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Beauty and the Best of the Rest

~ A lot of beauty and a little bit of everything else

Beauty and the Best of the Rest

Tag Archives: Christmas

I’m dreaming of a Lush Christmas – Lush 2014 Christmas Range Event, Braehead

05 Sunday Oct 2014

Posted by masquerade21 in advent, Beauty, Christmas, Glasgow, Halloween, Shopping, Skincare

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Tags

Bath Bombs, bath melts, Blogger Event, bonfire night, Book, Christmas, Christmas launch, Dashing Santa, Dragon's Egg, face masks, fireworks, Glasgow, Halloween, Holly Golightly, Lush, Lush 12 Days of christmas Advent calender, Lush Braehead, Magic Wand, massage bars, Northern Lights, porducts, Reindeer rock, shoot for the stars, snow cake, soap, Sparklers, Sparkly pumpkin, The Christmas Hedgehog, wizard, yog nog

I was one of the lucky bloggers who were invited to the Lush Braehead Christmas range unveiling event and I can tell you that Lush has you covered (in sparkles, glitter and amazing scents) this Christmas.

lush tree

 

They also have you covered for Halloween with a really cool chic little range that you will be both excited and reluctant to use. Excited because these products smell amazing, reluctant because the look so cute that you might be tempted to use them as ornaments rather than bathing products. 

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In fact, there is a lush product for every occasion… even Bonfire Night.

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 But let’s get back to Christmas and the launch event, I’ll start at the beginning- when I first walked into Lush Braehead I was directed to the treat table:20141003_175841And then I had 5 minutes or so to wander around the store and take pictures of anything that took my fancy before the event started:

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Once all of the bloggers had arrived we had a fun little ice-breaker event where we introduced ourselves and our blogs and told everyone our favourite thing about Christmas (my favourite Christmas thing is surprises but food was a very big theme with a lot of the other bloggers) We were then split into 3 groups and my group visited the Christmas bath bombs, melts and bubble bars first:

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 The Christmas Hedgehog Bubble Bar

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20141003_183157_4 Father Christmas Bath Bomb

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20141003_182249 20141003_182302 Golden Wonder Bath Bomb

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Snow Angel Bath Melt

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Dashing Santa

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Holly Golightly Bubble Bar

After bath bombs we were shown all of the new shower gels:

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 There a few more including Snow Fairy but my camera was low on battery at this point so I had to save some for the soaps. Don’t worry, the link to the Full Lush Christmas Range is at the bottom of this post.

 We were then shown the amazing and eye-catching array of Christmas soaps:

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 Reindeer Rock

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 Baked Alaska

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Fairy Ring

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Snowcake

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Yog Nog

Then, after a quick hand and arm massage using the massage bars below, we had time for a spot of shopping.

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The one thing I couldn’t leave the store without buying?

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This reindeer rock soap smells wonderful, it’s made from a dried lingonberry infusion that I just love the smell of so much. I think it has beaten rock star soap to be my new favourite.

Thanks to the team at Lush Braehead providing us lucky bloggers with goody-bags the reindeer rock soap wasn’t the only product that I took home with me:

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Thanks Lush!

So which lush product will be at the top of my Christmas wishlist? Well I saved the best until last:

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The Lush 12 Days of Christmas Book is definitely at the top of my list!

This post has just been a snapshot of the lush Christmas range, they are bursting to the seems with new products and I couldn’t fit them all in but luckily the lush website can. Go discover all the amazing Lush Christmas products at https://www.lush.co.uk/products/christmas or pop into your local Lush store.

Want to keep up to date with all the latest Lush Braehead happenings? It’s easy, just visit them at: 

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Thanks for checking out my blog 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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So the first Beauty Advent Calendar to go on sale in 2014 is….

15 Monday Sep 2014

Posted by masquerade21 in advent, Beauty, Christmas, Fashion, gift ideas, gifts, Inspiration, Make up

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Tags

advent, Advent Calendar, beauty advent calendar, beauty advent calendar 2014, calendar, Christmas, ciate, ciate mini mani manor, cool christmas gifts, gift idea, Girls, luxury, Manor Nail Polish Advent Calendar, mystery advent calendar, nail polish, on sale now, Selfridges, teens, unusual, women

I love Christmas. I love advent calendars. I love cosmetics. I love surprises.

So beauty advent calendars really are Christmas in a box to me. Fortunately the wait is over  and the first beauty advent calendar  of 2014 (that I know of) is now officially on sale!

 So what is it and where can you buy it?

It’s…The Ciate Mini Mani Manor Nail Polish Advent Calendar!

You can only buy it from Selfridges or from  www.selfridges.com , it is £49.00 and while I won’t be buying one myself because I have more nail polish than I can store, it really is an amazing little item and it will sell out FAST. So if you want one then you should hotfoot it over there.

Here is what the calendar looks like :

Ciate 1

They are currently still in stock 🙂

There are 3 different variations of the calendar and from what I can tell it is a lucky dip as to which variation you will receive.

Wondering what the next beauty advent calendar to go on sale will be?

MH910216407

I’ll let you know soon.

