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

Christmas and Halloween Lush Event

A few weeks ago (probably a lot more than that please don't judge me!) I was invited to go to a blogger event at Lush in Portsmouth.

The wonderful staff there showed us lots of demonstrations of all of their products of their Halloween (I'm aware this has been and gone) and Christmas ranges. I've had a thorough talking through practically all aspects of Lush, and there's so many amazing products I hadn't even seen before. Honestly, if you're usually the person that avoids the Lush sales people because you're super awkward, you're going terribly wrong with your Lush experience.

Trust me, because I'm one of those awkward people who thinks they know what they want, I usually bee line for the bath bombs. It's hard not to see the lovely displays of bubbly glittery goodness, but once you learn more about the other skin and beauty products and about the brand itself you won't regret it!

Before I get completely stuck in, I wanted to start off by showing you guys some of the Naked range. I had heard about this before the event and was so intruiged to learn more. If you don't know too much about Lush, they are so passionate against animal testing and looking after the environment. The Naked range is essentially the products that you know and love but without the unnecessary packaging! They've turned their products into solids, once wet the products begin to work their magic. I've used the shower jellies before and was mesmerised at how much product you can get with a solid product.

I'm sure you can get more out of these products than a liquid, as I'm quite bad at knowing how much product to squeeze out! If you're as amazed by this range like me you can pop into your local Lush store and ask one of the lovely sales people for more information. You can also get some more information here.

I am so on the hype for Snow Fairy, I didn't smell it last year and I've fallen in love with the candy scented bath and shower product (insert heart emoji here).

There's so many great scents, and I feel that there's always a scent for everyone! It's amazing how we each like different smells, how I can love vanilla and citrus type scents (not in the same product) yet someone else can despise it! Going around Lush picking up things and sniffing them is one of my favourite past times.

When we entered the store after hours we were greeted by the Lush staff members completely in Halloween dress, and with lots of vegan goodies! There were Halloween themed non-alcoholic drinks and snacks, and I was raving about the Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes! I thought the snacks were made by a local company or something, so I was surprised to learn that the Supervisor made said amazing cupcakes! I need this recipe in my life. I don't know if I've ever had such a delicious vegan snack before (no offence to vegans). More photos below!

There's lots of new and old Christmas products back, a lot of new scents and I've got some photos below for you if you haven't had a peak already!

Some of the classics are back: Magic Wand, Candy Mountain, Golden Wonder (and a GIANT one), Butterbear is back with a cute little scarf, and Snow Angel to name a few.

I'm so excited for some of the new ones as well: Christmas Sweater, Snow Fairy - Jelly Bomb, Shoot For The Stars (such a cute pattern on this bomb), The Snowman, Christmas Eve (I'd love to actually have this for Christmas Eve, wink wink) and let's not lie, I want to try them all!

Unfortunately some of the Halloween products are selling out at the moment, but there are still some in stores so if you want to try some be quick!

However, there's lots of Christmas products in stock and they all look fabulous. I really do love Lush as a brand and it's products. This evening was so fantastic and well put together, and to have full access to the store after hours was such a personal experience, and I'm glad I get to share with you all some of my Lush knowledge! And a super huge thank you to all of the staff at the Portsmouth branch, it's my main store I visit and they are always so lovely and helpful!

I hope you've enjoyed this post, I enjoyed the event and writing everything up!

Love Saffron xxx

Palmerston Road Christmas Lights Switch On

Hello my lovelies!

It's now November.

What.

I can't believe it's basically Winter now! I've been such a bad blogger, but not for lack of trying. I have a gazillion drafts and blog ideas, and even some videos up my sleeve but bare with me as my life has been a little chaotic.

Even in just the last 24 hours there was a possibility of my beloved MacBook dying, but fret not it's luckily living and breathing!

Right, onto this post!

I saw the event last minute for the Palmerston Road Christmas Light Switch On, but I was excited to pop along and see the Southsea Market and all the lights being turned on. I popped on my bobble hat and tartan scarf for the first time this season and grabbed my camera to take some snaps.

As I neared Palmerston Road I could hear the music playing from the Wave 105 stage. The sun was just setting, and I had a nose around the market stalls and came across Feed Cafe. All of a sudden I was transported to my second year of university where I would order Feed from Deliveroo (sometimes for breakfast if I couldn't be bothered to leave my bed, student life...).

They had given their hot dogs christmassy names, I chose to have the 'Sled Dog' which was a plain sausage with caramelised onions on top. The lovely man who served me noticed I was holding my camera and couldn't hold the hot dog and add sauce so he did it for me! Thank you lovely man!

Whilst stuffing my face with the huge hot dog, I made my way over to the Wave 105 stage. They had performances from lots of local dance groups with lots of Christmas numbers. My favourite was when the SD Studios had their little-uns come on stage dressed up as penguins and singing their little hearts out, everyone was in awe at their cuteness.

There were supposed to be fireworks, which was one of the selling points for me to come along to the event as I haven't been able to go to any major fireworks displays this year, unfortunately these got cancelled due to health and safety reasons. This is understandable but also a bit sad, when I was leaving just after six there were still people turning up to Palmerston Road for the cancelled fireworks.

However, I really enjoyed my time exploring some of the market stalls and watching the performances. It was quite an odd experience as I turned up to this on my own, which I never do things like this. Usually it's too scary or daunting, or sometimes it's just nicer to have someone with you. But, I actually enjoyed it on my own, I was also singing along to the Christmas songs, so people probably thought I was a right weirdo.

Now that I'm getting the Christmas tingles I look forward to going to all the other Christmas light switch ons in my area! I'm super looking forward to getting more seasonal photos, I'm quite happy with my little selection here but I want to up my game now, so watch out!

I hope you've enjoyed my little blog post! I enjoyed writing it and going to the event itself, and I hope to be posting lots more soon.

I also did a little vlog, you can watch it here.

Love Saffron xxx