MuseTV Presents Tarts: A Non Cosmetic Blog

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!