The Body Shop Brighton VIP Event*

What do we have here ~ ANOTHER The Body Shop® Event??

I was so delighted to have an email from the event mastermind that is James - to go to an event in the Brighton store. Brighton is my favourite place, and it's also where the first ever The Body Shop® was located (they aren't in that exact store anymore).

Seeing as the lovely staff members told us about the history behind The Body Shop®, I thought I'd put an extract from their website here:

"Our founder Dame Anita Roddick began mixing her own products and infusing them with a new idea: that business could be a force for good. Following her vision, for 40 years we’ve been rule breaking, never faking and change making. We now have over 3,000 stores in 66 countries and employ over 22,000 people who help us bring our unique blend of ethical beauty with a sense of humour and serious purpose to the world.

Never afraid to stand out from the crowd and stand up for what’s right, we search the world for the finest ethically-sourced ingredients to create a range of naturally-inspired beauty products.

Today our dedication to business as a force for good is stronger than ever. As part of our Enrich Not Exploit™ Commitment, we’ve made it our mission to enrich our products, our people and our planet. That means working fairly with our farmers and suppliers and helping communities thrive through our Community Trade programme, being 100% vegetarian and always and forever being firmly against animal testing.

Together we can do it, it’s in our hands."

The Brighton store opened in 1976, and since it's doors opened they have been supporting amazing causes and campaigns. One of the lovely ladies at the store told us how The Body Shop® were giving out condoms on the counters during the aids epidemic, to show their support and educate society.

As mentioned in my previous The Body Shop® posts they have a HUGE campaign at the moment to stop animal testing worldwide. Only 20% of countries have banned animal testing. We need 8 million signatures to take the petition to the united nations by this summer. As of April we have 5,556,738. Please have a read of the campaign and sign here.

I'm planning to do a post with lots of information about animal cruelty soon, as a lot of my friends and family ask me about it and I don't want to bombard any readers who've just come here to see what products I got!

As you can see from my ridiculously happy face, I received a lovely hand massage using the Brazilian Cupuaçu Scrub-In-Oil, and the Hawaiian Kukui Cream  from the Spa Of The World™ Blissful Body Collection by the lovely Brieana. I love a hand/arm massage it's surprisingly relaxing. Brieana was a gem, she was so helpful answering all of my questions regarding skin care and gave me some samples to try.

I also got to try out what the The Drops of Youth™ range felt like on my skin, Brieana used the Drops of Youth™ Liquid Peel on the back of my hand by gently rubbing in a drop, then using the Drops Of Youth™ Concentrate afterwards. My skin has never felt to soft. The Drops of Youth™ range is good for skin which has started to show signs of ageing, I have been thinking of using it as I believe I have some sun damage/wrinkles on my forehead and I would like to prevent them from getting any worse!

Where you can personalise your body butters!

I cannot wait to try the Camomile Gentle Eye Make-Up Remover!

I currently have the Tea Tree Skin Clearing Mattifying Toner in my facial regime.

My favourite hair products: Banana Truly Nourishing Shampoo, Banana Truly Nourishing Conditioner and Banana Truly Nourishing Hair Mask

The notorious Hook-A-Duck was back!

Another of The Body Shop® big campaigns at the moment is to save Red Panda's. I don't know about you, but I absolutely love animals, and Red Pandas are super fricking cute. When you purchase the Himalayan Charcoal Purifying Glow Mask a portion of the proceeds go towards protecting Red Pandas. Plus you can buy this cute headband for when you apply/remove make up as modelled by myself below.

My beautiful friend Lily has a blog ~ you need to check it out.

It was lovely seeing these beauts: Max, Lily, James, Charlie.

I can't believe how lovely all of the staff have been at all The Body Shop® events I've been to ~ which is turning out to be quite a lot...they always amaze me with their customer service and pure loveliness. I feel like I'm building a relationship with these stores, and it makes me want to come back time and time again as I always have great experiences.

