Thursday, December 22, 2016

The Bathing Garden: Winter Collection


As much as I wanted to buy one of each, I kept my Christmas Collection haul from The Bathing Garden minimal. I did buy two Lavender Blueberry Cake bundles as gifts for friends, but those I won't be featuring (as I already gifted them). I ended up buying 5 clamshells ($3.75 each) and one parfait ($12.50) for myself.


Rosemary Mint,  infused with actual rosemary essential oil, also adds in peppermint and spearmint for a relaxing and soothing blend. The rosemary oil aroma lifts notes of anise and woods along with the traditional herbal rosemary tang. Marvelous.


Winter Woodland is an old favorite of mine. The pine stand right outside the cabin window. The tall resinous pines adrift with snow, sparkle with the slight fruity notes of oranges and berries and subtle spice. 


Crystalized Spearmint and Peppermint is another classic Bathing Garden offering. Always a nice thrower and another wonderful scent to induce peace. I may need to melt this now. Not overly minty, but excellently balanced. Green herbal mint leaves combined with that signature spearmint tone.


Sleepy, one of my first pink peppermint blends. With a little added vanilla musk. Gosh darn I love this fragrance. I went ahead and bought a back up. Just now. Yeah, baby.


Chestnuts & Pinecones is new to me, I believe. At least I don't really recall having tried it. Notes of vanilla, cream cake, spiced chestnuts and pine won me over. Add in the anise star and I am over the moon. The cream cake sings in this one. The pine oh so subtle. The spice is light but present and the chestnuts are not overly dry or popcorny. A new winner. 


You guys know I love my Bathing Garden parfaits. Rosemary Mint in a parfait was a must. Half whipped soap, half sugar scrub and all in that Rosemary Mint goodness.


And look how festive?!


So I thought I bought this Sleepy shape in a snowflake, but now I think it was a free sample. My littlest girl opened this box for me and I got confused as to what was in the sample bag and what wasn't. My bad. But isn't this a beaut?!


Now this I did buy. A snowflake in Glacier Blue, which stirs up mint, musk, menthol and citrus into a sexy man snowflake. Not sure why, but this ends up smelling like something Lush would release for the Dirty man in your life. I like it. I think I may even love it. I can see how it wouldn't be for everyone though. 


Another stunning snowflake in Candied Peppermint Petals. Strong peppermint and Rose Jam packed into one amazing aroma. In love.


Free sample scrub in Sugared Snow Dust. I mostly pick up vanilla marzipan and a touch of minty coolness (or is that the remnants of the Peppermint Rose?). Could be way off. Don't quote me. Or quote me. Doesn't really matter I suppose.


Blueberry Lavender Sugar Cake is not one I have melted but I wanted to hang on to these to give them a test drive. On cold the blueberry is sweet and softened by the cake, the lavender is herbal but brilliant when fused to the blueberry. 


Another Glacier Blue and a rosette in Rose Glace (sweet rose but not Rose Jam) and a teeny man in Gingerbread House (a fantastic spicy gingerbread).


A golden poinsettia in Just Jasmine Frost (reminds me of the skanky Flying Fox from Lush- but I don't think I can do it in a home fragrance, I like keeping the skanky to myself on the skin), a mini Valentine in Kiss Me Silly (tart currants come in hard and fast with sweet cranberries and various fruits lagging in behind), and a snowflake medallion in Mrs. Cratchit's Christmas Pudding (spiced bread pudding studded with dates and raisins, so delicious I just ordered a whole clamshell to gobble up- see how delightfully evil free samples can be).


A swirly pink ornament in Cinderella Would Be Jealous (Lush Snowcake, pass), a blue ornament in Bohemian Solstice (fab name! spiced blueberries and raspberries, interesting indeed), and a snowflake medallion in Crystalized Spearmint and Peppermint  (excellent! >rubs finger tips together like Mr. Burns<). 


A jolly late season Jack 'o Lantern in Haunted Hayride (huzzah! love the hay and spice and apples and what not) and some luscious lips in Old Fashioned Valentine (vanilla bakery and spice, I will order this and a few Valentine goodies at the end of the month). 

WHEW! I think Shannon gifted more free samples than I have ever seen in my life. What a wonderfully generous Christmas gift. I am in love with just about everything as usual. I plan on using my holiday tarts here and there as it is cooler outside (in January and February around these parts) and save the rest for next Christmas. Did anything strike your fancy in the Christmas or Valentine collections? I noticed she didn't have Coconut Crystal Cake in a parfait this time. Tears. But I have my Rosemary Mint to tide me over. 

Did you get a super sweet freebie bag? What was in it? 

12 comments:

  1. Ugh, I just adore TBG now; I'm glad you tempted me to try them previously. I'm also glad the majority of her products smell as beautiful as they look! Every one of those sounds like scents I would love. I personally have tried and loved the Blueberry Lavender Sugar Cake, and you know how I feel about Gingerbread House. A generous soul also gifted me a sample of that Candied Peppermint Petals and it smells INCREDIBLE on cold. I just love TBG's rose blends; Brown Sugar Cream Rose Bouquet is an all time favorite scents. Enjoy your goodies!

