Musings of a Muse

The Muse is live and kicking on the Total Beauty Network!

I’m very, very, very excited about this project

My blog has been added onto the site today and I’m giddy with excitement!

Come take a look!

Click!

It always pleases me to be apart of a project with other fantastic blogs like Makeup Bag, Specktra Beauty Blog, and so many others!

I hope you’ll try the site out and with time make it into a growing community of cosmetic junkies that plan to take over the world with me as your leader…ok ok..maybe not me as the leader! It was worth a try!

Hehe!

Happy Days!

Finally! Total Coverage, Total Honesty, Total Personalization. Never before has so much information about the products you use, or may want to try, been assembled in one, easy to use place… TotalBeauty.com! As a VIP member of TotalBeauty.com, you’ll be the first to receive great beauty tips and advice from our how-to videos and Editor product reviews. Come Join us today!

Your Muse is guest starring on Specktra this week again

Take a peek!

Click!

Hello Pretties!

My very first review is up and available for your viewing pleasure at Specktra Blog!

Yay!

Have a look and tell me whatcha think! Click!

Your Muse has made the jump and she’s live on Specktra!

In a prior blog I had told you I’d be joining up with Specktra to write a weekly column. So this week mark’s a new part of Musings of a Muse as I join up with Specktra to bring new and exciting products to delight and tempt you

Every Wednesday I’ll go from being just the Muse and convert myself into Specktra’s Product Muse!

I’m very excited to take this project on and hopefully I can bring you some new and exciting reviews, products, and general awesome cosmetics bits and pieces!

You can read my very first introductory post at Specktra by clicking here!

‘ello there!

Allow the Muse, if she may, to share with you a most interesting little blog!

I came across Nessasary Makeup when checking my stats one day (kinda of like I ran across Rocketqueen’s! Stats are good they let me discover awesome cosmetic blogs! Teehee).

The blog is too awesome and I really love it and I find myself checking it twice a day or more. At the moment it, with Rocketqueen and Bjooti, is a favorite of mine.

I was originally going to present the blog after copying an FOTD I seen on the blog but I haven’t gotten a chance to do that particular FOTD and today was a good day to share this blog with you as some interesting little items have popped up on Nessasary Makeup!

First of all I love the personal feel to this blog (reminds me of my own). The girl that runs it is friendly, always answers her comments, does awesome q&a sessions, etc….

She does FOTD’s (which are always an interested to me), shows her collection, does tons of swatches, etc….

Overall, it’s a cool blog!

The main reason I’m telling you this is today she has up the new MAC Holiday Palettes which is exciting and disappointing. Exciting to see these in close up but disappointing as they really do look identical to last years!

Either way do wander over and have a visit at Nessasary Makeup!

Lilta’s blog is about mineral makeup and is quite interesting! She features and blogs about inexpensive brands of mineral makeup that she likes and has tried (some of which I am now wanting to try).

She does a daily entry of her FOTD and what she’s used to create her looks!

I was pleasantly surprised that she blogged about me in her daily blog! I’m mostly a MAC girl as Lily says in her blog but I’m enjoying her blog so much that I’ve decided I’ll be doing more FOTD’s using minerals! I have so many glimmers, shadows, etc…from BE plus a ton of etailer brand minerals that I don’t use nearly enough!

So..Lily..count the muse inspired by your lovely post about my looks and I aim to do more mineral looks in the future!

Thanks so much for featuring me on your blog!

Visit with Lily at Lilta’s MMU Blog.

I was checking my stats a few days ago and I noticed an increase of traffic via a website entitled “Rocketqueen’s Blog”.

I went over to visit and I was delighted when I seen my review for the Bare Escentuals Smoky “V” Eye Kit was up on the site!

I was loving the site but I couldn’t make much out of it as sadly it wasn’t in English!

With that said I now bring you good news! Rocketqueen is now in English! Wahoo! The Muse is excited!

I’m not only a writer of my own blog but a big reader of blogs and this is quickly making it’s way onto my favorite list!

The site consists of a ton of great items that I look for in a blog. Great reviews, FOTD’s, product photos, and all that latest, greatest bits about beauty that I adore reading about!

Today Rocketqueen has an interview with Erika from Makeup Bag up on her site which I enjoyed reading!

Do have a visit with Rocketqueen!

Thanks to everyone that participated in the poll!

It’s super helpful to me when I know if you are enjoying the content or not

It appears the masses really liked Japanese Cosmetics Week! Yay! I’m so glad!

