#MashupMonday: Skinny Dipping!

Skinny Dipping!

Buck Naked Soap Company is a vegan artisanal soap making company located in Cambridge Ontario, Canada.  When I received my package from them, the fragrance was intoxicating.  The intermingling of the Cranberry & Mint aroma with the scent from the Magosteen, Green Tea & Aloe bar was so exquisite, for the first time, my #mashupmonday post this week will feature two soaps from the same manufacturer!

These bars are very firm, 5.5 to 6 oz rugged, cold process soaps.  The Cranberry mint has a refreshing peppermint aroma along with exfoliating cranberry seeds.  I was a little concerned that the seeds would be a little irritating to my sensitive skin, but the level of exfoliation was great and in combination with the peppermint left a tingling sensation that was really great to experience.  

The Mangosteen, Green Tea and Aloe has a fresh green tea fragrance that is elevated by addition of sweet, tangy mangosteen.  The soap has a lightly exfoliating texture with the addition of both mangosteen and green tea powder.  

When using the bars, I cut each in half and placed a half of each of the bars into a soap saver.  I was blown away by both the lather and the combined experience of using both of these refreshing soaps at the same time.  I highly recommend the Buck Naked Soap Company's high quality, natural soap bars.  This is something no soap connoisseur should miss!

What are you mashing up this week?  

Until next time Love Buds,

Peace, Love & Loads of tingly bubbles!

A.

 

 

#MashupMonday: Peary Sweet Tea

Hey Love Buds!  I'm back with a new #MashupMonday for you!  This one features +DANDI CREATIONS' Ice Tea Twist Brine Soap and Prickled Pear Whipped Body Cream featured in the September +Handmade Cartel box.  

I purchased several soaps from Dandi Creations and they came packaged in such a cheerful box!  Finally I had the heart to open one of the bars of soap.  I have been using the lip balm and it is a great lip butter that coats well and isn't too shiny - great for how dry my lips get in the colder months.

I will say that I was slightly disappointed in the color of the bar.  The decorative lemon wedge and ice cubes were adorable, but the soap itself was a light chalky grey color - however it was extremely firm.  The fragrance was barely discernible, even after lathering the bar vigorously.  I was really expecting that sweet lemony tea aroma I have experienced with similarly scented products. I will also say that it did not lather very much.  However my skin felt clean and soft after using the bar.

I then moisturized with the prickled pear whipped body cream from Handmade Cartel.  I really love the fragrance, it is a tangy, fruity scent with a unique freshness.  This cream, though very moisturizing, I would consider to be more of a lotion and not a whipped body cream.  The consistency is loose enough to be dispensed from a bottle.  Even with its lotion-like consistency, the cream penetrated my skin quickly with no greasiness, leaving my skin feeling and smelling great!  I still have a few other soaps to try from this company so I reserve final judgement until I try some of their other soaps.

What are you mashing up this week?  Stay tuned, we've reached all of our social media goals and I'll be picking the winners of my social media fan giveaway bonanza in a couple days.  If you haven't entered yet, you still have some time!

Until next time,

Peace, Love & Loads of Bubbles!

A.

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#Mashup Monday Lei'ed Down Under

Today I my adventures take me to lands far, far away.  But how can you visit the land down under and the tropics in a single day?  On #mashupmonday, anything is possible!

I started with this cool Koala soap which combines tropical fruit, chili pepper, and eucalytus scents and the result in an energizing and refreshing bath time treat!  Hejin Body Works offers a huge variety of awesome handmade soaps at the best prices I have found to date!  I adore their bars for delivery maximum suds and soft skin with minimal pocket purging.  Visit them soon, I recently got word that they may be shutting down operations.  Trust me, their items are something you don't want to miss!

I then used Mango Hibiscus sea salt scrub.  This delightful scrub exfoliated well with plenty of skin loving butters and oils and the fragrance is to die for!  The sweetness of the mango is balanced with the tart floral essence from the hibiscus flowers.  The Black Tie Market can be found on Etsy, however this particular scrub is not available at this time.  I do hope it makes a come back for summer, until them I am rationing it carefully.

What crazy bath adventures do you have planned?  This week, I've got a new YouTube video sharing some great sub boxes and a special surprise (it's about the giveaway) so stay tuned because I will also give you several reasons not to miss the upcoming Petals Bath Boutique release!



