More soaps!!! Hubby and I have been going through them like crazy!
Anderson Soap Company: Dennis's got many new soaps up and I couldn't help myself :)
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Lemon Sugar Cookie Soap: smelled exactly like its name sake, good enough to eat (but don't)! Hubby usually hates sugary sweet scents, but this one he was actually okay with because it was sweet but not too syrupy and the lemony aspect balance things out. Loved this one!
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Ambrosia Glycerin Soap: this one smelled like ambrosia indeed! It was like a fruity Hawaiian punch with a dash of citrus, sweet but fruity and very light. Also, since it was just glycerin soap I was expecting it to be a bit drying but it wasn't at all! Loved this one too!
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Peaches-n-Cream Oatmeal Bar: this is one of the rarer Anderson soap bar that I actually didn't like. Similar to the
Calendula Wilderness Bar, things didn't turn out quite as hoped, or named. While the name peaches and cream suggests yummy results, it smelled like peachy
Play-Doh. May be it was the oat meal...
Jadedmind: new soap shop, although she is no longer making soaps and focuses on only handmade jewelries now. I think I bought the last of her soaps actually, and even then it was only 4 bars. It really was too bad because they were beautiful soaps!
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Orange Passion Shea Soap: this bar was great! It smelled like
Anderson's Rosehips and Kumquat Soap and I liked it a lot! The only downer was that the exfoliation bits were larger and a bit harsh. They scratched my hands a few times and left scratch marks. Then again there were very few of the exfoliating particles anyway so it wasn't a big deal.
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Raspberry Blitz Shea Soap: This one was okay. It wasn't as well scented as the Orange Passion bar above and I could barely smell the raspberry. Oh well. It was still a good bar of soap!
KreatedbyKarina: I'm still
very conflicted about this vendor and while a few her other soaps looks very interesting, past experiences have prevented me from going back for more. In the mean time, the two bars of soaps I used below reeked of cigarette, and not just the wrapper or upon opening. I'm pretty sure now these soaps were made in a smoking home. How else would it still smelled like cigarette half way through or even when it was almost gone? To top it all off, the vendor sent me the wrong soap!!!
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Love Me Shea Butter Soap: upon opening this bar, I knew I had gotten the wrong bar of soap. The description on the
Etsy listing says, "Asian Mandarin, brown sugar, sumptuous Tahitian Vanilla, a sprinkle of soft jasmine and oakmoss, and blends of juicy berry and pineapple...," but all I could smell from this soap was...peppermint. Then I thought, well, I do have a Japanese Peppermint bar (reviewed below), so let's see what it smells like. Yep, it smelled identical. I was about 99% sure, but I still wanted to give the soapmaker the benefit of the doubt. She had included in my order a sample of Love Me solid perfume as a freebie (pictures below), so I immediately dug it out and confirmed she had sent me the wrong soap, no doubt about it now. And now that I had smelled the solid perfume, I was actually even more irritated because the Love Me fragrance pretty damn good! It was flowery, but had notes of fruits and powder in it, sweet but not sugary and so very light. Urgh. So annoying.
Love Me Solid Perfume
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Japanese Peppermint Shea Butter Soap: I actually liked this scent a lot. It was minty, powdery, with a dash of flower. The biggest gripe was that it had very obvious cigarette odor. Grrr.
LostRiverRags: I have lots of soaps from this vendor so I've been trying to go through them, although more slowly than I would like because I get distracted by other soaps :P Also, I actually bought something
other than soaps from this vendor, which is very unusual for me since I'm normally so obsessed with soaps that I don't have eyes for anything else in the shop.
My conclusion is that this vendor makes better Goats Milk Hand & Body Lotion than they do soaps. My
first soap sample purchase during the holidays arrived with this tiny little pot of Goats Milk Hand & Body Lotion sample that was enough for, like, 3 uses on my hands. But just after the first use, I literally logged right back into Etsy to check out the stuff. Seriously, wow. With just a small amount, my hands became super soft and lightly fragranced, and best of all, there was not a trace of greasiness or stickiness. It didn't even feel like I just put lotion on, save for the fact that my hands were just velvety soft. This lotion is some of the best stuff I've ever used, hands down! So yeah, forget the soaps. I'm returning to vendor just for the lotions!!!
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Frosted Snowdrops Goat's Milk Soap: this bar smelled like spiced something rather, I couldn't discern much due to the strong musty odor that overwhelm the soap's fragrance. Oh well, other than the non-existent fragrance the soap was still a good bar of soap.
