Monthly Archives

August 2014

Beauty Boxes

Glossybox August 2014 Review

August 29, 2014

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I know I cancelled by subscription to Glossybox, but I’ve still ended up with two boxes thanks to my hoard of Glossydots meaning they were free of charge. Since returning from festival season I’ve managed to come back to a Vegan Kind box, Birchbox and this month’s Glossybox so I’ve definitely been spoilt rotten.

We all know my track record with Glossybox has been a little rocky as of late and I’ve had a tendency to be severely disappointed with the contents, so this month I’m going to try and be a little more positive, so on with the contents we go …

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Kryolan for Glossybox – Highlighter in “Cashmere” – 4.5g sample – RRP £12.95 for full size

I do love me a good highlight! Despite my reservations, the formula for this glides on beautifully and gives a lovely highlight – not to mention the packaging is sleek and wonderful. It reminds me a little of the elf studio range, of which I adore the square jars and the matte black lids. Kudos where credit is due though, I’ll be enjoying this.

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Above: Left – Kryolan for Glossybox Highlighter in “Cashmere” swatch & Right – Essence Longlasting Lipstick in “Natural Beauty” swatch

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Essence – Longlasting Lipstick in “Natural Beauty” – full size – £2.29

Essence is a brand I’ve heard a lot about recently and I’ve had to try very hard not to purchase anything myself since I’ve been trying to save money for festivals and the new arrival of a puppy (expensive stuff are puppies!). At first I winced at the colour but at second glance I’m pretty pleased with it. It’s a slightly pinker nude which goes well with my skin tone and I have been after a nice nude for a while now.  The application seems Okay but I haven’t tested this out and about so I’m unsure of the longevity yet. I am looking forward to eventually trying a few more things out from Essence though … in time of course.

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Figs & Rough – Mini Hand Cream – 20ml sample – £6.95 for full size

I’m a big fan of hand cream. I generally have one on my desk, in a few bags and by the side of my bed. I also have some next to the kitchen sink so I can top myself up if I’m downstairs. More hand cream is always welcome, and after trying some of their lip balm I’m a massive fan of Figs & Rouge. This hand cream is mango and mandarin and it smells so fruity and delicious. One thing I did notice after applying it was how instantly soft my hands felt. There was no sticky or oily residue and it didn’t feel as though i’d just creamed my hands, but they felt exceptionally smooth. I can’t see this tube lasting for very long at all!

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Philip Kingsley – Elasticizer – 40ml sample – £38 for full size

This one is a little strange – I’m not quite sure what the desired effect is for this. According to the Glossybox info – this is a pre-shampoo treatment delivering unrivalled elasticity, manageability, bounc and shine without weighing down or coating the hair. Well I’m pretty sure my Shampoo & Conditioner also claim to do these things. My only qualm about trying this out, is that it’s a pre-shampoo, meaning you have to apply to damp hair and leave for 10-20 minutes. Not great if you are on a schedule or if it already takes you a good half an hour when washing your hair to complete your shower routine. Still I’ll give this a bash and see what I think. At £38 a bottle though I really am expecting a miracle.

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Yves Rocher – Nail Polish in “Rose” – 3ml sample – £3.60 for full size

Okay, I know I said I was going to be positive about this box, but I definitely rolled my eyes at this one. First of all – pink? Another crummy pink nail varnish? As much as I’ve recently discovered the joys of pink lipstick, one thing I really can’t get into is pink nail varnish. It just isn’t for me. Tie this in with the pitiful 3ml sample and this is definitely the worst product from this month’s box. It applied Okay, but was a little streaky and probably not a brand I’ll be going out of my way to buy any time soon. For now it will be added to the “pink” pile awaiting a new home with someone who appreciates this shade of nail.

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Lalique – L’Amour perfume sample – 2ml sample – £67 for full size

I’m generally pretty non chalonce about fragrance samples. I always think most samples I receive are nice but I’ve never had any that have made me instantly want to part with £70 to buy the full size. My vast and expanding fragrance collection generally comes from my two dads at Christmas, which I am eternally grateful for. One dad buys my the expensive designer stuff such as Jean Paul and Dior and the other picks me things up when he goes abroad based on how nice they smell, which is how I discovered Escada (one of my favourite brands). Despite that I do enjoy trying out these samples and they are pretty handy for throwing in a hand bag or taking to gigs. Lalique is actually more of my Winter scent – it’s pretty heavy, and the notes of Rosebud really makes an appearance. With a slight floral undertone, although heavy it’s not too over bearing but definitely more of an evening scent. I was also pretty enthralled by the sample vial. I’ve become heavily accustomed to spray samples so I was a little confused when nothing happened upon pressing the top down. The lid actually comes off and it has a few little holes in the top so this can be rubbed over the skin. A little different to the samples of today. I probably wont be purchasing this any time soon but I wouldn’t complain if someone bought it for me!

