Kicking Off Summer with a Wax Ban!

Good evening everyone! I hope you are all doing splendidly on this fine Thursday evening. I have always been of the belief that a goal doesn't become a goal and a plan doesn't become a plan until you write it down. I am mostly doing this post to keep myself in check and hold myself accountable, but if you would like to join in with me on this wax ban adventure, please feel free to tag along! Keep in mind, I am going on less than three hours of sleep and the less sleep I get, the more I tend to ramble on. You have been warned.

Anyway, tonight I am here with a post detailing my upcoming wax ban. It has come to the point in my wax career where I need to cut down on buying wax. I have filled our entire coat closet with drawers to organize wax, and it has even started to overflow from there. Even if I continue to destash a good amount of it and melt at a steady pace, I simply will not be able to use my wax in a reasonable amount of time. So, this summer I have made it my goal to focus on using the wax that I have instead of buying more wax. I've attempted wax bans several other times and have failed miserably. This time, I am absolutely, 1000% committed to seeing this wax ban through. In this post, I am going to lay it all out on the line and give you all a glimpse into my plan to get through these next few months. 

First of all, I need to identify what it is that makes ordering wax so much fun for me. Obviously, the number one draw for me is the scents. As long as I can remember, I have been obsessed with fragrance and surrounding myself with products that smell good. Fragrance is a huge stress reliever for me, and not just the so-called aromatherapy scents. A Serendipity birthday cake tart can put me in a good mood any day of the week! Also, I've become intrigued with custom blending fragrances as of late. In the days before an order, I'll often make lists of potential blends that I want to order and will tweak that list for several days or even weeks at a time! That moment where you submit an order that you've been plotting for weeks is such a rush. For me, it's not even so much actually getting the order as it is the anticipation of getting the order.

Fortunately, I can find easy fixes for all of those right here in my stash (or in my pending orders)! The need to surround myself with things that smell good is already taken care of with my massive stash of wax I already have. If I feel the need to smell something new and exciting, I will dig deep at the bottom of my drawers and pull out some things I haven't sniffed in awhile. The desire to concoct new and exciting blends can be satisfied within my stash as well. I need to start doing blends with the tarts that I already have instead of finding the need to buy custom blended tarts when I probably have all of the scents I'm blending in my stash already. And lastly, the rush of waiting for orders is more than taken care of at this point. I currently have 14 outstanding orders that I have not gotten yet. Yes, 14! The unfortunate thing about that is that most of them will be delivered in the next week or so. Luckily, I do have a few orders with longer TAT that I probably will not see until the end of summer so I have those to look forward to. 

However, I have allowed myself 3 orders during the process of my wax ban, roughly one for each month. Seems a bit hypocritical but here's the reason why: the wax world has absolutely exploded in the past couple of months. It has come to the point where certain vendors (pretty much all my favorites, of course) can only stay open for a short period of time, sometimes even only a matter of a few hours. And that short window may be the only time that they end up taking orders for a few weeks or even a few months.  In order to not miss out on those openings, I will allow myself to purchase from 3 select vendors. However, I will be adhering to a strict budget for each purchase. I am hoping that the fact that I will not be ordering from a million different vendors at once will help me appreciate those orders more. 

I have decided not to have an "ounces" goal, meaning that I don't have a specific amount of wax I am trying to melt through during this time. I still have some ongoing issues from the flu that I had last month and some days, I'm still not feeling up to melting as much as I normally would. Besides, it's about to be summer and I won't be home as much anyway so I don't want to set unrealistic goals and then end up being disappointed when I don't reach them. I am just going to melt as much as I reasonably can while still enjoying the scents, and not melt through wax just to melt through it all. 

Enough with the chit chat. Without further ado, I present to you the rules of my wax ban!

~~~~

1.  The wax ban begins June 1, 2013 and goes through September 1, 2013. This means that I will not purchase ANY wax during that time, including both candles and tarts, with the following exceptions below. 

2. I am allowed ONE purchase from each of the following vendors during these months: 

• June: Candles from the Keeping Room (budget: $50 including shipping)
• July: Rosegirls (budget: $100 including shipping)
• August/whenever they reopen again late summer: Lasting Scent Candles (budget: $50 including shipping)

3. I must post on this blog every single haul I receive from June 1st through September 1st. No exceptions. I am hoping that writing down everything that I purchase will help me further realize how much wax I really have.

4.  I will not participate in any swaps from June 1st to September 1st UNLESS it is for things I already have (ex. RG chunk swaps). Whenever I am doing a swap with someone, I tend to buy extra in my orders to get them things that they might like. This will help keep my order costs down.

5. I will allow myself to participate in Round Robins during this time if any come about. 

6.  I will only check my Facebook wax groups once a day. That means I will be turning off all Facebook notifications on my phone and will only be checking groups in the evening. As I do have a Round Robin going on right now, I will be checking messages for that purpose but still only once a day for the groups. 

7. I will continue reading my favorite blogs and watching my favorite YouTubers but only to give support to my fellow waxies. I will try my best to not be tempted to order after seeing these posts and videos. This will probably be the most difficult thing for me because I always get so many ideas about what to order based on reviews from other people. 

~~~~

And that is that, my friends! I would love to hear any stories of successful wax bans, what worked for you, what didn't work, and whatever else you would like to share. And please do let me know if you would like to join me on this endeavor as well! Of course, you can make up your own rules and whatnot but you know what they say, there's always strength in numbers!

Thanks for stopping by today everyone! I'll be back soon with lots and lots of hauls and melted reviews =) Hope you all have a fabulous rest of your evening!