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Lavender Sage Goat's Milk Soap: the musty odor was so strong in this bar the lavender barely came through and I could only smell just a touch of it in the shower. The sage was pretty much absent, so yeah, this bar was technically unscented too, saved for the odor...
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Sweet Sugar Goats Milk Hand & Body Lotion: Looooooved the lotion! Loved it!!!! It had a very light texture, like fat free yogurt but more firm, none the runny nonsense I get else where. And using it all over my body, I loved how it absorbed quickly and completely, leaving skin very well moisturized. I ran out of my usual
Oshima Tsubaki Oil in January started using this lotion when it was still super duper dry in my apartment. Let's just say I now prefer this lotion (although perhaps in a different scent) over the 100% pure Camellia oil as a body moisturizer, that was how good this stuff was!
This Sweet Sugar fragrance was very warm and milky with only a tinge of sweetness. It really should have been named Sweet Milk instead of Sweet Sugar, although may be that wouldn't sound as delectable for some, but it really did smell like sweet milk! Anyway, the scent disappeared after a while, so I didn't walk around smelling like an ice cream cone or anything. Still, I will definitely buy the lotion again and again, but probably in a different scent :) This 8oz. bottle I got for $6 on super sale (normally $8 I think...), and it lasted me for about 3 months with daily use all over the body (arms, legs, front, back, everywhere!), so my $6 was well spent!
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Winter Mint Goats Milk Hand & Body Lotion: I'm still using this one right now after finishing up the Sweet Sugar above back in April. This Winter Mint scent smells like sugary sweet minty candy, a bit too sweet for my taste but luckily it isn't too strong. Also, it's June now and we have had some really crazy hot and humid days where I am, but I'm still using this lotion right after my showers every day and it doesn't make me greasy or sticky!
Even more amazing is the fact that I actually store the bottle in my bathroom, right next to my bathtub, for quick application while my skin is still damp and warm from the shower, and after 2+ months of daily temperature and humidity swings the texture of the lotion has kept its original integrity! Why is this anything significant? Because you really shouldn't be storing any cosmetic/skincare products inside your bathroom (or bathroom cabinet) to begin with. Think about it this way, depends on how hot you like your shower, your bathroom can be either a hot and humid room or a hot and humid sauna room, and not many cosmetic/skincare products can withstand such daily torture! After all the lotions and creams I used in the past lost their texture within days, I learned to keep them out of the bathroom (and in the fridge)!
Paradise Body Shop: I'm just so antsy and can't wait to go back for more of Candice's soaps! Her soaps are right up there with Dennis's (Anderson Soap Company above) for me. Love love love them!
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Garden Mint Shea Butter Soap: this one was really awesome! It smelled like fresh and leafy Irish spring! I can sort of smell the mint too, but more like the wild mint variety and not the kind on your desserts or cocktail :P So very invigorating!
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Clean Laundry Goat's Milk Soap: probably one of my top favorite bar of soap right here! It was crisp, clean, and soapy, just like clean laundry! But oh, it has a bit of a surprise too - cinnamon! At first I thought I was imagining things, or that I had stored this bar on top of another cinnamon bar or something and the scented "bled through." But then when the bar was almost gone and the light cinnamon fragrance was still there, I thought, damn, what a nice little twist! Who would have thought cinnamon would go so well with a clean scent like this! Hubby was very happy with this bar and I was very pleased as well. Will definitely buy again!
RachelRene: yet another new vendor from whom I now buy my bars, and I have to say I am very impressed with the texture of Christine's soaps! They were just the absolute most luxuriously smooth bars of soaps I have ever used and I didn't even know soaps can be "smooth"! I mean, what the hell I am talking about since all soaps are smooth and slippery fishies once in contact with water, right? The thing is, these soaps were more than just smooth and slippery - they were super velvety and I could feel the creaminess beyond the slippery surface. Wow!
The down side? The fragrance. It was totally hit and miss. Oh well. Can't ask for too much now can I?
- Winter Grapefruit Soap: smelled like bitter grapefruit peels. I didn't dislike it, but it was a tad too bitter for my taste. Even though the soap crumbled into bits at the very end, I still liked the texture enough to buy it again.
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Banana Kiwi Soap: this fragrance was a bit too strong and my entire bathroom smelled like banana peels! In fact, the banana scent was so strong I couldn't smell the kiwi at all. But that aside, this bar of soap had characteristic smoothness of RachelRene soaps. I may not buy this particular bar again, but will definitely buy more soaps from Christine!