I think this month’s box has been pretty good overall. I wasn’t blown away, but I haven’t by Glossybox for a long while now. I was a little disappointed with the size and colour of the nail varnish, but overall I’ve enjoyed all but the varnish in the August box. If you’d like to try Glossybox out, you can do so for just £10 plus P&P here. I still have a few points left to use up, so we’ll see what next month brings.

Totally hellbent for coming back to reality with a host of beauty boxes from the post man

– Pants

Fragrance

The Body Shop Early Harvest Raspberry Eau De Toilette Review

August 26, 2014

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A while ago now I picked up the Early Harvest Raspberry Eau De Toilette from The Body Shop. After being introduced to the Vanilla body mist by Gem, I’ve been a huge fan of their fragrances and spray’s ever since. They are so versatile and perfect for any occasion.

When I ordered the 30ml sized bottle, I wasn’t expecting it to be so small, but actually I’m more than happy with it’s hand bag friendly size since it means I can now drop it into my bag if I’m out and about. The bottle is nothing fancy, but looks nice enough next to my fragrance collection and has a gorgeous fuscia hue to the bottle.

The fragrance itself is light and fruity without being too overpowering. It has the signature raspberry smell of The Body Shop and the couple of times I’ve worn it, I’ve found the longevity to be pretty good. I think this is definitely a more summer scent and I think I will be drawn back to my Vanilla body mist once the sun decides it’s had enough of this year. Having said that I reckon I’ll get a few more uses out of it before then.

I bought this for £6 with a few other items a fair few months ago but it’s been sat in the “to be reviewed” box waiting for me to give it some much deserved attention. Unfortunately the Raspberry Eau De Toilette isn’t available from The Body Shop at the moment, but I expect they will re launch this again in Spring next year. You can check out the other fragrances available via their website here though where they generally retail for around £8.50.

I’ll definitely be keeping my eye out for some of the other fragrances from The Body Shop and adding them to my collection.

Totally hellbent for fruity fragrances that fit in my bag

-Pants

Festivals

Return of the blogging – 2014 Festival Season in Pictures

August 25, 2014

As you have probably noticed, we’ve been very quiet – no – none existent the past 3 weeks. That is due to our yearly pilgrimage to the holy Wacken lands and returning to civility with our obligatory attendance at one of the best UK heavy metal festivals – Bloodstock. After a week or two to recover, catch up on thousands of e-mails, catch up on work, nurture our bank balances and finish washing all our favorite t-shirts we are now back to normality and thought we’d share a few images of the past few weeks!

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When it comes to festival season, organisation is key. Especially when you are going to live in a field for the best part of a week. Because of this, Gem and I generally go a little quiet the week before we set off to Wacken Open Air which is in Germany. We make several lists and then frown at each other when we discover all of the unnecessary items we have packed. With four of us squeezing into my (generously sized may I add) estate, we really had to tone down on the excessive ridiculous nonsense items we usually take with us. ( Oh the luxury of camping by your car). Once of the magical things I discovered this year was placing my duvet and pillows into a black back and sucking the air out with a vacuum. Instead of taking up the entire boot, it fit nice and snug behind the driver seat and is now a well honed skill I also used to squeeze my duvet into the suitcase for Bloodstock.

After saying goodbye to CJ, who was less than impressed at us upping and leaving her, we left the house in the early hours of Sunday morning, heading to Harwich to catch a 6 hour boat to the Hook of Holland. During this time we tried to take a few “all in” selfies which were all marginally disappointing and always seemed to cut half of us out and bought a pack of cards to amuse ourselves with a few (or 100) games of “bullshit” or “cheat” to those of you into language less foul. Once we arrived in Holland, Roode’s mum was kind enough to put us up for the night before we traveled to the Holy Wacken lands the next morning.

