Having been subscribed to Fortune Cookie Soap for the last two season’s boxes, I knew I would be the most excited for the fall soap box. Fall scents are what I lean towards the most, likely because everything tends to smell like the woods and pumpkins (yep, I’m one those pumpkin spice latte women).
One thing that I need to point out is just how much I enjoy their design work. Their logos and designs are always eye-catching and I find myself in awe of what they produce from a visual perspective. The colours are always enticing and the graphics are beautiful. I love that they put so much work into the visuals.
Fortune Cookie Soap‘s Fall Soap Box is very clearly Wizard of Oz/Wicked influenced. While I’ve seen the musical, I’m not fanatical about it like most people are, so a lot of these products names may be totally lost on me.
Whipped Cream in Wicked, Good
Awwwww yisssssss. Pumpkin goodness right off the bat! Their Wicked, Good scent is basically pumpkin, vanilla and dried fruits rolled up into one amazing scent. I *love* this. I’d prefer it in candle format since smearing it over my body makes me feel like I’m rubbing a Bath & Body Works candle on me, but I still love it. Their Whipped Cream formula is wonderful, as per usual. Highly recommended.
OCD Hand Sanitizer in Roy G. Biv
I’m so over hand sanitizer. This is my third FCS Soap Box, and my third OCD Hand Sanitizer packed within. I’m not even halfway through the first one they sent me, never mind the second one. The Roy G. Biv name is cute and clever though.
Bubble Bath Powder in Miss Popular
Oooohh noooooo. This one is not for me! This smelled way too flowery. I dumped it in the bathtub and had the quickest dip of my life (and I’m not much of a long soaker to begin with) because I couldn’t stand the smell. This may work for other people, but the scent was just not up my alley at all.
Perfume Oil in The Shiz
I had good experiences with their previous perfume oil, and The Shiz turned out to be just as good. This one is pretty musky and deep. It leans heavily towards the more masculine side of scents, but it definitely has a sweet side to it. I like the longevity of their perfume oils – it will last me through an entire day without issue.
Personal Space Air Freshener in Flying Monkeys
Ehhhhhhhh I’m kind of so-so on this one. Flying Monkeys smells vaguely like fruits rolled through laundry detergent. It’s more of a clean scent, so it smells nice, but it doesn’t seem to have a whole lot of lingering power. This is a room air freshener, but I didn’t find it had particularly good lasting power. Even using about ten sprays didn’t seem to make the scent stick in the room very much.
Walnut Facial Scrub in Swankified
At first I thought this was the same as their microdermabrasion scrub that they included in last month’s box, but the granules were slightly larger. On second look, I realized this was actually just a scrub. No objections to this one. Swankified cleans my face and smells nice doing it.
Hair Oil in Hair Flip
This is another new product from the company – hair oil. I’ve little-to-no experience with hair oils so I can’t really say much about this other than what I noticed from using it once. I applied Hair Flip to the ends of my hair before blowing drying and it left the tips of my hair smelling like hazelnut and vanilla without leaving behind any greasy residue (which is much appreciated).
Fortune Cookie Soap in There’s No Place Like Home
Oh this one is coooool! It’s a semi-transparent red soap completely shot-through with red glitter. This soap is BEAUTIFUL, even moreso when it’s a little bit wet and the translucency shows through a bit more (see picture below).
One thing I’ll say though is that this *will* leave glitter behind on your counter over time as they flake off from washing your hands. To me, it smells like cinnamon hearts mixed with apples. Surprisingly, this turned out to be my favourite scent in the whole box.
That’s it for the fall soap box! If you’re interested in their fall scent online launch party, it’s today, August 29, 2014 @ 6:30 p.m. CST. Their new launch scents do tend to sell out pretty fast so be quick if you want anything! (They do re-stock in a few weeks if you’re desperate to get your hands on one particular scent.)
Fortune Cookie Soap‘s 2014 Summer Soap Box is candy EVERYTHING. If you’ve got a sweet tooth, you’ll basically want to eat everything that’s inside your box. (Luckily, they’ve even thrown in a piece of gum and a sucker – likely to avoid you munching down on your bath products.)
The smell of this box was glorious. As soon as I opened the flap I was in candy heaven.
FCS Summer Soap Box 2014
Here’s a closer look at some of the products.