Above is the little bits I picked up at this event, I needed a top up of Banana Truly Nourishing Shampoo, Banana Truly Nourishing Conditioner and Banana Truly Nourishing Hair Mask. I love the smell of this range, it's more of a sweet banana smell than an actual fruity smell. The products are thick in texture displaying the quality of the ingredients.

As shown above I purchased and wore the Red Panda Headband, and I bought the Facial Mask Brush to help apply all of the face masks I've collected. It's much easier to apply the masks, and more hygienic than using your fingers.

I had to buy the Tea Tree Anti-Imperfection Night Mask I love Tea Tree products, as I'm prone to redness and blemished skin. I'll do a little review when I get to use it!

I've been needing some hand sanitiser for a while, I'm one of those people that has a bit of everything in their bag, you know just in case. This Strawberry Hand Cleanse Gel smells amazing, and they have lots of other great scents and they are usually on a three for two offer on their miniature products.

Above are the lovely goodies which James put together for us! We got a voucher for Wagamama's as well as a nifty ladle for soup and ramen. There's a Coconut Treats set, a sample of the Banana Truly Nourishing Hair Mask, I Am Forever Against Animal Testing Neckerchief for your pet, a small Almond Milk & Honey Soothing & Restoring Body Butter,  samples of Oils Of Life™ Intensely Revitalising Facial Oil,  Drops Of Youth™ Concentrate, Japanese Matcha Tea Pollution Clearing Mask, and Amazonian Acai Energising Radiance Mask.

Please enjoy my failed attempts of getting my dog; Missy to wear the neckerchief. She's so beautiful but hates having her photo taken, or if she knows you're taking a photo she will make it increasingly hard.

I really enjoyed myself at this event in Brighton, The Body Shop® has quickly become my favourite brand! I've been trying to add up how many of their products I now own, and I don't think it's a pretty number. I just love the quality of The Body Shop® products and what they stand for.

Tell me in the comments what products you're loving or want to try out!

Love Saffron x

*Disclaimer - The products mentioned in this post are affiliate links which means that I can make commission from sales used by the links in this post.

Happy Third Birthday To My Blog

It was my blog's third birthday this week! Happy Birthday! But that doesn't mean I've only been blogging for three years. I first starting writing on an older blog EIGHT YEARS AGO. That's kind of crazy.

This past year has been amazing. I put so much more effort into my writing, the presentation of my blog, I started enrolling my boyfriend Connor Cleary for photo shoots, I bought a blog template and personalised domain. I'm so happy with my little corner of the interwebs to write what I want.

In celebration of my blogs birthday, I wanted to talk about the three best things that have happened to me since starting this blog.

~ My Mental Health

This blog didn't start out as a lifestyle and mental health blog. I started it mainly to look at the beauty industry, and my take on it. I didn't know much about beauty ~ I still don't. But I'm glad that I've been able to use my blog as a platform to inform others about anxiety and depression, and it's been a good release for me as well.

By writing about my experiences I managed to find others around me who felt the same. I didn't feel so alone, and it was good to have other people around who understood what I was going through. I don't know how I would've got through the worst of my mental health without my blog.

~ Getting Invited to Events

I made a bath play-doh pumpkin at the Lush Halloween event

Every Blogger's dream is to go to swanky events for brands, and get an exclusive look at products and post tonnes of Instagram stories, and enough Boomerangs to make you feel queasy! I couldn't believe it when I started getting brands reaching out to ME?! My first event I sought out myself and asked to be on the guest list as the event was made public. Then once you've made a bond with that company, they will usually ask you back ~ which is amazing!

So far I've been to Lush events, The Body Shop events, opening night of Pryzm night club with the help of Pompey Bloggers, a complimentary meal with Beefeater, and I've got plenty more upcoming events to share with you all!

~ Networking

L-R Me, Charlie, Charlie's partner and Mike at Pryzm

I say networking like it's really formal, but actually I mean all of the friends I've made over the internet. I never would've imagined meeting up with people via Twitter, but these are the people I speak to on a regular basis and we're all really supportive of our work. It's just lovely, and I'm so grateful for meeting some of my internet friends in real life!

