Body Shop Home Fragrance Oils

 

Something a little different today but still Christmas themed, sort of!  I recently tried out a couple of these fragrance oils from The Body Shop and I have been so impressed with them that I had to do a post.  Initially I picked up the Ginger Sparkle version as I am a sucker for anything ginger scented and I love the body range that they have in this scent. 

 

It's a gorgeous warm, sugary ginger scent and ideal for Christmas, I was so impressed I decided to try out another of the Christmas fragrance oils, Cranberry Joy, this one is a zingy fresh fruit scent and also lovely, although not half as strong as the Ginger Sparkle.

 

 

As well as the Christmas releases I also picked up three of the regular fragrances (I had a 50% off voucher so I decided to stock up); Exotic, Pomegranate & Raspberry and Vanilla & Tonka Bean.  The oils are £4 each and available both in store and online.

 

Exotic is by far my favourite, it's fresh fruity and gorgeous, it's also pretty powerful so I have been using just a few drops to scent the whole room.  Vanilla & Tonka Bean is lovely too, a warm, comforting fragrance that is lovely for winter, it's not as strong as the Exotic scent though and a lot more subtle.  Pomegranate & Raspberry is a slightly sweeter version of Cranberry Joy, very fruity but not hugely powerful, of all the oils I have tried so far this one is the least strong.

 

I have been using all these oils on my radiators, adding a few drops to the bar at the top and allowing the heat to send the fragrance around the room, it works wonderfully well and means that you literally don't need anything except the oils and a  radiator, no need for burners or anything else.

 

Overall, I love these oils, they are such a simple way to scent a room and for £4 they are pretty good value too.  If I was to recommend a couple to buy that I like best I would go with the Christmas Ginger Sparkle and the Exotic, they are both gorgeous fragrances and strong enough to scent the room with a few drops.

 

Yankee Christmas & Winter Tarts

It's probably a little too early for this post, but I have been enjoying burning my Yankee Christmas and winter scents so much that I wanted to post and let others know how many lovely scents there were this year.

 

I have 7 of the Festive scents so far, 4 from the Q4 release (Yankee do 4 releases each year compromising of 4 or 5 new fragrances, generally Q4 is the one with the Christmas and Winter scents in) and 3 additional Christmas scents I picked up from my local stockist when I saw they had them in.

 

First, the Q4 tarts:

None of these really scream Christmas to me but they are definitely winter themed.

 

Snow In Love:

Fall In Love with this delightful blend of creamy, comforting woods and wintry powder freshness.

 

Cranberry Ice:

Refreshingly tart and sweet, A cool, stimulating rush of frosty red fruits bursting with a tangy sweetness.

 

Sugared Apple:

A deliciously sweet apple treat ... a perfect recipe of juicy apples sprinkled with sugar and vanilla.

 

Apple & Pine Needle:

Popular pine gets a fruity twist as crisp apple notes are combined with pine needle, cypress and cedar wood.

 

Overall, I was really pleased with these tarts, I bought them online as a set and hadn't smelled any of them before they arrived which was rather risky but worked out well on this occasion.  They definitely smell like their descriptions and they're all perfectly suited to winter and colder weather. 

 

Snow in Love and Sugared Apple are both very warm, soft scents perfect for a snuggly evening on the sofa whereas Cranberry Ice is very zingy and fresh and perfect for perking you up on cold, dull days.  Apple and Pine Needle was the one I was most concerned about as I feel like pine can tend towards a toilet sort of smell if it's not done right but this one is done right, the apple really comes through and it's a fresh, clean scent which is really pleasant to burn.

 

There is also a fifth scent in the Q4 release, White Christmas, which I have yet to try.

 

Then the additional tarts I picked up which are definitely Christmas themed in their names and wrapping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Eve:

Traditional holiday scents of a warm hearth, sugared plums, and candied fruits.
 

Happy Christmas:

Glad tidings of Christmas joy come wrapped in the happy scent of Christmas pines and festive fruits.

Christmas Cookie:

Buttery rich, vanilla scented, holiday sugar cookies.

