Review: MOR Belladonna Hand Cream & Scented Candle

MOR latest addition to the Emporium White collection is truly to lust for. Released in time for the warmer spring season, the Belladonna range is a sweet bouquet of white narcissus, Moroccan rose, pink tulips with a freshness of Meyer lemon, and sweetened with vanilla, musk and sandalwood and French Cassis (currants).

This soft and feminine scent has an air of feminine powdery complexity that will surely take you to the provincial era where life was less hectic and more romantic.

The range covers the traditional MOR body luxury products with a bar soap, hand cream, body butter, and scented candle - all luxuriously packaged with pink blossoms, gilded gold leaves print and decadent MOR logo embossing.

Belladonna Hand Cream - 100ml

Being a hand cream lover, I immediately gravitated toward the product and had to give it a go myself.

• The box is beautiful and the tube elegant, the latest hand cream sits proudly on my desk at work with its bulbous gold cap providing it an opulence and style that no other hand cream in my collection has. 
• Packed with moisturising cocoa butter, shea butter, glycerin and vitamin A and E to protect, this hand cream is rich and creamy but is lightweight and absorbs instantly to leave skin supple, velvety to touch and lightly scented for hours. 

• It is especially great for dry fingers during the day with constant handling of paper and the drying office air conditioner. After a week of use, even the rough ragged bits on my index fingers were tamed and smoothed into soft digits. Hallelujah!

Belladonna Scented Candle - 184g

• This scented candle will enlighten up your room and world with the heavenly Belladonna scent and will give your home a touch of old world charm in the frosted glass jar gilded with 24 carat gold logo decal.
• What I love is that within 30 minutes of burning this candle, your whole room will be warmly scented with the Belladonna signature scent which gently wafts to fill all corners of the house and have it smelling like a spring bouquet of delicate florals.
• And if you need more reasons to love this artistically presented candle, you can't go past the long burn time of 40 hours for days of endless enjoyment, the clean and smoke-free burns you get with the 100% soy wax and lead free cotton wick (for even burning of the candle, I advise to burn for no more than 3 hours each time).

MOR body products make amazing gifts that is always welcomed and love with their precious and pretty packaging and Belladonna is another fine example of the decadent attention to detail that we've come to expect.

It is also something you can indulge yourself with for a little touch of luxury in your everyday life and I'll be giving you a chance to win some of your own Mor luxuries Belladonna shortly. Stay tuned here!

Hand Cream RRP A$24.95| Scented Candle RRP A$39.95 at Myer, David Jones, selected pharmacies and MOR online.
These products were provided for consideration.

La Dolce Vita with MOR

Last year MOR released the MOR Essentials line that captivated me with its traditional apothecary inspirations and luxuriously perfumed body products and amazingly affordable price points.

This year, MOR has followed it up with a diffusion line, the Dolce range that will be a Target exclusive. This no doubt makes MOR's beautiful products even more accessible to buyers with prices starting from A$10.

Now if you didn't know, dolce is actually Italian for 'sweet' and I can see why it would be called that with the latest 3 delicious scent lines in the range that will sweeten your everyday pampering experience.

SORBET: a blend of lemon, lime and coconut scents infused in a fresh vanilla base, it is adorned in baby blue packaging
POMEGRANATE: notes of violet and jasmine with burst of pomegranate and raspberry and black currant over a sweet musk base and is wrapped in pink packaging.
HONEY: honey infused may bell with base notes of warm vanilla, amber and the sweetness of cotton candy it comes comes in chic creamy packaging.

The Dolce line comes in practical and streamlined packagings that doesn't lose its luxurious appeals with the emblematic art deco embossed imprints and pretty designs - I actually prefer this packaging to that of the Essentials range. Each line features 5 sweetened body care products

• hand cream 80ml - RRP A$10
• hand and body lotion 350ml - RRP A$15
• soap cake 150g - RRP A$10
• hand and body wash 350ml - RRP A$15
• fragrant candle 170g - RRP A$15

I had the privilege of sampling the HONEY range and let me tell you, it was love at first scent.

