Company Overview! Sugar and Spite Bathery and Nonsense Emporium

Nothing to Disclose

Hello! I hope you're all enjoying your December so far. Today I'm going to talk about a company I ordered from almost a year ago and completely forgot to write up--Sugar and Spite Bathery and Nonsense Emporium, a bath, body, and perfume indie with a Victorian ghost story vibe, based in central California.

Packaging: 

The packaging is what drew me to order from Sugar and Spite in the first place--I needed some new soap and saw this glowing review showing the most beautifully wrapped package that swayed me into ordering. My package wasn't quite as gorgeous--you can see it in the photo at the top of this post, everything was nicely wrapped and designed with a bit of Gothic flair, but without quite as much of the "ooh!" factor. The soap I ordered came shrinkwrapped, with ingredients clearly labeled on the back, and the perfume samples came in squat little amber glass screwtop vials. It looks like they no longer sell perfume samples individually in tiny bottles like this.

Selection: 

Sugar and Spite sells a variety of bath and body products--hot process soaps, perfume oils, lotions, bath truffles, and sugar scrubs. Their scent listing is a trim 26 scents, plus a few more under the Gods and Monsters perfume section of their website, and, as of this writing, limited edition Yule scents such as their "Another Horrible Sweater" bath truffle.

Samples: 

Perfume samples are available in a pack of 5 for $12.50, in larger vials than the ones shown in my photos above. I ordered a bar of soap and one perfume sample, and received a second perfume sample for free with my order.

Quality: 

To be honest, I was a little disappointed with the quality of the products I got from Sugar and Spite. The soap did the job, and there wasn't anything wrong with it, but I just didn't particularly enjoy its scent and was quite happy when I finally ran out of it. I found the perfumes unexciting, but might yet review them... however, part of why it took me nearly a year to post my Company Overview about them was that I just couldn't get excited about the products, so the order quickly sank to to the back of my mind, until I found myself running out of new companies to review for this feature and remembered I hadn't talked about Sugar and Spite yet. These are my own preferences, and scent is intensely personal, so of course someone else might love these scents!

Cost:

I think Sugar and Spite is very affordable!

Perfume samples are $12.50 for 5 large vials, and it's only $11 for a full-sized 8 mL bottle of perfume oil.

Sugar scrubs are $11.50 for 8 oz., soap is $6 per 5.5 ounce slice, lotions are $12 for 8 oz.

Customer Service: 

I haven't had to contact Sugar and Spite, and nothing went wrong with my order, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the owner of this company has actually had a history of unreliability; her former venture, The Morbid the Merrier, imploded at some point, which you can see by browsing the posts on that blog, and so she started a new business as a kind of pyramid scheme to try and get cash to pay back the other people she owed due to their missing orders--according to her:

So here's what happened – when I closed, I was overwhelmed with so many orders, it pushed my TAT to 2 weeks – then 4 weeks – then 6 weeks. Although I tried to be straight with people and let them know about the delay, people panicked and filed claims with paypal, essentially cleaning out my bank account to the point I didn't even have money for supplies to fill the orders, or even postage to send them off. Word spread, and more people panicked. Soon there were a million claims, no money in my paypal, and I was locked out of paypal, giving me no access to any of the madness going on. I also lost access to my shopping cart because I didn't have the money to pay the bill. Everyone deserted me. People were being hateful, spreading rumors, calling me a thief, threatening me. I didn't know what to do and no one was listening to me so I panicked. I freaked. I had what I'm pretty sure was a nervous breakdown. Finally I pulled myself together and decided to start Lucybelle to try and earn some money to pay everyone back – all the while working a job at a sandwich shop. I didn't say it was me – not out of sneakiness but because I didn't want to complete insanity. I wanted to work my little job, earn a bit of money for supplies, and start to pay people back. But then the rumor mill started. Lucybelle was ruined. The threats started again. The name calling, the accusations. Again I was unable to make money to begin making things right. And curiously, MANY of the people saying these things HAD BEEN PAID BACK when they filed their claim with paypal and were saying they hadn't been.

Working with Monolids has more details about this posted as well in her review.

I didn't have any problems when I ordered back in February, but at that point she was running an Etsy shop, and I ordered through Etsy/Paypal for the consumer protection factor. The Etsy shop has been shut down, so now you can only order through her main storefront. The Facebook page does list a good average response time (typically replies within an hour). I feel comfortable ordering from them, based on my experience, but would only recommend doing so via Paypal in case there's a similar meltdown with this company.

TAT: 

The turnaround time on my order was reasonable, if not exceptional--I ordered on February 1, and received my order February 10.

Shipping: 

Shipping seems to start from $2.50 First Class domestic for a pack of perfume samples, and goes on up from there. International shipping is selectable (with a huge list of countries listed on the dropdown, with international shipping starting from $10). Domestic customers can upgrade to a flat rate medium Priority Mail box by adding a separate item to their cart and then using a coupon code to erase the existing shipping charge, a system that seems clunky and error-prone.

Personal Thoughts:

Since I didn't really care much for the products I ordered from Sugar and Spite the first time, and the packaging didn't really wow me, I haven't ordered anything else, but many of their scent combinations look just wonderful and often tempt me into wanting to try them again, particularly because their site is well designed and looks very appealing. For instance:

• Barnum, "Curiously sweet and dark. Tobacco leaf, a trio of rich musks, new mown hay, and a drizzle of creamy vanilla bourbon"
• Sister Witch, "a steamy cup of earl grey tea, wee lavender buds, and sweet milk"
• or the limited edition Paranormal Nativity, which is so resinous, it isn't even my type of scent, but it sounds rich and dark and fabulous: "Smoky oud, amber, benzoin resin, black patchouli, coconut, sandalwood, clove, copal"

Have you tried Sugar and Spite? What are your thoughts? Do you have any scent recommendations? Should I give them another shot?

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