 

I was quite surprised by Christmas Eve and Happy Christmas as they are both definite fresh, fruity scents which is not what I would immediatly link to Christmas, but that's a definite plus for me as I am not a big fan of many of the more spicy festive scents, I really dislike cinammon which means a lot of the usual festive tarts are off limits to me so it makes a lovely change to have fruity ones.

 

Christmas Cookie is an old favourite of mine, I have a candle too which I burn at the same time as my tarts in a different room so the scent wafts all through the flat.  I love it, it's sugary and warm and absolutely delicious, perfect for cold weather.  I'm tempted to stock up on a big batch of these to see me through until next Christmas!
 

Here's my sub-standard picture of my most recent festive haul.

 

 

I also want to try out Christmas Cupcake: An irresistible treat ... rich, moist vanilla cupcake covered with sweet buttery holiday icing.  I imagine it'll be similar to Christmas Cookie and probably the other cupcake scents Yankee have done in the past.

 

Have you started buying and burning your Christmas scents yet?  Which ones are your favourites?  Am I missing out on any you think I should try?

 

Yankee.co.uk - Order & Review

I thought since I had included my review of the rather poor service and pricing I got from Busy Bee Candles I should also include one for a similar order I placed with Yankee.co.uk.

For a start, the pricing was much better.  I made a slightly larger order this time (20 tarts / £23.29) which meant that each tart worked out at £1.16 each, including P&P, far better than Busy Bees £1.30 per tart including P&P AFTER a 20% discount.

I placed the order at around 3pm on Monday afternoon, received an email to say it had been dispatched late Tuesday afternoon and the parcel was with me in Wednesday morning's post which I was really pleased with, super fast delivery.

The packaging was, again, not what I expected.  It too arrived in a padded envelope and bubble wrap rather than a box, this time however the tarts were wrapped snugly and all of them arrived in one piece with no breaks or bashes.

I ordered a 10 pack of Vineyard tarts, a fragrance I had previously had in a sampler candle and loved, they smell exactly like grape candy from America; 2 True Rose, another scent I have had previously and loved, these ones smell exactly like roses still on the bush, and a selection of other tarts I had either smelled in store previously or really liked the sound of.  The smell from the envelope when I opened it was heavenly, not a hint of synthetic horribleness just fresh, fruity deliciousness. 

Based on previous experience of Yankee Candle tarts I can't wait to burn these, any I have had before have had lovely strong fragrances which I can burn for at least 2 evenings before having to change them.  The whole flat ends up beautifully scented and still smells great the following morning.

So, all in, a much better, cheaper, quicker shopping experience and one I will definitely be repeating in future.

My only complaint, which is directed at Yankee Candles and not Yankee.co.uk is that I am desperate to try some of the US scents and they're not all available in the UK, I've made a list though and plan to track them down somehow, particularly Coconut Bay and Fresh Mint since I really want a proper wild garden mint smell and a real, non synthetic, coconut fragrance.

Here's my current US wishlist:

Let's hope Yankee UK starts importing them soon or I am going to have to find a tart mule to smuggle them into the country for me!

Busy Bee Candles

Something a little different, and not beauty related, today...

I am a bit addicted to scented candles, I love Yankee Candles but I find the larger ones can be quite expensive and I tend to get bored of the same scent if I have it burning for too long, so, rather than bankrupt myself buying lots of the larger type to swap between I decided to try some wax tarts.  Lots of companies seem to do them now and since they are usually just over a pound for each tart they are a budget friendly way to try out different scents.

I recently invested in a burner and a couple of Yankee tarts to try out.  Safe to say I have found a new obsession and now I want a burner in every room.

As well as my favoured Yankees I thought I would try some from a few different companies to see how they compared.  My first choice was Busy Bee Candles.  I'd read a few good reviews and heard from friends that they were decent quality so, armed with a 20% discount code I decided to check them out.

The site is nice enough and they have a lot of different fragrances to choose from, the prices were very similar to Yankee's - so fairly high, particularly for a less well known brand, but based on what I'd heard and read I decided to go ahead and order.