They definitely help motivate me, if I didn't have my friends I'm not sure how far I'd have gotten. Don't get me wrong, I love writing just for me, but I want people to read my posts and interact and bounce off of my ideas. It's always great to have people to proof read risky posts!

Please check out their blogs! Mike, Sophie L, Charlie, Alanna, Sophie E, Poppy and James to name a few.

~

I'm really proud of what I've accomplished so far. I've even had my first sponsored post with Adorli, but my blog is still purely my hobby. I mean if it did become something I could do full time, I'd be more than happy to write for a living. My younger self would be ecstatic!

I'm going to keep growing my blog and my content, as I've got plenty of ideas and I still want to return to making YouTube videos as well.

One thing I have learned about blogging and social media is that it's really beneficial to engage with other bloggers, by commenting on others posts it starts a conversation and gets you more involved with the "community". This also can encourage others to engage with your content as well, the blogging world isn't always "if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours". My mantra is just to be nice to people in the real world and online, as I believe in good karma and I like to be a nice person.

I hope you liked my little blog birthday post! Let me know some of the things you're proud of/have achieved in the comments.

Love Saffron x

The Body Shop Christmas VIP Event | 12 Days of Blogmas

WOO!

This is my first blogmas post! However, I'm doing 12 Days of Blogmas, because twenty four is just too much for me, and I'm going to give twelve days a good go!

This was my first event that a company has contact me first to come to a blogger event. I was very excited to see the email in my inbox and nothing was going to stop me from getting to the Chichester branch. If you haven't been to Chichester, it's a lovely quaint city with all kinds of shops!

When they opened the shop for us we were greeted with gift bags and a choice of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks (I took the non-alcoholic because I was driving). There was a lovely spread of food as well, when I spotted the gingerbread reindeer I was straight over there!

We got to have a little nose around the shop before the staff introduced themselves, what was in store for the evening and all about The Body Shop as a company. It was great to learn more about the shop's history as I knew a bit already. The Body Shop was one of the first companies to advocate cruelty free beauty through it's founder; Dame Anita Roddick in 1976. Up until recently the company was owned by L'oreal (which isn't a cruelty free brand itself), but the company has been bought by Natura Brasil, whom to my knowledge are a cruelty free company.

The staff demonstrated and talked us through some of the amazing new products they have, it was a lovely friendly and funny demonstration. We got some of the products passed around so we could have a sniff, a good look and some of the other bloggers got glittery!

I was so pleased to learn about the collaboration with House of Holland, there's amazing all in one palettes (eye shadows, highlight etc) the products look so fun!

A new product that has joined The Body Shop's bath range is BATH BOMBS. I love a good bath bomb, and they come in these tiny packets with a range of flavours and the colours are so pretty! You can see one of them in with the ducks for one of the games we could play to win prizes. I can't wait to try one of these and write a little review for you guys!

I loved the opportunity to get to know a load more products and I had a good whiff of all of the Christmas scents, and I must say that Vanilla Chai is definitely my favourite. It's a bit spicy in a Christmassy way, like cinnamon and I just can't get enough of it!

It was really a surprise to see how BIG the advent calendars were in person, I was blown away by the products you get inside them!

Also I love the amount of support that The Body Shop are giving to lots of causes, it was so lovely to read about their campaigns and to also support them through purchasing their products, and knowing that money is going to a good place.

One of my favourite things to take away from the evening was a personalised body butter, there are lots of designs to choose from. I knew I needed the "Forever Against Animal Testing"!

I just wanted to say a HUGE thank you to all of The Body Shop staff for an amazing evening and a big thank you to James for emailing me and inviting me to the event! I had an amazing time and it was great to see my fellow blogger friends again; Mike, Sophie and Charlie.

Let me know what products you're loving at the moment or would love to try!

As always,

Love Saffron x