mid-Missouri. Her hosting company, Hosting WAHMs offers premium webhosting from $2 per month and up, with an easy to use sitebuilder! She also loves to knit, build websites, and talk to people.

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Oh my, these are egg candles so adorable. And you can choose the color and scent you want filled.

There are a lot of choices for scents and no reason to choose just one. Order your favorite Spring scents and alternate between them or combine scents as they burn to create your own Spring melody.

Color choices are blue, green, pink, purple, white and yellow.  A perfect menagerie of Spring colors for your table tops.

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