For more #MashupMonday posts click here

Until later, Love Buds ~

Peace, Love & Loads of Bubbles!

A.

#Mashup Monday ~ Age of Innocence

This week, I combined products from two wonderful companies, Handmade in Florida and Alchemic Muse.  

When I first received my order from Handmade in Florida's last release, I wasn't too sure whether I liked this scent or not.  But the more I sniffed it, the more it grew on me.  Innocence is described on Handmade in Florida's website as "A delicate blend of peonies, hyacinth, day lilies, apple blossoms and soft bergamot". The apple blossom in this scent is really prevalent with bergamot adding an a greenery sort of essence bottom to the fragrance.  

The scent just seemed to beg to be paired with something fruity and earthy.  Why?  What came to mind was an orchard where the breezes were scented with fruit trees and freshly tilled earth.  Thinking of a moisturizer in my stash that filled these two criteria, Alchemic Muse's Razzouli came to mind.  Razzouli is a perfect blend of ripe raspberry and patchouli.  

Each of these products performs awesomely on it's own.  Soap bars by Handmade in Florida are always gorgeously designed with delicate swirls highlighted with mica.  The bars are firm, bubbly and have a nice amount of slip.  These leave your skin clean yet silky smooth and moisturized after using them.  

Alchemic Muse was the first company that I found whose whipped soap I could use without having irritated skin afterward.  Her Body whip is a rich body cream that instantly penetrates and hydrates skin.  

The resulting experience was just as I expected, reminiscent of a stroll through one of the many popular orchards indigenous to my local area in Maryland.  A Fall delight!

What are you mixing up this week?  Me, I'm working hard on posting a few new YouTube videos and getting a HUGE giveaway organized for you!

For more #MashupMonday posts click here

Until next time Love Buds,

Peace, Love & Loads of BUBBLES!!!! 

#Mashup Monday Super Black Ops

One of my other loves is super heroines.  (Female super heros, not awesome narcotics - stop it! LOL).  My tee shirt collection is filled with shirts featuring the likes of Wonder Woman, Storm, Spider Gwen (look her up), etc.  I felt like a secret agent woman with this weeks' #MashupMonday combination.

From my visit to Hejin Body Works, I decided to pull the Alpha Girl soap and lotion.  Hejin Body Works is a quirky little store that was an absolute joy to visit!  Their products are high quality, reasonably priced and smell scrumptious.  Alpha Girl "has a mystifying rare scent that combines floral, peach, and Egyptian Musk", as quoted from Hejin's website.  This combination seems odd, but it is indeed super.  The scent is really a sultry musk with a little playful kick.  

Sandwiched in my process between the Alpha Girl soap and lotion is Black Orchid frosted sugar scrub from Antoinette's Bath House.  Antoinette's Bath House creates great bath and body products in a variety of scents that I adore.  Their soaps are very firm, bubbly and huge!  But more on those in another review...

The Black Orchid fragrance embodies the rich, heady scent of an exotic orchid.  This scent is to die for!  The frosted sugar scrub is similar in texture to the Mermaid Hugs scrub I highlighted in a previous #MashupMonday post, in that it feels like moist sand - it can actually be molded almost like play doh.  The exfoliation factor is very mild, especially if your skin is very wet because the sugar melts almost instantly.  There is very little lather - which is fine, because I did the heavy cleansing with the soap. 

The combination of these two seductive scents is magical.  I smelt like a goddess and that's a huge boost for my ego!

What products are you mashing up this week, Love Buds?

For more #MashupMonday posts click here

Peace, Love, & Loads of Lather!

A.

#Mashup Monday: It Isn't Easy Being Green

First off, I want to give a shout out to my favorite amphibian, Kermit D. Frog, for making green the new black on the muppet show - which is making it's return to TV later this month and I could not be more excited.  I'm still not feeling him dumping Ms. Piggy for another pig.  Ms. Piggy's wardrobe and hair game stays on 1000.  Now on to this Monday's experience...