I'm not a huge sweet scent person and when I read honey, I wasn't sure if I would find it too sticky sweet. Amazingly the warm amber notes diffuses the sweetness and the vanilla just added extra dimension to the light sweetness that comes through the products in this range.  My picks are from this range are the fragrant candle, body & hand wash and the hand cream.

Honey Hand & Body Wash

In a large pump bottle, it is warm and sweet and adds an extra level of pleasure by transporting the senses to beautiful place. It is soap free and is non-lathering but gives a skin a great wash and leaves is silky and soft with a lingering sweet scent.

Honey Hand Cream

This stuff smells so good I almost want to eat it. I keep a tube at my desk and apply some throughout the day to get lovely hydrated hands. Suited for normal to dry skin, it softens rough hands and helps give supple smooth skin that is fragrant for hours. If you have very dry skin, you will need some other heavy duty moisturisers which I'll review later next week.

Honey Soap Cake

Gives a smooth silky lather and envelops skin in a heady sweet fragrance  that makes showers a pleasurable and enjoyable experience. This leaves skin feeling soft, smooth and silky without causing skin irritations. 

Honey Hand & Body Lotion

This is a light textured and beautifully sweet scented lotion that absorbs into skin easily. It gives average hydration but with my scaly dry legs, I need a more richer body cream on that area and only use this on my hands, arms and rest of the body.

Honey Fragrant Candle

I don't even need to burn this and can already smell the sweet warm amber scent. when lit, it scents the room up with a sweet cotton candy and vanilla the wafts gently and warms up any room's environment. I like to burn this in evenings when I'm going through my readings on the laptop. Packaged in a clever tin with lid, it burns safely and when you are ready to snuff it out, just close the lid and you're done. This boast burn times of up to 35 hours and is made from natural soy and has a cotton wick.

Tip: I learnt this tip from an Asian magazine the other day - sprinkle some salt around the wick before lighting up to pro-long the burn time and give a brighter candle flame. I tried it and really think it works!

At such a magical price, everyone can now have a pampering experience everyday with MOR and not break their budget. Get your little dolce sweetness at your nearest Target store next week and live the sweet life!

How else do you add some sweetness in your everyday life - I do mine via fun size chocolates :)

Officially  launched on Monday 18th April 2011 at Target stores.
Update: I did manage to popped by Target this weekend and picked up the Pomergranate scented candle. Had a whiff of the Sorbet range and can't say I'm in love with the lemon and coconut scent combination. Honey is still my fave and Pomergranate is full of beautiful sweet tangy goodness :)

This products was provided for consideration.

Review: Glass House Triple Scented Candles

I think it's the recent muggy/rainy Melbourne weather and a relationship breakup that has gotten me in a brooding mood. Yes, if you were to see me lately, you will catch me staring into space with a fairly woeful expression on my face.

Some people turn to food for solace, others turn to friends in times of distress. I turn off food and although look to friends for support, what I find most relaxing is to immerse into the world of scent.

Scent can evokes strong memory and is capable of transporting myself into a fantasy world, even if for a brief moment.  So lately I'm been burning countless hours of scented candles, hoping the scent will lift my spirits. The ones that impressed me the most has been from MOR(which was previously reviewed) and Glasshouse.