Solid Sugar Scrub in Rock Your Socks Off
The first item I tried out was the Rock Your Socks Off solid sugar scrub. The cube is on the small size, but I still cracked it in half and saved the second half for another shower. The scent is full on grape candy – that artificial grape scent combined with cups and cups of sugar. The sugar broke apart easily with a little bit of water (I wouldn’t try to scrub this on dry skin) and broke down quickly. Loved the smell, but I’d kind of prefer the sugar scrub to be a bit more liquid – that’s a personal preference though.
Microdermabrasion Facial Scrub in Lemon Drop It Like It’s Hot
Next up was the microdermabrasion scrub. I made the mistake of actually using two microdermabrasion scrubs that day (one in the morning and one at night), but suffered no side effects. The scent in the box, and the only one they appear to have on their web site, is Lemon Drop It Like It’s Hot. As the name suggests, it’s lemon-y with a hint of orange. The particles in this scrub are a little bit more coarse than some of the higher end ones I’ve used, but I actually thing it’s kind of helpful since it’ll scrub more intensely if you mush it around your face. Mixed amongst the small particles were a few larger ones – I’m not sure if this is intended, or if a few of the crystals just happened to stick together, but either way it definitely added an interesting texture to the wash. With a price tag that is significantly less than most microdermabrasions, I’d definitely suggest trying this out if you’re interested in the concept but not the high cost associated with other brands.
Lip Scrub in Blow Me!
The Blow Me! Talkin’ Smack Lip Scrub is a bazooka gum with a hint of Fun Dip flavoured lip scrub that isn’t too tightly packed together in the container. It’s about standard for a lip scrub really, so if the scent appeals to you and you like the price, this is worth picking up. It left my lips feeling tingly and fresh (and doesn’t taste bad either!).
Sparkle Me in The Sweet Spot
I love glitter. Like seriously love it. Glitter in a convenient spray bottle is just pure unadulterated pleasure for me. I have a few other scented glitter sprays from Bath & Body Works, but I am ALWAYS happy to have more of them. Their Sparkle Me in The Sweet Spotis quite literally a sweet scented glitter spray bottle of glory. It has more of a sweet fruit scent and it’s fairly light. I wore it to work yesterday (yep, sprayed myself head to toe in it) and the glitter particles (tiny and not chunky) stayed put all day and no one complained that I smelled like TOO much of anything. Winnar!
OCD Hand Sanitizer in Lollipop Your Cherry
I’ve personally never really latched on to the “I need to sanitize my hands after I touch everything under the sun” regime that most people seem to follow these days, so receiving another hand sanitizer (they had one in last quarter’s box) after I haven’t even used up the one from last time is a little on the boring side. HOWEVER, I know there are a lot of people out there that feel like they practically bathe in hand sanitizer every day, so I’m sure these are for you germaphobes. FCS’ OCD Hand Sanitizer in Lollipop Your Cherry thankfully smells more like real cherries than the horrific artificial smells-and-tastes-like-cough-medicine flavour that usually passes as “cherry-scented”. At the end of the day, it’ll sanitize your hands and it’ll smell good while doing so.
Wax Tart in Sweet Dreamsicle
Ooo a wax tart! I wasn’t even aware FCS had these. As the name suggests, Sweet Dreamsicle smells like creamsicles. I’ve popped it into my bathroom warmer, but it hasn’t had a chance to actually melt out yet so I can’t comment as to the throw of the scent. It did smell lovely when I sniffed it though!
Whipped Cream in Captain’s Berried Booty
I love their Whipped Creams, but this scent just isn’t for me. Captain’s Berried Booty(loooove the name) smells like cardboard fruit loops. I was going to smear in on my legs to test the scent for wear time, but the one little dab I got on my hands was enough to steer me away from using it. The bloody thing lasted for hours and I barely got anything on me! If you like fruity-scented cereals, you’ll love this. Me however? I’m avoiding this one!
Fortune Cookie Soap in Lick Your Lips
And the piece de resistance – their namesake soap. Lick Your Lips fortune cookie soap smells like it looks: like peppermint ice cream with chocolate in it. This is really lovely and the soap itself is, as always, beyond adorable.
And candy, cuz why not?
