bkr

It's not everyday you go to the launch of a brand new product and love it before you have heard anything about it. Well that is exactly what happened when I was introduced to bkr (beaker) a luxe, bubbly glass bottle that jumped out at me in Selfridges. Sitting there on a display stand in a variety of colours from your bright pinks to the neutrals that make you want to pick them up, touch them and make your own display.

Anyway, I was lucky enough to meet and chat to Tal Winter and Kate Cutler, the brains behind the idea who were just so lovely to chat too, answer questions about every aspect of bkr from where the idea came from, to its production and the celebrity following which by the way is huge, we are talking Gisele Bundchen, Blake Lively, Reese Witherspoon, Charlize Theron, Jennifer Garner, Jessica Alba, January Jones and Jamie Chung to name just a few!

What I loved was the main point, you can spend hundreds, possibly thousands of pounds on creams, lotions and potions to keep your skin in tip top condition but if you are not drinking enough water, then what is the point. Water is something we should all drink more of, I drink around 1.5litres of it per day and should drink more and if something as cute as bkr can encourage me to do that then I am ready to put my hand in my pocket and try it. Essentially that is what bkr is, a cute glass bottle, a very well made one, whose who purpose is to encourage you to drink more water, the more you drink the better you not only feel, but so does your skin, your eyes, your hair and your nails.

For me bkr is such a brilliant idea, it has a non-leak cap which means you can carry it around in your handbag without fear of it leaking and it has this cute little hook that loops over your fingers to help with the grip when you carry it around and who wants to hide such a cute bottle in  handbag anyway.

I did ask Tal and Kate where the inspiration came from for the colours and some of the bottle names and essentially the collections are based on runway trends in New York, London, Paris and Milan and the names are only ever given if they both agree and love it. So the bottle I was very kindly given is called Bambi and if I had to choose a bottle, it would have been this one for two reasons - firstly it is bright neon pink and who doesn't love the colour pink and secondly the black heart right in the middle grabbed my attention and it has an RRP £28.  It is described as follows:

"Inspired by a big fluffly bed at a five-star hotel, his XL hoodie over your tiny bikini, the sharing of a naughty secret at a dimly lit speakeasy, hosting the coziest afterparty. I know you should be going, but how can I send you out in that storm"

It is washable by hand or dishwasher but not suitable for a microwave, but it literally takes just a few minutes to clean, including the outer sleeve which is removable.

There are over 30 different choices when it comes to choosing your own bkr and there is definitely something for everyone and if it encourages me to drink more water than I already do, it gets a huge thumbs up!

Online Shopping!

Online shopping and payment transfers can be fraught with danger, with a host of dodgy websites happy to take your money, or your money and your bank details and not deliver or those pesky spyware programmes that steal data from your computer before some enterprising little so and so hacks into your bank account for every last penny. Having had this happen three times now it is extremely stressful and scary and even though I do still shop online regularly, I do now have steps in place to hopefully prevent further attacks.

Source

One solution for me has to be secure money transfers, something I believe is essential for us bloggers, whether we are buying the latest cosmetics, paying for changes to our blog layouts or doing like I do a lot, buying obsure clothing from even more obscure countries for their other half!

Paypal is a pretty good tool which cuts out most middle-men and I find it incredibly easy to use but there is a whole universe of transfer methods available and I tend to use the app on my iPhone rather a lot.  There are also many from the branch of your own high street bank that allow you to transfer money directly to other bank accounts globally through a simple bank transfer. One such method is SWIFT Funds Transfer available to account holders of most banks. It allows account holders to make international payments in a range of currencies worldwide.

If you regularly make payments abroad and are looking for a better bank transfer service, why not take a look around, there are so many options out there where you may save yourselves a small fortune, especially when it comes to the currency conversion rates and fees being charged by your own bank.

There are also steps you can take to protect yourself online when you do shop and most of them are so simple and straightforward and know your consumer rights too, there are plenty of helpful websites such as this one which have lots of useful information.

SP