This mash up starts off with one of the signature fortune cookie soaps from Fortune Cookies Soap in the Polyjuice Potion fragrance.  On their website, this fragrance is described as "a magical blend of fresh oranges, grapefruit, strawberries, ripe melon, peaches and kiwi..sprinkled with a touch of sugar."  YUM!  The scent is definitely magical.  I was first tipped on to Fortune Cookie Soap by a soap friend Tracy, who send me a box of goodies that included their Hydrate Me balm in the intoxicating "It's 5 o'clock Somewhere?!" fragrance.  I talked about this item in my first #Mashup Monday post.

I was excited to try this new scent, but hesitant because my experience with glycerin soap has been not so great.  But I am a trooper and it smelled soooo good and the other products I've tried from Fortune Cookie Soap have be awesome and I LOVE the concept, it's so cute AND even comes with a fortune inside.   

However, I must say that the fortune cookie soap did not bring me good fortune.  The scent was fantastic.  But the lather was just so so.  Some soaps need a good rub to get the lather going and I rubbed and rubbed and rubbed but found the lather to be rather lacking in this soap.  Also, I found it to be a little drying to my skin.  It gave me that "squeaky" clean feeling that let's me know I'm definitely clean, but also I know that I need to use a heavy hitter as far as a moisturizer to keep me my skin from drying out.

In comes yet another tincture from Cream & Coco, featured in my Burn, Berry, Burn #Mashup Monday post.  Tinctures from Cream & Coco are a botanically infused body oil blend that incorporates glycerin to help attract moisture to the skin as the oil seals it in.  Great Stuff and the Green Mango scent (do yourself a favor, if you have not tried dried green mangos, find some.  THE ARE ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS!!!! And when you find them, let me know where you got them because my local Trader Joe's has stopped carrying them).  The scent is tangy and sweet and melony amazwballsness.  

Combining the Green Mango tincture with the polyjuice potion fortune cookie soap created a fragrance combination that was a tropical delight - fun and fruity.  Though the soap dried me out, the tincture helped bring my skin's moisture levels back into balance.


What products are you mashing up this week?

For more #MashupMonday posts click here

Later Love Buds,

A.

#Mashup Monday: Earth, Sweet Earth

Earth to Love Buds...Come in Love Buds! This week's mash up is a heavenly combination that is a merger of essences all with deep roots.

I started with "Sweet Earth" from Joans Gardens on Etsy. This is a vegan, natural, cold process soap scented with lemongrass, lavender, tangerine and patchouli essential oils with added poppy seeds for exfoliation.  This soap has great lather and skin conditioning and the poppy seeds weren't irritating to my sensitive skin.  The fragrance is uplifting from the citrus oils yet the earthiness of the patchouli serves to ground it while the lavender brings a wonderful balance to the entire experience.  At $5.00 for a 4.25 oz bar, this bar is a great value.

I then sealed with Lavender Body Butter from Cedar Ridge Soaps.  I visited with Joan, the owner at her home in Western Maryland a few months ago.  Her body butter is a rich, thick, shea butter based (no water added) sealant with the amazing scent of fresh lavender.  When layered Sweet Earth soap, my skin was hydrated, sealed and felt amazing and the ethereal experience of the combination of essential oils from the soap lingered for quite some time, with just and added kick of lavender.   Though rich enough to use in colder weather, I found that sealing at night with the body butter helped my skin remain moisturized all day, but it did not feel heavy or like I was overheating.

This combination is was really exhilarating!  I know the common feeling about lavender is that it is very calming and relaxing.  I find that for me, it really is an invigorating scent.  I keep a bit of lavender essential oil on my night stand, but instead of using it to fall asleep, I take a sniff of it when I am having a hard time getting out of bed and I find that it gives me a little boost.

How do you feel about lavender?  What Mash Ups do you have planned for this week?

If you're enjoying this blog, would you mind taking a moment to subscribe?  Just hit the "follow me on bloglovin" button or the "join site" button in the followers section.  It would really help me be able to keep bringing you reviews and insights about new products. (and sharing them via giveaways ;)

For more #MashupMonday posts click here

That's it for now -

Peace, Love & Lot's of Bubbles!

#Mashup Monday: Burn, Berry Burn

Cream & Coco's Infused Glazed Tinctures are some of the most decadent hair/body oils on earth!  Nourishing oils are Infused with botanicals that beneficial both skin and hair as well as a bit of glycerin to help draw in and retain moisture from the environment.  They are a head to toe way to soften and seal in beneficial hydration. I love using these right after a bath or shower when my skin has absorbed its fill of moisture and it keeps my skin hydrated all day. 