In the future I hope to bring you more videos!

Many thanks for your support and comments!

Poll Results:

YES! Gimme More!
30 (83%)

It’s Ok.
2 (5%)

Snore….
4 (11%)

Hey girlies!

I had to remove Shout Box due to a slightly rude comment! So sorry about that! I wasn’t sure how long it’d last before rude bits started popping out and was vaguely shocked that it lasted as long as it did!

It was a nice medium to have for quick replies and such but sadly I have no control over it and since the Muse prefers that her blog remain a happy place minus insults to her person she’s taken down Shout Box for now!

Comments are always open on any of my blog entries and I ADORE speaking to each and everyone of you via that! Or e-mail of course Both of which I have way much more control over!

Hugs girls!
Speak to you all soon in the comment box =)

Well…that was great!

I wanted to thank all the fine bloggers from the Beauty Blog Network that stopped into my chat tonight! You guys sure do know how to support a girl

Elke, Jazmin, Marina, Shannon…etc…Thanks! It truly meant the world to me that you came to show your support!

The lovely Miss Sarah, a reader of the Muse’s blog, stopped in as well!

The chat was somewhat slow in regard to readers but everyone that did pop in made the entire experience a fun one!

Thanks so much again and hope to do this with everyone in the future!

A little Update: A big Hello to Betsy who was having problems accessing the chatroom tonight! Betsy so sorry you missed us I believe the chat works a ok with IE and Firefox! Sarah mentioned she had a problem loading up with a browser and turned to IE where it worked a ok! In the future, hopefully, we’ll have a better chat room to use

Looking forward to seeing you next time!

Hugs! Thanks for trying to pop in!

Anyone up for a chat?

My chatroom is up and available. Below my picture on the right hand side of the page is a “click to chat” button (be sure your pop up stopper is off). Do click it tomorrow night at around 7pm eastern and you’ll find the Muse inside!

Would love to talk to you all live!

Hope to see you there!

The Muse has decided that she needs something to keep her sane (because lately she’s insane). And if you clicked “insane” you’re wondering who the hell R.M. Renfield, just don’t mind me, my sense of amusement runs to the weird and unusual.

She joined Facebook last week in order to have some contact with her boyfriend’s sister. During that time she learned she kinda sorta liked Facebook and thought it’d be a wonderful place to start a little group.

So…in order to keep my head in some straight and narrow order lately I’ve created a group on Facebook to share latest purchases, FOTDS, pictures, videos, hauls, general stashes, and upcoming color stories!

Come over and visit with me! I’d truly love it! Musings.of.a.Muse is where you’ll find me And if you can’t find me just comment or e-mail your Facebook information and I’ll gladly add you as a friend plus invite you to the group!

If you don’t have a Facebook, it takes all of 2 seconds to fill out for one!

Hope to see some happy faces over there!

So…………

Some interesting news!

I’ve decided to put together a newsletter

If you scroll down the page and look to your right hand side you should see a little box requesting your name and email addy! If you kindly give them to me(No spam, advertising, etc..will be in your box from this) you’ll be subscribed to my newsletter service!

I’m planning on doing a weekly or twice weekly newsletter basically updating about my blog entries, what to expect in future blogs, general chitchat, reviews, the weekend’s steals and deals, etc!

Consider it another way that the Muse is breaking into all forms of media Next on my list…a forum and a podcast! Oh my! Stay tuned for details!

Ya ya I know tarts aren’t very cosmetic like are they?

But I guess they kinda sorta fall under the Bath and Body line of thinking

The Muse sure does enjoy tarts and she keeps quite a healthy stash of these guys around her house to make her home smell wonderful!

Some of you may or may not know what tarts are so I’ll dive right into a bit of an explanation.

Tarts are little pieces of either soy or paraffin wax that can be placed into a tart warmer or burner and melted to release lovely scents into your home. So it’s pretty much like a scented candle without a wick! You take your tart and place it into your warmer, light a votive under it, and as it melts the smell of the tart will become stronger and stronger releasing a wonderful aroma throughout your home!

Tart Warmer

Tart Burning

Tart warmers come in many shapes and sizes! I collect ‘em *blush* I know weird habit but I do! Yankee Candles sells warmers and tarts. I personally don’t like the tarts all that much as the scents are kinda limited compared with online sellers who hand make tarts in a much larger scent selection scale. Yankee Candles does sell some amazingly cute warmers that they rotate with each Season and Holiday. The Muse loves having a different warmer for each Season and Holiday that comes along!