My favourite products for this box were the microdermabrasion scrub and the sparkle me spray. Those are two products that I know for sure I’ll use all the way through and enjoy them thoroughly. Scent-wise though, my picks would be Lick Your Lips and Lemon Drop It Like It’s Hot, purely based on personal sniffer preferences.
As I’ve said before, their shipping to Canada is way too high for me to even consider ordering anything from them to my Canadian address. (Oddly, the shipping to Canada for their soap box is less than half the price of even a regular order from them…) So with that being said, I do have a $10 off coupon code for the first person that leaves a message for me on this blog post (and actually wants it!). There are zero strings attached to this – I just don’t want the coupon code to go to waste since I won’t be placing at order this time around. So if you want to place an order with Fortune Cookie Soap, snag $10 off while you can! There’s also no minimum purchase required with this code either. Enjoy!
This post may get a bit graphic with some of the pictures, you’ve been warned.
Every now and then I get what I think is milia. (From wikipedia: “A milium (plural milia), also called a milk spot or an oil seed, is a keratin-filled cyst that can appear just under the epidermis..[snip]”.)
I hate these little bastards, and they always show up in really inconvenient spots around my eyelids. I’ve never been officially diagnosed and most of the causes of milia are stuff that I don’t even use (like heavy eyecreams, etc.)!
I usually dig the milia out myself in sheer frustration (yep, with a needle or tweezers). I’m not really afraid of facial scarring, so if I get the opportunity to poke and prod at something on my face that’s bothering me, I usually do it. However, this one little milium has been stuck on my lower eyelid for about two years now and no matter how much I stab at it, it just won’t go away!
Milium on my lower left eyelid
The milium isn’t super obvious unless you’re looking for it, but I find myself really ticked off (and slightly repulsed) by the little bump and I’m ALWAYS poking at it all day with my fingers.
Milium
Eesh. Isn’t that a beauty? This was after I’d taken my makeup off for the day.
So after years of poking at this sucker, I’d only made it get bigger and it was looking more and more grotesque by the day. In last month’s Ipsy bag, I received a sample size of the Dr. BrandtMicrodermabrasion Skin Exfoliant and decided, as a last ditch effort, to try this out on my eyelid.
Dr. Brandt Microdermabrasion Skin Exfoliant
Of course, with the milium being so stinking close to my eyeball, I had to be exceptionally careful with this stuff. For a week straight, once a day I put a small amount on the end of a cotton bud and rubbed it back and forth over the offending spot. Once I was done rubbing, I rinsed it off and left it alone. It dried out the spot quite a bit and I really didn’t notice a change throughout that week.
Dr. Brandt Microdermabrasion Skin Exfoliant – white with very fine grains inside the cream
After the week was up, I stopped using the exfoliant out of frustration and booked myself in for a dermatologist appointment to get it lanced out of my face in three weeks time (something that I was really, really nervous about). However, over the next few days, weird stuff started to happen. The milium got slightly smaller and then started to almost crystallize. The very top surface of my skin got very hard right above the bump, almost as if I had a piece of dry skin stuck there.
Then suddenly, today at work, I was rubbing my eye (and once again poking at the milk spot) when all of a sudden I felt it pop out of my skin.
Weirdest. Feeling. Ever.
I also couldn’t believe it! FINALLY! This stupid little irritating milium was out of my face! I ran to the bathroom at work just to double check, and sure enough, there was no longer any bump under my skin! All that was left was a small little exit hole (see picture below) where the little ball of whatever-the-heck-it-was used to be.
Begone milium!
I am unbelievably happy. This thing has been bothering me for years! I was so pleased that the exfoliant seems to have done its job and that my skin was now back to lying flush against my eyelid.
So if you’ve got milia, I would seriously recommend trying this exfoliant. Be careful if you’re using this close to your eyes, but it’s so soooo worth it!
So Dr. Brandt has changed their products around a lot since this post went up (it’s now 2017), but give these scrubs a try by their brand:
Dr. Brandt Skincare microdermabrasion exfoliating face cream (Canada or USA)
Dr. Brandt Skincare PoreDermabrasion™ Pore Perfecting Exfoliator (Canada or USA)
Another month, another bag of Ipsy goodies. This month’s theme was “Beauty Rocks” or something to that extent. Aside from the record on the front of the bag (an object I’m not sure the generation after me has even had physical contact with) the theme is slightly debatable.
