I was more than a little excited to get this package in the mail. I’ve spent the last two years drooling over everyone else’s soap boxes from Fortune Cookie Soap so I finally took the plunge a few months ago and signed up for their quarterly boxes. Once again, being in Canada means that it costs a little bit more than if I just lived in the US. For Canadians, this will run you $28 USD, which is 8 bucks more than US-based buyers. Still, it’s quarterly, so you pay less frequently. And I justified it to myself, somehow.

One thing that surprised me though, was the size of the box. I actually thought the products were going to be a lot larger. I was completely aware they were sample sizes, but I guess pictures online kind of made them seem a lot larger. The box itself is the size of my outstretched palm + fingers, so you know the bottles aren’t going to be THAT big.

So this is Fortune Cookie Soap‘s Spring Box for 2014.  Their theme for spring is the Garden of Good and Evil, with a heavier emphasis on “evil” products. In general, I love their marketing as I’m a sucker for anything with supersaturated colours with a neon tinge… plus there’s lens flares everywhere. You can’t go wrong with lens flares. (I know you think I’m kidding, but I’m not. Lens flares are Photoshop’s sparkly fairy dust as far as I’m concerned!)

So I opened the box and… almost threw up. The sickening smell of FLOWERS EVERYWHERE was just seriously overwhelming. My heart sank. I should’ve known better! I’m not a floral-scent lover, I don’t especially like the scent of flowery anything, so why the heck did I decide to make the Spring box my first look into Fortune Cookie Soap knowing full well that spring is when everyone seems to go flower crazy? With trepidation, I took the products out and started to sniff them individually while photographing them.

Thankfully, the paralyzing scent of flowers seemed to dissipate. None of the products smell especially like synthetic flowers, so I don’t know what the heck I smelled when I first opened the box. Maybe it was the same way in which I hate the scent of a Lush store when all the scents combine, but I love each individual product I get from them.

Anyway, let’s take a look at each product.

The item that turned me onto FCS in the first place were these adorable soaps. I mean just look at it – what’s not to love?!  Forbidden Fruit soap is lime green with blue and is supposed to smell like verbena and blueberry with lemon zest. I’m not entirely sure what verbena smells like, but I do get the other scents in it. I’ve placed it by the bathroom sink and it does have a slightly overpowering scent the first few days. It’ll eventually even out and not fill the room as much as it did at first. The texture of the soap is pretty interesting – it feels rather rubbery, like glycerine, but slicker and almost bouncy. It’s not my favourite scent but I’ll forgive anything by just looking at the shape of it.

Oh man. This stuff is amazing. Make it Rain has the typical “smells like artificial rain” scent (which they say is citrus, jasmine, musk and cedarwood), it’s tinged blue and it feels like heaven. It’s thick, although not as thick as a body butter, and it sank into my skin quicker than any other lotion I own. I love this so much and I wish I could get more, but they’ve sold out of this scent on their site. I will, however, definitely be picking up another Whipped Cream in a different scent just because I love the texture of this product so much.

I honestly thought this was a piece of chocolate and ripped it open without thinking about it. Whoops – this is NOT chocolate, it’s a bath steamer! This seemed pretty unique to me and I had to look up what the heck it actually does, or how I’m supposed to use it. FCS says to put it on the floor of your tub, away from the stream of water, in order to let it slowly dissolve over the course of your shower. I thought this was genius! Usually bath products are just that… BATH products. Aside from shower gel, there’s very few things created for enjoying a nice steamy shower.

Unfortunately, I didn’t like the scent of Me So Thorny (citrus, lavender, french vanilla with patchouli and sandalwood) as I found the patchouli was seriously overpowering. I also didn’t notice it actually steaming up my shower either, so that was a bit disappointing. Make sure you put it out of the stream of the shower, but don’t let it fall into the drain, otherwise you’ll lose it pretty quickly before it’s finished dissolving. Love the concept of it though.

The Bloom Bloom Room (jasmine, lilac, lily of the valley, peach, citrus and sugar) smells incredible. This is FCS version of a bath bomb and it actually has a longer dissolve time than I expected given how small it is. My initial reaction to the scent was that it smells like icicles. Say what? What EXACTLY do icicles smell like you ask? Hell if I know, but it’s what it made me think of! This is my second favourite item in the box just based on scent alone.

Afternoon Delight smells bang on like the artificial watermelon scent we’ve come to know and love. There are sparkles in the mix, but they don’t seem to last once you apply it. The scent does linger, so be aware if you’re not keen on the watermelon scent.

Sidenote: I love that they call their hand sanitizer “OCD”. Classic.

FCS‘ Body wWash is far more liquidy than I was expecting for a body wash. It’s almost thin enough to have a milky texture. The bottle lasted about four showers and it definitely smelled like coconuts although it seemed a bit muted. It was okay, but I don’t think I’d rush out to repurchase this scent.

I was so happy to receive a cuticle cream as I don’t own a single one and didn’t know what I was possibly missing out on. Marshmallows Dreams smells like flat out marshmallow fluff to me, but FCS indicates that it has marshmallow fluff alongside lavender, sage, basil and uh.. vodka? But all I smell is marshmallow fluff and that’s good enough for me. This tub is small, but there’s a lot of product packed in there. It’s pretty solid in the jar but it heats up very quickly under the warmth of your hands and goes oily fairly quickly. Because of the oiliness of it, this would likely make a really good massaging balm for other body parts.

This last one is so darn tiny I actually had to go dumpster diving for it because I’d thrown out my box thinking I’d pulled all of the products out of the package. It wasn’t until I read the card that lists all the products that I realized I was missing something. Venus Fly Trap smells exactly as I would expect with a name like that (bergamot, narcisse, musk, water orchid, lemon and pink jasmine). Despite my earlier stipulation about not liking floral scents, I really do like this. It’s floral for sure, there’s no denying that, but it reminds me of something from my youth. Either a perfume my mom wore or a flower she used to grow in her garden. I honestly don’t know why I like this scent – it smells of various flowers, it has a sickly edge to it and yet it’s not nauseating. Two thumbs up!

It’s worth mentioning that their Soap Box also comes with a $10 USD redemption code for your next order with FCS. Unfortunately, aside from the Soap Box, the shipping to Canada is kind of exorbitant for even the smallest of orders. Their lowest rate is $22.45 USD and it only goes up from there. I did place an order and had it shipped to a friend in the US (~$6 shipping within the US) and I’ll be picking it up when I go visit her, but with a cost that high for Canadian shipping, there’s no way I’ll be placing an order any time soon to get products shipped up here to the Great White North.

That’s my roundup for the Spring 2014 Soap Box. My happiness with this box will definitely keep me subscribed to Fortune Cookie Soap for the foreseeable future. There are some awesome products in here that I’ve really enjoyed using. Bring on the Summer Box!