Thanks for checking out my blog 🙂

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Mmm…Milllennium

21 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by masquerade21 in review

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Tags

Billionaire Shortbread, Breviewed, Chocolate, Christmas, Copthorne, Drops Gemstones, Eton Mess, fairground, George Square, Hotel Chocolat, ice-skating, Millennium, Millennium Hotels, review, Salted Caramels, Smiley Lick

 

As far as blogging gigs go, this one is the tastiest one that I have had yet. 
At the moment Millennium and Copthorne Hotels are trying to decide which chocolates from the Hotel Chocolat range they should place in the rooms of their hotel guests. This is no easy feat since the Hotel Chocolat range has a wide variety of beautiful chocolates to offer. So that’s where I come in, Milennium and Copthorne Hotels have sent me and various other bloggers a gorgeous bag filled with Hotel Chocolat goodies to review and to pick our favourite chocolate from. Don’t mind if I do 😉

Here is the lovely sample pack that I recieved and what was inside it :

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Obviously I couldn’t wait to dive in and start reviewing.

First of all I tried the Salted Caramels.

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This was the first time that I had ever tried salted caramel so I was quite excited. The chocolates were a good enough size to give me a nice satisfying bite when I tried them. The first taste that hit me was unfortunately the salt which, although I was expecting it, I found quite unpleasant. After that the caramel taste kind of kicked in which improved things and then I finally got to the not so salty chocolate which was a relief. I think that people who like salted caramel would enjoy these but these just helped me find out that I am not a fan of salt in my caramel. With regards to the packaging I think that it resembles the packaging for tablets which, lets face it, is not very enticing but the look and shape of the chocolates themselves was quite inviting. I would say that guests who like salted caramel would enoy these but it is unlikely that all guests would enjoy them so I don’t recommend these for Millennium Hotels.

After the Salted Caramels I opted for the Smiley Lick.

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This was a nice and simple chocolate lollypop. It was easy to open and the chocolate was lovely and thick so you get a real mouthful with each bite. I liked this so much that I couldn’t stop to note down my thoughts after just one bite. It ended up like this before I could stop eating it long enough to take notes :

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The chocolate was very smooth and it melts in your mouth almost instantly. Out of all of the samples that I recieved it was the only one that protected you from getting chocolate on your fingers since it was on a stick. Although this was so nice that I felt like eating it all in one go, I think it is a little too goofy looking and not quite elegant enough to look at home within Millennium and Copthorne Hotels. If it were up to me I would stock this at the hotels but reserve it for the child guests and give the adults something a bit more elegant.

When I finally managed to put down the Smiley Lick I moved on to the Billionaire’s Shortbread Selector.

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I thought that the presentation of the Billionaire’s Shortbread was quite appealing, to me it looks like something that would fit in with the elegant and luxurious feel of Millennium Hotels so it ticked that box straight away. Then I opened them. They have such a strong smell! They obviously smell of chocolate and caramel so nothing unpleasant but I was surprised by the strength of the smell, it hits you as soon as you open the packet and I found that a little off-putting. After that I expected these to be very rich and sickly-sweet. It turned out that they were really quite nice. Like the Salted Caramels they were a decent size and gave you a nice satisfying bite. I was pleasantly surprised by the filling, I had been expecting runny caramel and instead I got some kind of caramel-praline blend which I actually quite liked. I loved that the shortbread cookies were on top instead of at the bottom. I thought that was quite a nice twist. The Billionaire’s Shortbread is a contender.

Once I had sampled the Billionaire’s Shortbread I moved onto the Eton Mess Slab.

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This smelled exactly like strawberry ice-cream. It wasn’t an overpowering smell either, you just got a faint whiff of it as you lifted the chocolate to your mouth. It was lovely

When I bit into this it was so flavoursome. The bar is a blend of strawberry and vanilla chocolate with scattered pieces of strawberry, merigue and cookies on top and inside. Each bite tastes a litte different depending on what kind of mix of strawberry, meringue and cookies you get. I really really liked this but there was just one problem. It was so messy. In the image above on the right you can see all of the debris that fell off of the bar when I snapped a piece off to eat. When you are staying at a nice hotel you really don’t want crumbs all over you so if Millenium and Copthorne Hotels do decide to offer this to their guests then I think they should offer it as a small bite size bar or in a selctor pakage like the Billionaire Shortbreads.

Last but not least I tried the Drops Gemstones.

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These are my winner! I would strongly recommend that Millenium and Copthorne Hotels pick these to offer to their guests. Each drop is a fusion of white and dark chocolate and they just taste great. They are quite small and very moreish and I imagine that they would be something great to snack on while unpacking your case.

If I go to a Millennium Hotel in future it will be the Hotel in Glasgow which faces right on to George Square. I’d go at Christmas time when George Square has a nice big ice rink in it and is filled with fairground rides. I would hope that the chocolates that I found in my room would be Drops Gemstones as not only could I snack on them while unpacking, but they are also small and portable enough that I could fit them in my pocket and take them with me when I go on all of the rides at George Square.

So that’s what I think but what about you? If you went to a fancy hotel which of the chocolates above would you hope to find in your room? Which would you least like to find?

Thanks for checking out my blog 🙂

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