Tarts come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and scents to suit all your needs! Some shapes you’ll come across are small little cupcake shaped melts, large breakaway bars which allow you to break a piece off and combine with other tarts to make a unique scent all your own, food shaped tarts such as fruits, cakes, etc….that carry the scent of their shape, and some come in cups of various kinds which make for easy storage!

It’s difficult to decide on where to purchase tarts with the HUGE array of places that make tarts! But hey that’s why you have the Muse! She’ll tell you the best places to purchase your goodies from as she’s tried most all of ‘em!

Now tarts are kinda a picky little animal which means some tarts aren’t as strong as others! Some shops don’t use enough fragrance oil in their blends so the tart falls flat and you either end up not smelling it at all OR it smells very little! You want a good solid tart that gives off super strong scent, linger, and nice throw. Meaning you’d like something that you can burn upstairs and still get whiffs of downstairs in your home! You’d also like something that maybe lingers a bit after the flame has long gone out!

Yes of course I did a video for you! Hehe! Please excuse my 1. Messy Desk and 2. Clutter of wires on the floor *blush* I decided tonight was a good time to crawl under my desk and install two new archive hard drives into my main server so basically I have a massive tangle of wires after pulling out my server for the installation work.

So if you don’t mind all that…please go right ahead and view!

Muse Media Presents Tarts The Art of Home Fragrance (A Non Cosmetic Blog)

Some of my personal favorite tarts places would have to be the following (in no particular order):

Skindazzles

Candy, the owner, is a sweetheart! She has wonderful service and a quick turn around time when ordering! She is in Canada which means higher shipping costs but her tarts are fantastic! She offers three types of tarts. Breakaways, single tarts, and bags of 4 tarts. She also does a bag of “misfit” tarts which are tarts that are in odd shapes or just something she is unable to use for sale so she bags ‘em together and sells them in 1lb surprise bags! This is great for trying various scents and enjoying the feel of a grab bag surprise! Overall, her tarts are hit and miss! Meaning some scents are stronger than others! The Muse highly recommends Boo and Ichabody for Halloween! Both are fantastically strong and just put you in the spirit of the Holiday! Two others I adore would be Bunny Hugs and Sweet Candy both of which are strong and good smelling tarts!

Some Break-A-Away Tart that are sold at Skindazzles! These come in a large bar and you can break off cubes to mix and match with other cubes to create a new blend or just break off pieces to burn by themselves! These are available in an array of scents that you can choose from!

Some tart melts from Skindazzles. These come in a package of four and again you can mix these with other melts to create a brand new blend all your own! The Muse loves mixing Pumpkins on Parade with Southern Peaches and Buttercream melts! Yum!

These are some single tarts that Candy has pre-made which means you can only pick from a list of tarts she has already select to make in this style!

Pacific Scents

Another great tart place! They aren’t open very often so when they do open (mid September is their next opening I believe) make sure you grab a nice order of her wonderful tarts! All the scents have amazingly strong throw! She normally does a bakers dozen for $9.99 which is a fab deal in my humble opinion! And occasionally she does buy 2 bakers dozen get one free! Her scent list isn’t as extensive as most tart dealers as she pre-makes these and doesn’t make them as orders come in! So they aren’t customizable that you are picking scents you want from a list! It’s more of whatever she has made that’s what you can order from her at that time! Either way she does some wonderful tarts and the Muse recommends nabbing some!

Alternative Breeding

AH! Dearest Tod! A genius if every their lived one! This man KNOWS how to create tarts! Tod’s list of tarts is not extensive and since he’s a man his tarts lean towards the dark side of things! If you like earthy blends he’s your guy! He does many woodsy, herbal, and darker blends that aren’t so appealing to my nose! But on the positive side I am a loyal customer because he has several scents that I adore. Tod’s tarts are weird. Why? Well…they are good for one solid burn. Which means reburning them will mean that you won’t get much scent from them. When I say reburn I mean that at some point during your burning you blow the candle out and go to bed, or leave the house, etc…when you come back you are left with a solid pool of wax where once a pretty tart laid! You can relight it and get some more use out of it. However, this can’t be done with Tod’s tarts. They are only good for a nice long burn of 6 or more hours. After you blow out the votive the scent is pretty much done for so you’ll need to start a fresh tart! But the good news is that Tod’s tarts are so amazingly strong and wonderful that they are well worth that minor rant from me! His tarts fill my entire home with yum (plus they linger like crazy! I can burn a Honey Roast tart from his line, blow the votive out, go to bed, wake up in the morning and still smell it!)! I strongly, strongly recommend Honey Roast (He makes me soap in this but I’m special so don’t ask him to do it for you hehe! I know I’m a tease!), Candy Coma, Summer on Ice, Monkey Love and Bonbon Voyage!

