Sugar Kisses

I knew as soon as I checked out their web page that I was not Sugarcandie Beauty Bar's target audience. I am not a girly girl, I do not 'luv' pink, nor do I go for outdoorsy FuN. I did, however, have a 10$ gift certificate, and there was more than enough to choose from, that I figured I'd have no problem finding something.

pretty, but not really me.

In fact, it took me quite awhile to make a choice. Most of the offerings simply didn't appeal to me. I have three different Jack the Ripper inspired perfumes, so, as you can imagine, marshmallows, whipped cream and beach baby type scents aren't at the top of my must-have list. When I was a teenager, I'd have gone nuts over the stuff - all brightly coloured, sweet and glittery and made to look like ice cream, cupcakes, etc. And that's okay - plenty of people love that sort of thing. I bet Lolita types would be in heaven here, and Goth Loli's might find a thing or two in the Dark Carnivale section, which is where I hoped to find something. Alas, too many of them sound great until they add the marshmallow or caramel. I like foodie scents, but I don't want to smell like a dessert tray.

much more 'me'

I settled on a sugar scrub and a bath salt. The formulas are wonderful. Very luxurious, both leave a nice, moisturising layer on the skin without being greasy or oily. They did leave my tub a bit slippery, so I recommend caution on that front. The jars are a nice, generous size and packed full of product. My order came with three samples of sugar scrubs, each with enough for one or two uses.

The fragrances left something to be desired. Both had an unpleasant initial smell, which may have been from the plastic jar, or simply from the scents not having had time to 'marry' properly. In any case, the weird scent went away after a few days.  I ordered the scrub in "Forever FuN in the Sun!" A mouthwatering fun fragrance bursting w/ wonderful exotic fragrance notes of raspberry, cantaloupe, and watermelon, middle notes of jasmine and violet, and fresh top notes of grapefruit and kumquat....Forever Fun!  because it contained two of my favourite smells - violets and melons. Unfortunately, all I get from it is grapefruit. I'm almost done with the jar, over a month later, and still, all I get is grapefruit. No floral, no berry, no melon. Very sad, especially since the scrub itself is luscious.

The bath salt is also wonderful, gives an absolutely perfect amount of softness and smoothing to the skin. I chose "Sinful Chocolate Cake Cravings" Sinful calorie free indulgence...full of rich decadence with delicious chocolate cake batter baked to perfection infused with sweet cream cheese swirls frosted off with more luscious sweet cream cheese frosting...delicious, decadent.  
Doesn't smell anything like chocolate with cream cheese. I'll cut Sugarcandie some slack here, though, because I find that a true, sweet milk chocolate smell is almost impossible to duplicate. You always end up with something that smells like it wants to be chocolate but can't quite get there. Sometimes you get a cocoa scent, but that's not the same as sweet chocolate. I have gotten a few fragrances that nail the bittersweet scent of dark chocolate down cold - notably from Solstice Scents and The Morbid The Merrier, but not milk chocolate. It doesn't smell bad, just doesn't smell like the description.

Of the three samples I was sent, two I hated and one was absolutely wonderful. Unfortunately, Sugarcandie labels its samples with non-waterproof ink. You can see the problem here. After a great deal of puzzling, I managed to figure out that the one I liked had to be "Enchanted Tea Party at Dusk". I ordered the bath salts in this fragrance from a reseller.  According to Sugarcandie's site, this is: Alice's own blend of squeezed yellow lemons,  enchanting whispers of sweet orange peel steeped w/midnite black Tea Leaves swirled with crushed violet sugar cubes served w/ruby red pomegranate sugardrops...........You're invited....Won't you come join the party?
In the jar I get the black tea and fruit with a hint of sweetness. In the bath, it just smells like fruit punch, but a really, really good fruit punch, and it's heavenly. The sample that came with this also smelled quite nice, and I'm pretty sure it was "Kiss Me! Pink Sugar." It smelled like your basic vanilla sugar with a dark brown sugar or brulee undertone. I'm guessing about the name for the reason stated above.

In addition to the wet ink issues - their TAT is long, 14-28 business days, and mine fell on the very outside of that limit. Within the limit, but just barely. To be fair, I don't think this would have bothered me so much if they weren't located about an hour away, which really isn't reasonable of me.

So I guess the questions are, would I buy from them again or would I recommend them?

Yes, I would buy from them again. I believe in always giving businesses a second chance. Everybody has a bad day now and again, and sometimes that's the day you first shop there. I only really liked two of the six fragrances I tried, but that doesn't mean that I won't like any of them, and, as I said, the actual product is wonderful. Yes, they were slow, but not outside of their stated TAT.

Yes, I would recommend them. Just because their fragrance line and shop image doesn't suit me, personally, doesn't mean it's bad. I'm aware that my tastes can be a bit off the beaten track. The product quality is high, as long as you're willing to be patient waiting for your order. They often have sales and gift certificate give-aways, and following their Facebook page can keep you alerted to these.  Also, if you have more than one jar of something, the fragrance is listed on a label on the bottom, and  - you guessed it - not waterproof. It seems like this would be a no-brainer, but apparently not. Make sure you get a permanent marker and write over the fragrance label BEFORE you shower or bathe with it.




All products were purchased by me for my own use. My opinions are my own and always will be. Your mileage may vary.  Images courtesy Sugarcandie Beauty Bar.