Glasshouse Large Triple Scented Candle - RRP A$34.95

• Comes in a beautiful large glass jar with its very own lid. The candle already smell divine and exudes decadence without even being lit up. Being in its own glass jar means its also much safer to be burning the candle as they are less prone to falling or melting all over the place. 
• The large candles boasts up to 80 hours burning time so there's definitely value for money here. I've yet to burn mine enough despite my multi days use to get to anywhere near the bottom of my jar - infact I've barely made a dent to it after a few sessions of burning. At this rate I'm sure I may get months of enjoyment from it. 
• Handmade in Australia from food grade wax and comes with a double wick (yes, it is that big) to ensure even burning of the candle. 
• Gives a subtle yet beautiful scent that permeates throughout the room, creating this wonderful fragrant  room that seems to come with within as it can be hard to pinpoint the source. The fragrance can linger hours after burning so I still get enjoyment after blowing the candle off. 
• Available in a whole ranges of wonderful unique scents like Manhattan's Little black dress (tulip, orchid & gardenia), Marseille's Gardenia (gardenia, sandalwood, cardamom and casaba melon) and Esperance which exudes subtle Mimosa & Wild apple scents. Each of the ones I've tried are wonderful and unique in their own rights and I burn them all at different times depending on whether I wanted more fruity or floral scents. 
• The mini glasshouse candles - RRP A$14.95 are so cute, I snapped up a few the other day and they make great gift ideas for that someone special. Being smaller, these come with single wick and lasts up to 12 hours but like its big brother has a lid which you can use to snuff the candle out without leaving that burning smell 

Next time if you need to de-stress yourself for whatever reason, why not hit up a scented candle and let it take your away to more blissful place. Care to share what else you do when your not feeling the best and need some cheering up?


Glasshouse is available in Myer, David Jones, Peter Alexander and selected homeware stores.

One of these products were received at the MBBE event. I've gone out and purchased the mini candles to add to my collection. 

Bring MOR Into Your Life

I recently mentioned that the clever guys at MOR have outdone themselves with their latest release of 5 beautiful scents in their Everyday Essentials range. These new scents are Basil & Grape Neroli Clementine; Honey Nectar; Black Currant Iris; and Sugar Rose Tiger Lily

Each scent range covers 5 essential body care products and includes the following:

• hand and body wash 350ml - RRP A$19.95
• soap bar 170g - RRP A$12.95
• body butter 250ml - RRP A$14.95
• hand cream 80ml - RRP A$14.95
• hand and body lotion 350ml - RRP A$19.95
• scented candle 170g - RRP A$19.95

The first thing you'll notice is the incredible pricing of these products, they were designed to allow you to bring MOR into your everyday life with its affordability whilst still delivering quality products beautifully finished with that elegant MOR touch.

This range may have less decadent packaging than it's original MOR cousins, but let me tell you it has definitely not compromised its formula, quality or addictive perfumery scents.

I had the pleasures of trying out a few of these new products from the Neroli Clementine range and they are every bit as good as good as MOR's main counterparts.

Neroli Clementine Body Butter
Rich and silky texture this stuff melts straight into skin. No greasy feeling here - instead, its leaves skin feeling velvety and the other day when I was having the smudge panda eye look, I actually used dabbed a bit of this onto a tissue and used it as a cream makeup remover under my eye at my work. It work like such a charm and I smelt so good afterwards as well.

Now I'm no connoisseur of scent names and initially didn't know what Neroli or Clementine were but I loved the slightly sweet mandarin citrus fragrance this body butter imparts.

When I found out that Neroli was actually bitter orange essential oil and Clementine another mandarin scent, and this body butter also contains Yuzu, a Japanese mandarin and sweetened candy orange, I realised this technique of complementary subtle layering is why I want to keep slathering this stuff on my legs and arms.

Neroli Clementine Hand cream
Lighter than the body butter so even more quickly absorbed, it bestows the same wonderful fragrance as the body butter. It spreads easily and with shea butter, conconut oil, glycerin and aloe formula, this rich yet fluid cream soothes hands to keep them soft, supple and fragrant for many hours.

Neroli Clemintine Fragrant Candle
Oh how l love lightly scenting the house with sweet fragrances to remove any cooking odours and pet smells  (my dog can be a wee bit smelly during summer).
Made of soy oil and natural cotton wick, this candle is encased in its own pretty tin jar and burns for hours on end. The best part is the lid acts as a snuffler when you're done so there is no smoky smell when the candle outs out - nifty!

The MOR Essentials range is now available at David Jones, Myer and selected pharmacies nationwide.
These products were sent for review.