Tod’s KILLER tarts!

Starring

The lovely Peldon Sisters at Starring opened up an Etsy shop for tarts. Courtney took over the tart side of business while the lovely Ashley continues to wow me with awesome perfumes! I just recently got into Starring tarts and must say Courtney outdoes herself with some of these concoctions! Courtney does a triple layer tart which consists of three scents in one tarts. As each layer melts it releases one layer of the scent as the next layer melts it combines with the 1st to create a new smell and so on and so fourth! Truly genius (Skindazzles does something similar by the way)! Courtney does a bag of 7 in a theme for $8! Her themes consists of mostly Wiccan themed tarts with elaborate names and cute descriptions (Courtney is Wiccan) but don’t let that fool you. The scents are pure joy! Most are very complex cake blends! Such as The Enchanted Broomstick which consists of bananas and chocolate! Or Sparkling Potion which has caramel corn and cookies! At the moment the Muse highly recommends snatching up the Halloween Blends she is doing! She has two packs Halloween 1 and Halloween the sequel! Both are fantastic packages of tarts! She also has two new themed tart packages which are mostly cake blends!

A few Halloween tarts from Courtney’s newest packaged sets!

Courtney’s Wicked little tarts naked out of their packaging!

Because I’m a Princess

Once upon a time their was a wonderful lady by the name of Kelly who shared her love of tart making with the world! The lovely lady got pregnant and was unable to continue making tarts as her world was about to change and she was about to become a busy mum! This was good news and sad news! Good news that a baby was entering the world Sad news as Kelly’s awesome tarts were taking a vacation! For almost a year I was without Kelly’s wonderful tarts! And a few months ago, much to my delight, she reopened her shop and began once again making her delightful blends! Her sweet baby Kara is 9 months old and is the “theme” of her new shop! Kara’s name appears on most all the products Kelly sells! It’s quite cute! Kelly has an extensive scent list that will wow you and make your mouth water! Now one thing about Kelly is you are not only ordering tarts but you are making a new friend. Her customer service is like ordering from your best friend. She packages this stuff amazingly with candy, and uber generous samples, and just tender, love and care! She gives so many extras you’ll want to go back again and again and again! I love great customer care don’t you? I don’t think she has many scents that the Muse doesn’t love! Strongly recommend ‘em all! They have amazing throw, great linger and just awesome all around!

Because I’m a Princess Tarts

These are just a TINY few of the etailers I purchase tarts from! Google tarts and you’ll find a million more! This may sound like some endorsement for the above etailers but it’s not I just generally love these tarts and the people that make them have ALWAYS treated me with kindness and generosity! That’s not something you get in a store!

Now if you’re looking for tart warmers you can head on over to Tartwarmers.com and get have an array of warmers at your fingertips to choose from! Some of you may be weary of having an open flame in your home or have young children around that you don’t want touching the candle, etc….The good news is you can still enjoy tarts as their are electric burners available which plug into a wall socket, heat up, and burn your tart just as good as a candle burning warmer

A few of my tart warmers:

Here’s the back of a warmer! Slip a burning candle in and you’re ready to start

If you’re curious about how to switch scents and start up a new tart that’s easy enough! Just blow out the candle in your warmer, allow the pool of wax left from your tart to harden, slip the entire warmer or the dish from the warmer (some have removable dishes like my Yankee Hanging Tart Warmers) and slip it in the freezer for a few seconds. Take it out and PRESTO! The wax will slip free and allow you to start a new tart up!

A solid pool of wax ready to pop in the freezer!

Please keep in mind prior to ordering tarts from etailers that these are handmade items which means when you place your order they will hand make them at that time! This causes for a wait time! Most places get items out anywhere from 1-3 weeks depending on how busy they are! Holiday months are always a busy time so keep that in mind when placing orders during the holidays!

Well…I guess I’ve babbled enough!

Questions? Comments? Favorite Tarts? Comment me!

Some Random Tarts from E-tailers:

Smells So Sweet Soy Tarts

Suds and Light Jolly Rancher Tarts

I hope I didn’t bore you guys too much!