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    1. Yay!! Glad you enjoy Shannon's tarts. She is such a sweet person. And talented too. You are totally right. I love her roses. I will definitely be getting the Brown Sugar Rose one and the Rose Glace and any others plus the raspberry tart and a couple others later in the month. Glad to hear you liked the Lavender Blueberry scent, then I probably will too. It seems wonderful on cold. And I really hope she does Gingerbread House next year.

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  2. I miss the Bathing Garden tarts! I didn't store them well and the oils seeped through the plastic and warped the containers...so I threw them out. I had dozens of them! I love Sleepy. So good. I haven't tried the others though. Your pics are amazing. That scrub! Now I need to go look at her scrubs.

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    1. Oh man! Yes! I did have a couple that got soggy bottom on me too, so I went ahead and used them up. Sleepy is the bee's knees for sure. It relaxes me every time I take a whiff of it. Thank you so much! I try to mix up the photos as best I can. Sometimes they flop but sometimes they come out alright. :-) But no matter what I try I can never quite do Shannon's tarts justice. LOL! They are so pretty. Mmmmmm... her scrubs are my favorite. The texture is wonderful.

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  3. Gorgeous pictures as usual, Julie! Cinderella Would be Jealous was a bog pass for me too.

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    1. Thank you Chloe!! <3 Yes. I know there are a lot of Snowcake fans out there but I just cannot get on with it. The marzipan always ends up smelling like silly putty or plasticy to me. Ah well. Someone will love it I am sure. Just not us ;-)

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  4. A festively fun collection, pretty as always!

    ~Deb

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    1. Thank you! It was fun to open!! Shannon always does a great job!

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  5. You are the queen of mint!! Shannon's tarts are so beautiful. Your pictures of your fall haul convinced me to order for the first time in probably over 2 years! And man, was it a haul lol. Sadly, I was moderately disappointed in my winter collection choices, though I did enjoy some of the fall ones. Faded Opulence is probably one of my favorite vendor wax scents of all time so of course I stocked up on that. I enjoyed Poisoned Apothecary and Haunted Hayride, scents I had been eyeing for years but never pulled the trigger on. Was most excited for Mummy Madamoiselle, but it smelled like vinegar to me lol. I enjoyed some of the samples I received more than my purchased tarts! Old Fashioned Valentine and Sugared Snow dust were among those. My winter choices were so-so. Winter Woodland didn't do it for me, should have stuck with my old fave Christmas Thyme. Chestnuts and Pinecones was too popcorn-y for me. Plum Ballet was too sweet. Cranberry Lane not tart enough. But I will not judge them on cold throw and melt them to see how I truly feel - whenever that may be. They are just too beautiful to part with!!

    On the other hand, I just burned my first scented thing since baby was born - Diptyque's Pomander. SO AMAZING! I think I may be trading in my vendor wax obsession for a high end candles obsession. Any high end candle faves? I've loved Diptyque for years but I want to venture out.

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    1. Yes, you know me! I adore my mints. They keep me sane. I am sorry you didn't enjoy your order completely. Mummy Mademoiselle is not one I really enjoy. I think it is a Rose Jam/Snow Fairy mash up, or at least it smells that way to me and I do not like Snow Fairy much at all. Way too bubble gum sweet. Old Fashioned Valentine will definitely be ordered, but I love my spices. I am pretty on alert for popcorn but I just didn't get a ton of it from Chestnuts & Pinecones, I am digging it. One of my new faves. And Plum Ballet is one I like too. Not sure about Cranberry Lane, never tried it. Shannon is an artist when it comes to her wax. You can see the love and passion she pours into it.

      Congrats!! I bet that was a nice treat. Ever might have even enjoyed it too. I do enjoy a nice high end candle once in a while, but they tend to be way too spendy for me to swap out the two. I have room in my heart to love both LOL! So yes, I am composing a Best of 2016 at the moment and just typed up my candles faves and two that I love that are not Diptyque (in fact none of the Diptyques I burned this year grabbed me, sadly) are Cire Trudon (one of the oldest candle makers out there) and Tiziana Terenzi (the BEST woodwick I have ever heard or seen and the scent I bought was eye rolling). My plan for 2017 is to buy one more of each of those candles and then venture out more too. Voluspa is not really high end but still up there. I had a blogger friend send me two I will be melting next month, and looking forward to it. And there are a few other niche brands (Malle and a few niche uber high end perfume makers) candles that I dream of trying but they run into the three digits. Gah.

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  6. Oh my gosh, these are SO pretty! I love the Bathing Garden's wax, it's just so gorgeous. Can't unfortunately speak to its smelly power, though, as she doesn't ship to Canada. :( Although a friend gifted me a couple of scrub samples, and they were very nice. Just such a gorgeous product - I love the embedded bits. And that Blueberry Lavender one looks like the Mad Hatter's chapeau. :)

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    1. Boo :-( If you ever see anything you need to try holler at me and I will buy it and send it to you. I love her embeds and have a deep appreciate for her art in that. I know where she buys some of the molds and they are pricy. Plus it is not exactly easy to time placing embeds in wax just right. And the fact she has to make tons of embeds using only a few molds. She is a master.

      It does!!! And I could see him smelling like that too. Chapeau. I want to learn French.

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