Flying Bird Botanicals, a Review…

A couple of years back, after being introduced to Etsy as an alternative to the chaotic eBay my girlfriend developed a obsession love for all things hand-made. After buying roughly 47% of all Bags & Clothes being sold on etsy, she expanded her handmade horizons to include bath & beauty products (as well as pretty much everything else she now owns). She made friends with some of her sellers & so was born her blog, very aptly titled “In Love With Handmade“. She also co-authors a second blog with one of her etsy buddies called “Two Girls & a Bar of Soap“, and both of these are usually her vessels to showcase & review (in a manner of speaking) all her latest finds & purchases.

With that in mind, consider that it wasn’t very long until I was introduced to etsy-stuff myself. I think it started off with shaving soaps by Spa Therapy (which if not the first, were easily the first item(s) to change my mind about the whole etsy scene) and very soon I had more shaving soaps than bristles on my cheeks! Next came regular ‘ol bathing soaps followed by a very nice find of select teas by TeaMan.

About this time I was rather desensitized towards all things handmade & etsy-found, and even found myself sighing as I rubbed my tired ol’ feet with a Right as Rain foot-cream. And then came the idea in my devilish lil’ girlfriends mind that I ought do a guest post for her on her blog talking about some of the handmade goodies I’ve encountered “from a man’s point of view“. And what better to start with than a gift-set she got for me for my birthday.

So here we are, an adamantly retrosexual man talking about handmade creations that make him smell good. (Moral of the story: Never underestimate the power of the matriarchal female).

Now to be fair, most everything that I have received from Etsy via my girlfriend has a’least pretended to be oriented for guys (although the hazelnut & cocoa soaps were definitely toeing the line). And the Flying Bird Botanical gift basket was no different.

First off, we have a pair of hand-mixed loose teas -

Sweet Dreams: “A sweet treat before you sleep”
Right off the bat, this is first thing I tried, and is easily the very best of the lot. The good folks at Flying Bird Botanical use the phrase “calming & soothing” and for once I couldn’t agree more. This is simply the most relaxing tea I remember having & I should know a thing or two about tea, I mean at any given point in time I have roughly 50 different types of tea under my possession. Whenever I feel a relatively rough night coming on, or sometimes even in the middle of the sleeplessness of the stranger hours of the night, I’ll brew myself a warm cup of this wonderful concoction knowing that it’ll help calm my mind & ease me into a blissful slumber. Sweet, without being overbearingly so with just a hint of the spice that cinnamon & orange bring with them, this is a must-have tea for any tea-lover, and doubly so for an insomniacal one.

Tummy Coat: “A Tea to soothe your stomach & relieve heartburn”
The other brew Piwi figured for me is essentially the evolutionary upgrade to a good cup of chamomile (which is one of the most essential & favoured staples in my tea-collection). Now you can ofcourse see the actual product details at the link above, but what stood out the most for me was the blend of fennel & coriander leaves which aren’t amongst my favourite additions to a warm cuppa. This tea, much like the one before it, is extraordinarily soothing when made properly & I’d rate it as highly as I do it’s predecessor if it weren’t for the slight aftertaste of coriander (most specially, if very very subtly) which I suppose should be put down to personal preference rather than any fault by the tea-makers. It is still an exceptional tea & has all but replaced my desire for a regular chamomile, and should be considered a very worthy contender for those times when we know we’ve eaten just a lil’ bit more than we ought to have…

The second half of this gift-set was a shaving kit -

Mountain Spice Shaving Soap
Now this was a very pleasant surprise for me, because the first time I used it (or rather the first time I was using it) I was disappointed by the feel of it. It felt more like a scrub than a shaving soap (and I have been spoilt for choice by all the SpaTherapy ones I have) and there was virtually no lather whatsoever. And so, with some trepidation I raised the blade to my face, half prepared to give up on it & use another soap. This is the part where the pleasant surprise occurred for while it wasn’t quite as smooth as some of the other stuff I’ve used, it left me with an exceptionally clean shave. This has something to do with the scrub-like appearance of it & my pores & such, I’m sure, but I really am not the man to try & talk someone through that! End result, this was better than I anticipated & is very arguably my favourite shaving soap now for whenever I have a moment to myself (none of the handmade stuff is quite as fast as a Gillette or Nivea gel) & apart from the aforementioned reasons, it deserves that praise for it’s lingering & most definitely masculine scent. Very old school musky stuff, like a night in the forest even to quote John Denver. And the best part is, it’s perfectly complimented by -

Bay Rum After-Shave
Now this is the kind of handmade stuff a guy can really get into. I’ve had bay rum soaps (bathing & shaving) before, but nothing quite as bay-y or rum-y as this. This is the after-shave you’ve always wanted guys, believe me. It smells incredible. And I know I’m breaking certain retrosexual codes by complimenting something so unapologetically on it’s smell, but this thing is incredible. It’s so subtle & yet so very feral (I didn’t chose that word, my nose did). My only complaint with this is the knowledge that it’ll be the first thing I’ll run out of!

And this brings us to a close on our lil’ review session & all in all I think I’ve done okay. I was lucky ofcourse in that everything I talked about has been stellar, but even so as a closing thought I’d just say that to all those females out there who are convinced that they can never get their guys to try any of this stuff, take a page from Piwi’s book & start off with something with the words “Mountain Spice” or “Bay Rum” in it. All this handmade stuff is quite splendid & I for one am a regret-free convert.

~ by Gaurav.S on January 8, 2010.