The Strawberry Bamboo fragrance isn't one of my favorites.  I purchased it to go with a soap from Cream & Coco by the same name.  From pictures of my soap rack, Cream & Coco soaps are definitely in heavy rotation with me. The soap had a very tangy fragrance, but I find that this tincture is heavy on the jasmine notes and light on the strawberry and tea notes.  However, waste not, want not what does not coordinate (shoot, this stuff still works great even if the fragrance isn't quite what I expected).  So it was an excellent candidate for this week's #MondayMashup.

"Fire Fruit" is a luxurious goat milk soap from the Clean Line Soap Company.  The fragrance combines the sweetness of valencia orange and tangerine with black and chili pepper.  The result is a complex blend of spicy and sweet that was a delight to use.  The soap lathers great and leaves skin feeling smooth. 

In tandem, these products leave behind wonderfully clean, conditioned and hydrated skin.  The resulting fragrance experience is hard to describe - sweet fruits meet soft florals meet spicy undertones.  I REALLY enjoyed the combination of these products and recommend giving products from either of these two artisans a try.

What mashups do you have planned or would like to share?  I want to know what I should try next!

Love Buds, if you're enjoying this blog, would you mind taking a moment to subscribe?  Just hit the "follow me on bloglovin" button or the "join site" button in the followers section.  It would really help me be able to keep bringing you reviews and insights about new products. (and sharing them via giveaways ;)

For more #MashupMonday posts click here

That's it for now -

Peace, Love & Lot's of Bubbles!

#MashupMonday: By the Grace of Mermaids

This Monday, I finally had the heart to use one of my gorgeous soaps from Sunlit Soap.  Jan, the owner, is a true artisan when it comes to the soap treasures she creates.  Not too far from me in Warrenton, Virginia, she has refused a video interview with me for my blog, but I'm not done trying....

This soap, called "Sunlit Beach", is described as smelling similar to Coppertone sun tan lotion.  I did not grow up using suntan lotion and I have to tell you I missed out on a lot!  I LOVE (did I say LOVE? because I LOVE) this fragrance!  Demure notes of greenery intermingle with delicate floral essences of jasmine, rose, lavender, and lilac describe this exquisite scent.  The soap itself looks deceptively small in the pictures.  It is a full 5 ounces and though I thought the square shape would be odd to hold, it fit comfortably in my hand throughout my shower and the lather was dreamy, bubbly and creamy.  

Prior to using the soap, I exfoliated with Willow & Honey's Mermaid Hugs whipped soap sugar scrub.  I previously reviewed their Mermaid Hugs soap and I absolutely love this marine scent. The consistency of this whipped sugar soap scrub is best equated with that of sand that is perfectly mixed with the right balance of water to build a sand castle.  When you scoop up a bit, you can actually mold it with your hands.  The scent is slightly different than that of the bar soap, which is contributed to it being a different product.  Not as salty a marine scent, but still nice.  This scrub provides light exfoliation and rinses clean.  This product has a high content of propylene glycol and I found my skin to be a little itchy after use, due to my sensitivity to this ingredient.  But following it with the Sunlit Beach soap and a cream moisturizer alleviated the itch for me.

Philosophy's line of skin care products has always intrigued me, but I have never used their products.  My mother, however loves their Pure Grace fragrance and today, I decided to give it a try.  By itself, Pure Grace is not a favorite fragrance of mine. Their ode to a pure soap and water clean scent to me, has a light musky undertone that I don't really like.  The whipped body creme has an amazing dense creamy texture that is rich and deeply moisturizing.

When I finished up my shower routine with the Pure Grace cream, my skin felt soft and moisturized and the scent layering of all the products left a fragrance that was fresh and water like at its essence with a light almost powder like finish.  The Mashup was a hit!

What products are you mashing up this week?

For more #MashupMonday posts click here

Catch you next time, Love Buds ~

Peace, Love & Lots of Bubbles!

A.