Urban Decay 24/7 Velvet Glide-on eye pencil in Black Velvet (travel size)
First up, and the item everyone got in their bag, is Urban Decay‘s new 24/7 eye liner pencil in Black Velvet. I’m one of few people who doesn’t actually own an UD liner so I was really happy to receive this. Urban Decay says this is “an ultra velvety, plush version” of their usual liners and this can create “perfectly blended-out or rich, precise lines that are blacker-than-black”. This is a hefty size sample – in fact it’s only 0.01 oz smaller than a full size product!
Testing out Black Velvet
Judging by the picture on the diagram that came with the liner, I assumed I could blur this out to a really smudgy, smoky look. Well… that didn’t actually work out. The pencil is certainly very black, but blending this sucker out was difficult – too difficult. I ended up using UD‘s Blackout eyeshadow to blend out the pencil liner in an attempt to make it smudgy. As you can see, I didn’t really succeed, but I ran out of time that morning and finished it off as quickly as I could. Despite the pencil not actually smudging like I thought it would (or like they implied), I really do like this liner. It’s super black, and it’s wonderfully smudge resistant (hah). It sets really, REALLY quickly, hence why I had problems smudging it out. The liner didn’t transfer to my upper lid throughout the work day. It also claims to be waterproof, but I didn’t test that bit out. Definitely love this one.
Big Sexy Hair – Root Pump (travel size)
I was excited to try this out as I definitely feel like I need some lift in the roots of my hair and this product looked interesting. Big Sexy Hair‘s Root Pump is a white mousse that dries clear. The instructions indicate to apply it to the roots of your hair while your hair is damp and blow dry your roots away from your scalp. Did that and I think it worked – I certainly seem to have more lift to my hair through the scalp… but now my hair feels like CHALK! Like chalk that’s been smashed into powder, had water added to it and then rubbed into the roots of my hair. I constantly run my fingers through my hair throughout the day and the texture this created in my hair to give it the extra OOMPH just totally freaked me out. (It feels similar to those powder-shaker root lifts, another product I can’t stand.) So while this product DOES work, the texture is so awful to me that there’s no way I’ll use it.
Elizabeth Mott – Pop! goes the shadow in Champagne (full size)
A lot of people are going to love this colour I’m sure, but I’m only so-so on it. Elizabeth Mott‘s Champagne eye shadow is a barely there shade that adds a little bit of shine on my lids, but not a whole lot of colour payoff. It swatches okay, but the end result on the lids isn’t spectacular even with a primer. ( In the shot above, the shadow was applied all over my lid right up to my brows.) I was happy to try it out though, and I’ll give it a shot as a cheek highlighter as well.
Starlooks Luscious Longwear Lip Pencil in Naked (full size)
Since I discovered MAC‘s Prep + Prime for lips I don’t have a massive need for lip liners (as a result, I only have two!). As a result, this item was actually pretty welcome in my bag as I didn’t have a colour like it for the times where I do want to add some extra wear time to my lip colour or even just to wear a liner under some gloss. Starlooks Naked lip liner is a peachy-pink colour that slid onto my lips without any tugging (which isn’t something I can say about MAC‘s pencils… those suckers tug at my lips!). It does have a bit of a plastic taste to it which is a bit meh, but not enough to prevent me from wearing it.
Dr. Brandt Microdermabrasion skin exfoliant (trial size)
I had to look up what the heck microdermabrasion was in comparison to a regular exfoliator and it turns out microdermabrasion utilizes smaller beads and is stronger than a regular exfoliator.Dr. Brandt‘s microdermabrasion feels really lovely on the skin and I can definitely feel the granular difference between this and the cheapo exfoliators I buy at the drug store. It also, incredibly, smells just like Sabon‘s Lemon Mint body scrub which makes this an absolute PLEASURE to use.
The full price of this product, however, is a whopping $78 USD. I love trying out this luxury brand, but let’s get real – this is a sample in a $10 a month beauty bag – most of us are not looking to spend nearly $80 on one skincare item. So it seems out of line with the clientele, but what do I know?
I used this once on my face and it felt wonderful, but I’m going to restrict the use of this to a pesky milia pearl I’ve got on one of my lower lids and see if this will work to get rid of it with prolonged use.