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After a fairly swift 5-6 hour drive across Europe, we finally arrived at Wacken and set our massive tent up. The only way to festival, is to festival in comfort! Thus we don’t leave home without our airbeds, pillows, sheet and duvet’s. It makes camping a dream. A few Gem and Pants selfies by our England flag and our drummer sunbathing on his car roof with a good book and a pint of bitter and we were well on our way to having a great week. We also bought some giant inflatable skittles that we later made into a drinking game.

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The food of the week (even though we brought a car load of food with us too) was from the Vegan Gyros stand. So obviously a picture of me stuffing my face had to be included. (*Awaits comments from our resident blog troller who regularly likes to tell Gem and I how “overweight we are”). Honestly though, best festival food ever – Vegan meat style pieces, Sauerkraut, salad, shredded cabbage, Vegan cheese, garlic and chilli sauce all tucked into a toasted panini. It was so delicious. Gem and I also bought pretty headbands so we could be Princess’ and they were definitely our most random purchase of the week. ( A few more intoxicated selfies)

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Being in Europe, there was a distinct lack of menthol filters for the smokers of the group, so drums decided to try and make his own, with a pack of mint imperials and some regular filters, unfortunately this didn’t go down too well but served well as entertainment for the onlookers. The last few memorable and exciting things of note was the diabetic cocktail, which was made from Fernandes (a very sugary dutch pineapple soft drink), every flavour or cherry sours and a fair dash of wine, which went down a treat, the making of Matthew Jones our guitarist, who sadly couldn’t be at Wacken, instead we made him from beer cans and chose some apt phrases of his. Lastly, on our way back home before boarding the ferry, Brains picked out some “Lange Nekken” for me. Although they may look just like ordinary biscuits covered in chocolate, they had a Giraffe on the front which instantly made them the best thing ever.

We had an absolutely amazing time at Wacken this year, we had great neighbors in our campsite which really made the week, the weather stayed dry and we watched some amazing bands an discovered a few new ones too! So as sad as we were to return home, it wasn’t time for the post festival blues to sink in as we busies ourselves washing everything and repacking for Bloodstock which resides here in England.

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There was no early start for Bloodstock, since it’s only 40 minutes away in the car, so after feeling rather smug about how little I had packed, I had time to take a cheeky excited for Bloodstock pic to amuse myself whilst waiting for Gem and Roode to get ready. A little queuing and some tent assembly to get on with and we were ready for our camping chairs and first beer of the day. A few cuddles with Matty J (this time in the flesh and not made out of beer cans) were in order whilst we drank the night away and waited for drums to finish working. (He spent the festival drum teching for the Sophie Lancaster stage). After the first night, my air bed decided it didn’t enjoy being inflated any more, which I understood, since it had been going for three years (that’s a lot of festivals!), but luckily Adam had a secret stash of ready blown up air beds in his mini camp back stage so all was right in the world.

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The few times we venture outside our camp, we always bump into people we know since Bloodstock is generally the social event of the year for half the metal community. This year we spotted little (who is not quite so little) Mikey, the son of one of our fav reviewers “Uncle” Chop. We get very excited when we see children of the metal community experiencing their first metal festival! Some hours later and we visited drums in festival prison – well Okay, he was back stage working whilst we complained that we missed him.

Despite spending a long time in a field, Gem and I still enjoy playing with hoards of makeup, except she was lucky enough to have hers done by Roode, who thrives off applying her blusher. This was a strict pre-drink activity though.

Before we knew it, the weekend was over and it was Monday morning. Reluctantly we packed away our things and arrived home. There was nothing more depressing than coming back to normality and doing the weekly shop in the miserable rain – made only marginally better with a sighting of a double rainbow. So now festival season is completely over which can only mean one thing … Christmas is coming! Having almost caught up on day to day life, I am excited to be back in the blogging seat and will blot out the post festival sadness by playing with makeup.

Hopefully you didn’t miss us too much whilst we were gone!

Totally hellbent for return of the blogging

– Pants

Vegan, Vegetarian

The Vegan Kind July Box

August 17, 2014

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It seem’s like only yesterday I received my last Vegan Kind Box but upon my return from the last camping festival of the year this month’s box was sat waiting for me. A much needed surprise and packed full of treats (as always) to cure the post blues festival feeling and to help purge my body of noodles and tinned fruit!