Mashup Monday: On My Waves to My Grandma's House

Today's #MondayMashUp takes me back...back to the summer's I spent at my grandmother's house in Jersey City, New Jersey.  In the heart of the city, just outside of New York City, in the sizzling summer sun, this urban landscape was riddled with people trying to beat the heat by hanging out on fire escapes and dancing in gushing fire hydrants.  But wait, this doesn't sound much like the beach or apple orchards, does it?  How does this week's MashUp take me back to those memories?

It's the fragrance combination. The soap, from one of my favorite soap makers, Kia at Petals Bath Boutique, is sweet and tart, but reminds me more of apple candy, than the fruit.

The Beach Hussy cream of the crop body cream, by Farm Hussy, in the "Don't Make Waves" scent is described on the website as "fresh currants of strawberry, raspberry and quava swirl around breakers of mandarin, dates and a sweet swell of coconut milk".  When I first smelled it, it reminded me of peach flavored Rock Creek Soda.  

In my grandmother's neighborhood, there was a local corner store, Jack's.  Every morning, I would go to Jack's to get a buttered roll for breakfast, the newspaper and to stock up on my candy stash which included my favorite apple now & laters and you guessed it, delicious, refreshing peach Rock Creek soda!  This combination of scents took me right back to those hot days of summer where I hung out on the brick steps of my grammy's home with my "summer friends" and tried my best to learn to jump double dutch (which I never did, so I always wound up just turning, lol).  There on the block where I fell in love with my first teen aged boyfriend, Charles Austin - yup, I still remember his name - and his initials were mine in reverse so we knew it was destiny. On those same brick steps is where Hip Hop was introduced to me in its infancy.  But that's a whole other story....

Thanks to my soap partner in crime, Tracy, for introducing me to Farm Hussy.  I can't wait to try more from their line!

Until next time, Love Buds,

Peace, Love & Lot's of Bubbles,

A.

Mashup Monday! Happy Hour on the Information Super Highway

A new feature, I will try to do at least twice a month.  If you are a true product junkie, I'm sure, like me, you have amassed a hodgepodge of different bath and body products from numerous different companies.  On #MashupMonday I'll try products from different product makers in different scents together and let you know how well they worked together.  This week, it's Happy Hour on the Information Super Highway

Whiskey River Soap Company broke the internet a few months ago with one of it's humorously named soap offerings.  Their "Soap for Hipsters" which is scented with coffee, bacon and craft beer quickly went viral when shared via social media.  Though this particular scent did not sound appealing to me, I did check out some of their offerings which include "Soap for "Frenemies", which is scented with lemongrass & sage, "Soap for Evil Dictators", which is scented with stale tobacco fragrance, and "Soap for Underachievers", scented with margarita mix.  I decided to choose "Soap for Geeks", it's "wifi scent" translates to cucumber and cilantro wasabi.  Who knew that wifi smelled so tangy!

My new bubblelovin' partner in crime, Tracy sent me a delectable box of goodies from product makers I have not tried yet.  One gem I found in it was from Fortune Cookie Soap - Seems they really like cocktails over there and have a fragrance called "What? It's 5 o'clock somewhere!".  It smells like a fruity, slightly sweet, slightly sour, sunny drink that you might find garnished with cherries and a paper umbrella.  The scent has a citrus twist, but no coconut which I absolutely ADORE as coconut is not one of my favorites and many tropical scents feature it heavily.

The product I have is their hydrate me twist up balm.  This is a semi-firm butter featuring coconut oil, shea butter and cocoa butter.  It is a little too soft to use directly from the tube on my skin, but wiping a dollup off with my fingers and rubbing into my skin, it is an awesome dreamy, creamy balm that is actually perfect right after a shower, even in the summer.

The Soap for Geeks has a scent that is really tangy, to me it has a kinda lime like twang to it with nice green herbal notes that mellow it out.  I don't really get the wasabi notes, but maybe that just really enhances the blend.   The soap itself, I found to leave me a little squeakier clean than I would like, so the hydrate me balm was a perfect compliment and left my skin soft and supple and the combination of the two scents is a sweet and tart fruity explosion of unicorns, rainbows and happiness!

What are you mashing up this week?  Tag @4theloveofbubbles on instagram with a picture of your mashup with the hastags #mashupmonday and/or #bubblelove and I'll share it with all my other Love Buds!