Ipsy April 2014 Breakdown
(all prices in USD)
Urban Decay 24/7 Velvet Glide-on eye pencil in Black Velvet (0.03 oz @ $15, full size is $20 for 0.04 oz)
Big Sexy Hair Root Pump Volumizing Spray Mousse (50 ml @ $3, full size is $17.95 for 300 ml)
Elizabeth Mott Pop! goes the shadow – Champagne ($12.99 USD, full size)
Starlooks Luscious Longwear Lip Pencil in Naked ($14, full size)
Dr. Brandt Microdermabrasion skin exfoliant (7.5 g @ $9.75, full size is $78 for 60 g)
BAG TOTAL = $54.74
My Thoughts
Yet another good bag put together by Ipsy! I loved trying everything out even if some of them didn’t work out for me (I’m looking at you specifically Root Pump). Double pencils (eye and lip) was a bit of a let down at first but once I used them I was really happy with them. The Urban Decay one definitely lived up to the brand’s reputation and I love the microdermabrasion product – I just wish the full size wasn’t so expensive because I could never bring myself to spend that much on an exfoliator. Definitely staying subbed!
I was more than a little excited to get this package in the mail. I’ve spent the last two years drooling over everyone else’s soap boxes from Fortune Cookie Soap so I finally took the plunge a few months ago and signed up for their quarterly boxes. Once again, being in Canada means that it costs a little bit more than if I just lived in the US. For Canadians, this will run you $28 USD, which is 8 bucks more than US-based buyers. Still, it’s quarterly, so you pay less frequently. And I justified it to myself, somehow.
One thing that surprised me though, was the size of the box. I actually thought the products were going to be a lot larger. I was completely aware they were sample sizes, but I guess pictures online kind of made them seem a lot larger. The box itself is the size of my outstretched palm + fingers, so you know the bottles aren’t going to be THAT big.
Lens flares everywhere, be still my heart
So this is Fortune Cookie Soap‘s Spring Box for 2014. Their theme for spring is the Garden of Good and Evil, with a heavier emphasis on “evil” products. In general, I love their marketing as I’m a sucker for anything with supersaturated colours with a neon tinge… plus there’s lens flares everywhere. You can’t go wrong with lens flares. (I know you think I’m kidding, but I’m not. Lens flares are Photoshop’s sparkly fairy dust as far as I’m concerned!)
So I opened the box and… almost threw up. The sickening smell of FLOWERS EVERYWHERE was just seriously overwhelming. My heart sank. I should’ve known better! I’m not a floral-scent lover, I don’t especially like the scent of flowery anything, so why the heck did I decide to make the Spring box my first look into Fortune Cookie Soap knowing full well that spring is when everyone seems to go flower crazy? With trepidation, I took the products out and started to sniff them individually while photographing them.
Thankfully, the paralyzing scent of flowers seemed to dissipate. None of the products smell especially like synthetic flowers, so I don’t know what the heck I smelled when I first opened the box. Maybe it was the same way in which I hate the scent of a Lush store when all the scents combine, but I love each individual product I get from them.
Anyway, let’s take a look at each product.
Fortune Cookie Soap – Forbidden Fruit
The item that turned me onto FCS in the first place were these adorable soaps. I mean just look at it – what’s not to love?! Forbidden Fruit soap is lime green with blue and is supposed to smell like verbena and blueberry with lemon zest. I’m not entirely sure what verbena smells like, but I do get the other scents in it. I’ve placed it by the bathroom sink and it does have a slightly overpowering scent the first few days. It’ll eventually even out and not fill the room as much as it did at first. The texture of the soap is pretty interesting – it feels rather rubbery, like glycerine, but slicker and almost bouncy. It’s not my favourite scent but I’ll forgive anything by just looking at the shape of it.
Cute FCS, very cute.Whipped Cream in Make it Rain
Oh man. This stuff is amazing. Make it Rain has the typical “smells like artificial rain” scent (which they say is citrus, jasmine, musk and cedarwood), it’s tinged blue and it feels like heaven. It’s thick, although not as thick as a body butter, and it sank into my skin quicker than any other lotion I own. I love this so much and I wish I could get more, but they’ve sold out of this scent on their site. I will, however, definitely be picking up another Whipped Cream in a different scent just because I love the texture of this product so much.