If you’re new to The Vegan Kind box, we are currently on box 10 of a monthly box crammed full of 100% Vegan treats and lifestyle/beauty products. Each month 10p from each box is donated to a charity picked by subscribers of which this month is the Nut House Hen Rescue.

So here’s #TVK10;

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Freedom Mallows Strawberry – 75g (RRP £2.50)

Admittedly one of many reasons for me subscribing to TVK was that their first box had Veggie marshmallows – honestly, for those of you who arn’t Vegan or Vegetarian, you have no idea how much stuff we miss out on! Haribo, marshmallows, chocolate, mousse … the list is endless and why manufacturers feel the need to make their products with animal derivatives is beyond me. Unfortunately I missed out on the first box but have been subscribed ever since, so I was completely stoked when I pulled this out as my first product. They are so delicious that I have already bought two more packets from their website ready for any last minute BBQs we can squeeze in to the British Summertime that seems to be over or failing that Winter Hot Chocolates with Gem & Roode (this is definitely not one I will be sharing with non-veggies … sorry guys). A little on the pricey side, but well worth it.

You can get your fill of Vegan marshmallows here; Freedom Mallows (did I mention gluten, dairy, egg, fat, nut & GMO free?)

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Nothing But Red Pepper and Mangetout Snack – 20g (RRP£1.20)

I’m pretty intrigued by these actually – less than 20 calories per bag and made from Red Pepper and Mange Tout – nothing more. I love finding snacks that have zero artificial flavourings and preservatives and am definitely one for 100% natural eating so I’m hoping these will be tasty. They also have Pea and Sweetcorn and Beetrooth & Parsnip but unfortunately little to none information about where to find them!

Nothing But Website

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Living Naturally Soapnut Tabs – 265g (20 tablets) – (RRP £6.49)

I love discovering natural, organic & Vegan products for the home and I’m pretty impressed with the size of this one – 20 washes is amazing! Apparently this is the worlds first soapnut laundry tablet and can be used between 30 – 90 degrees. Keep your eyes peeled for a review of this once I’ve cracked them open.

Check out their other products on the Soapnuts Website

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Propercorn Sweet and Salty Popcorn – 30g  (RP£0.80)

Ah popcorn – I am definitely one for popcorn at the moment and I’m pretty obsessed with sweet & salty, especially the Propercorn stuff. Although it’s not a new discovery for me I’m very happy at having a packet to nibble on! You can pick these up in most supermarkets and they come in a variety of flavours too.

For more info visit their website here

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Pulsin Vanilla Choc Chip Protein Bar -50g (RRP £1.79)

Zero dates! If you’ve read my other Vegan Kind posts you’ll know that I generally end up with some sort of delicious looking protein bar which always contains dates and/or raisins which I just cannot abide by. I don’t know what it is but the thought of eating either doesn’t go down too well with me. This bar has neither and looks to be a nice post workout snack that I can enjoy with little guilt, although it will have to wait a few more days since I’m in the middle of a 5 day juice fast.

For more of their raw protein range, visit their website here

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Teen VGN Fuelled By Compassion Wrist Band – Bonus Item (RRP £1.20)

This little extra is quite cute, I’m a fan of my wristbands and jewellery especially ones that have meaning behind them, TeenVGN is a social netwrk for young Veggies & Vegans and I wish something like this had been around when I was a little younger and just starting out on my cruelty free quest. Having said that, Gem and I tend to do pretty well and we have a nice circle of friends who are mostly supportive and/or Veggie/Vegan (occasionally we get the odd bacon jokes from the Dakesis boys).

So if you are a younger Veggie/Vegan wanting to find out more information or just some support, visit teenvgn.com and have a look around! Meanwhile, I’ll be pretending I’m still a teenager :oD and definitely ‘repping’ my wristband with pride.

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As if the above wasn’t already enough, this month’s recipe card was for a Nectarine Salad from Coconut and Berries – another to add to my folder and list of things to try. Once again another superb box from The Vegan Kind, my only issue with finding so many great Vegan delights is that sometimes they aren’t readily available and it makes me a little sad that it’s so difficult to pick up natural, raw, organic and Vegan things in the local shops since people favor processed food too much. Hopefully given time a lot of these companies will branch out.

If you’re interested in subscribing to The Vegan Kind you can do so here via their website. Each box is £10 a month plus P&P.

Totally hellbent for curing post festival blues with Vegan treats

-Pants