 

Here's what I chose:

 

Postage is expensive, it cost me £3.99 to have 11 tarts posted.  They arrived in a padded envelope with some bubble wrap around groups of the tarts, out of the 11 there were 6 damaged.  Although it doesn't make much difference when using them in a tart burner whether they are in one piece or not it does mean that they were only suitable for personal use, they were far too crushed to give as gifts for example.  For £3.99 PP I expected them to come in a box or at least arrive in one piece.  They took 5 days to arrive.

The tarts themselves are a bit smaller than their Yankee counterparts which is disappointing since they are 10p more expensive per tart.

Due to their condition when they arrived I decided to email Busy Bee and see what they said.  Basically they weren't interested, they claimed they knew the packaging wasn't adequate, had previously heard of breakages from customers and accepted no responsibility once they'd handed them to Royal Mail.

They offered to refund me if I sent them back the order but since I didn't fancy a trip to the post office and having to pay for them to be returned I turned down the offer.  Although it says on their site if you send them a photo of the damaged items they will organise a refund this isn't the case in reality, as despite my sending them a picture they didn't offer me even a partial refund for the damaged goods, all in I felt the reply I got from them was very poor.  Customer service is obviously something they are not particularly worried about.

On opening the parcel from Busy Bee I wasn't overly blown away with the fragrances either, obviously it's a very personal thing but several of the tarts smell synthetic and fake (Pineapple Zing, Creme Brulee, Coconut Beach, Butter Popcorn & Pina Colada) and a couple have a definite whiff of cheap air freshener and public toilets about them (Palm Tree & Coconut Beach). Midnight  Peppermint, Herb Garden, Sun Kissed Raspberry, Cotton Candy & Chocolate Brownie all smell fairly good (although all of them smell quite synthetic, and obviously until they are burning it's hard to say exactly how their fragrances will be but when I lit them it didn't get much better. 

The synthetic smell which I had noticed while the tarts were wrapped carried through to the scent they gave off when lit.  So far none have been offensive but none have made me keen to repurchase or light them again.  I don't know whether it is due to them being a different sort of wax or what but there is a scent that runs through them all.

Palm Tree - Ok, reasonably fresh but with a definite synthetic smell though it, better than I was expecting from how it seemed in its packaging (air freshener and toilets).

Sun kissed Raspberry - Fruity, pleasant enough but again a slight synthetic undertone.

Midnight peppermint - Strong, minty, like chewing gum not natural garden mint.

Candy Floss - Very subtle, sweet smelling, synthetic, and generally a bit nothing-y, definitely not the scent I had hoped for.

All in, with 20% discount, my order from Busy Bees came to £14.30, for £11 I could have hand picked 10 Yankee Tarts from my local supplier and had them immediately or ordered from a well know Yankee supplier online and had 11 of them (incl postage costs) delivered for a similar price.   In future I will definitely stick to doing that. 

Scent is a very personal thing and many of the tarts I chose and bought un-sniffed over the internet smell nothing like I had thought or hoped and for that reason, along with the poor yet expensive packaging and sub-standard customer service, I will probably stick to choosing and buying in person from now on, and I'll also probably stick to Yankee Candles, there might be a reason why they are the best sellers in the candle and tart market!

A little update.  Today - 5 days after I received the email from Busy Bees and my reply to them went unanswered - a parcel arrived, in it were 3 Busy Bee tarts. 

They were not replacements of the damaged tarts I had sent a picture of so I can only assume, due to a lack of further emails or note in the package, that they were some sort of sorry or goodwill gesture, which is a nice idea, but in all honesty a more polite initial email or indeed a reply to my second email would have gone down better.  Either they felt they were in the right and there was no need to send me anything or they know their service was below par and they should have said so initially.

On the plus side, this package smells better, so maybe it was my poor choice of tarts that made the first lot smell unappealing and like freshly sprayed public loos.  Sweet Dreams smells wonderful and what I had hoped Midnight Peppermint would smell of so I am actually quite looking forward to trying that one.