Steam Me Up Scotty! in Me So Thorny
I honestly thought this was a piece of chocolate and ripped it open without thinking about it. Whoops – this is NOT chocolate, it’s a bath steamer! This seemed pretty unique to me and I had to look up what the heck it actually does, or how I’m supposed to use it. FCS says to put it on the floor of your tub, away from the stream of water, in order to let it slowly dissolve over the course of your shower. I thought this was genius! Usually bath products are just that… BATH products. Aside from shower gel, there’s very few things created for enjoying a nice steamy shower.
Unfortunately, I didn’t like the scent of Me So Thorny (citrus, lavender, french vanilla with patchouli and sandalwood) as I found the patchouli was seriously overpowering. I also didn’t notice it actually steaming up my shower either, so that was a bit disappointing. Make sure you put it out of the stream of the shower, but don’t let it fall into the drain, otherwise you’ll lose it pretty quickly before it’s finished dissolving. Love the concept of it though.
Bath Fizzy in The Bloom Bloom Room
The Bloom Bloom Room (jasmine, lilac, lily of the valley, peach, citrus and sugar) smells incredible. This is FCS version of a bath bomb and it actually has a longer dissolve time than I expected given how small it is. My initial reaction to the scent was that it smells like icicles. Say what? What EXACTLY do icicles smell like you ask? Hell if I know, but it’s what it made me think of! This is my second favourite item in the box just based on scent alone.
OCD in Afternoon Delight
Afternoon Delight smells bang on like the artificial watermelon scent we’ve come to know and love. There are sparkles in the mix, but they don’t seem to last once you apply it. The scent does linger, so be aware if you’re not keen on the watermelon scent.
Sidenote: I love that they call their hand sanitizer “OCD”. Classic.
Body Wash in Native Nectar
FCS‘ Body wWash is far more liquidy than I was expecting for a body wash. It’s almost thin enough to have a milky texture. The bottle lasted about four showers and it definitely smelled like coconuts although it seemed a bit muted. It was okay, but I don’t think I’d rush out to repurchase this scent.
Cuticle Cream in Marshmallow Dreams
I was so happy to receive a cuticle cream as I don’t own a single one and didn’t know what I was possibly missing out on. Marshmallows Dreams smells like flat out marshmallow fluff to me, but FCS indicates that it has marshmallow fluff alongside lavender, sage, basil and uh.. vodka? But all I smell is marshmallow fluff and that’s good enough for me. This tub is small, but there’s a lot of product packed in there. It’s pretty solid in the jar but it heats up very quickly under the warmth of your hands and goes oily fairly quickly. Because of the oiliness of it, this would likely make a really good massaging balm for other body parts.
Perfume Oil in Venus Fly Trap
This last one is so darn tiny I actually had to go dumpster diving for it because I’d thrown out my box thinking I’d pulled all of the products out of the package. It wasn’t until I read the card that lists all the products that I realized I was missing something. Venus Fly Trap smells exactly as I would expect with a name like that (bergamot, narcisse, musk, water orchid, lemon and pink jasmine). Despite my earlier stipulation about not liking floral scents, I really do like this. It’s floral for sure, there’s no denying that, but it reminds me of something from my youth. Either a perfume my mom wore or a flower she used to grow in her garden. I honestly don’t know why I like this scent – it smells of various flowers, it has a sickly edge to it and yet it’s not nauseating. Two thumbs up!
It’s worth mentioning that their Soap Box also comes with a $10 USD redemption code for your next order with FCS. Unfortunately, aside from the Soap Box, the shipping to Canada is kind of exorbitant for even the smallest of orders. Their lowest rate is $22.45 USD and it only goes up from there. I did place an order and had it shipped to a friend in the US (~$6 shipping within the US) and I’ll be picking it up when I go visit her, but with a cost that high for Canadian shipping, there’s no way I’ll be placing an order any time soon to get products shipped up here to the Great White North.
That’s my roundup for the Spring 2014 Soap Box. My happiness with this box will definitely keep me subscribed to Fortune Cookie Soap for the foreseeable future. There are some awesome products in here that I’ve really enjoyed using. Bring on the Summer Box!
