Lush The Twelve Days of Christmas Advent Calendar

My most popular post is currently about Advent Calendars for this year, but with the Lush Advent Calendar from 2014 (here) just a few page-views behind.  With that in mind, once again, Lush have done an amazing advent calendar for the 2015 and it is just as amazing. 

Called The Twelve Days of Christmas, Lush have created a wonderful book with a festive design and each page has a one of twelve amazing products and they include:

Snow Angel Bath Melt - Dissolving into a flurry of snow, blanket your bath in white foam before revealing a shimmering golden glow. Rich in moisturising Fair Trade cocoa butter, with a delicate marzipan scent, and oodles of rose, benzoin and cassie absolute to treat winter skin to a softening, floral soak. £3.95

Five Gold Rings Bubble Bar - Forget a partridge in a pear tree, you'll want to skip ahead to the fifth day of Christmas to get your hands on these sparkling bubble bar rings! Crumble under running water for a creamy Fair Trade vanilla-filled bath, infused with skin-softening illipe butter and uplifting moringa oil. If you're hoping for a ring come Christmas day, this might just be the next best thing. £4.95

The Comforter Shower Cream - One of the best shower creams ever which I have reviewed right here and all I can say is that if you like the bath melt, you'll love this. £4.95

Avobath Bath Bomb - Avobath in the morning to help you face the day: its lemongrass and bergamot oils will pick you up while also tackling dryness with avocado and olive oil. It contains lustre, which gives a shimmering green effect to the water, but will leave your skin feeling dazzling without the dazzle. It also contains lots of mashed avocado and olive oil to tackle dehydration, making this an excellent choice for dry skin sufferers. £3.50

Celebrate Body Lotion - Give your skin cause for celebration by smoothing on this intoxicatingly citrusy body lotion with a splash of cognac. Lime oil and Brazilian orange oil lift the spirits, while Fair Trade cocoa butter and almond oil hydrate the skin - it's the perfect lotion to wear for a festive night out. £12.95

Butterbear Bath Bomb - Snuggle up in a vanilla-scented bear hug with softening Fair Trade cocoa butter from the Colombian Peace Community of San José de Apartadó. Creamy and pampering, this polar pal will melt hearts young and old £1.95

Yog Nog Soap - A creamy Christmas tipple of a soap made with moisturising soya yoghurt and a dash of spicy clove bud. Indulge your senses in a fudgy lather with ylang ylang, moisturising Fair Trade cocoa butter and stimulating nutmeg. Dusted with a generous amount of aromatic fair trade cocoa powder, after one wash you’ll be ready to don your best Christmas knitwear. £3.50

Golden Wonder Bath Bomb - Fancy a tipple? Cognac and zesty lime oils start a party of mood-brightening scents whilst sweet orange oil refreshes the senses. In the water, this present-shaped fizzer unwraps itself to reveal glittering golden lustre and a sparkling turquoise explosion. Don't wait until Christmas day to bathe yourself in festive luxury! £3.95

Holly GoLightly Bubble Bar - Come on in out of the cold and wrap yourself up in this comforting Christmas bubble bar. Break the generously-sized pudding of a bubble bar into two and crumble under running water. With spicy cinammon leaf and patchouli essential oils it's like bathing in a hot toddy, perfect for getting you in the Christmas spirit. Organic illipe butter softens the skin while warming clove leaf oil is sure to get you feeling steamy. A tonic to mind and body! £4.95

Yuzu and Coco shower cream - Enough cocoa and tonka to make Mr Wonka wish he'd invented something half as sweet. Citrusy fresh yuzu juice is blended with reassuring cocoa and tonka absolutes for a shower that smells like chocolate oranges. You might not be able to lick it, but with a scent this sumptuous your comfort eating cravings are sure to be satiated. £4.95

Cinders Bath Bomb - With stimulating cinnamon leaf oil, the warmth of the hearth and the scents of hot fruit punch are a bath away. Skip the open fire and curl up with a fireside gathering of coarse sea salt and popping candy instead. £2.95

Dashing Santa Bath Bomb - Santa's golden boots fizz away first, sending him dashing around delivering lustrous waters of cheery mandarin oil. Bright, fruity bergamot and orange flower absolutes scent the air like fresh satsumas, making him a perfect treat for the bottom of stockings. £2.95

Now I think this is absolutely amazing and all for £49.95 which is an absolute bargain and it is a beauty!  

You Beauty Discovery Box - November 2015

The November You Beauty Discovery Box has arrived and this month's edit was specifically chosen to give us as subscribers a helping hand with the celebration of Autumn and in doing so, the chance to select products which would help to enhance our hair, skin and regular beauty regime.

There is two treats within this box, a little extra which I really like to get and this month we have the Alpha-Arbutin White Mask by DHC. Fight dullness and discolouration with DHC Alpha-Arburtin White Mask, a sheet mask formulated with moisture-binding ingredients. The deeply conditioning formula helps target the signs of ageing and sun exposure. The revamped sheet mask contains 43% more serum than before, uniting scientifically advanced brightener, alpha-arbutin, with mulberry, serine and peony. The sheet mask’s radiance enhancing formula delivers a continuous dose of hydration to the skin, and the addition of fold-over flaps allow the option of also using the mask to treat the eye area. I Love Perfectly Peachy Bath and Shower Creme sachet. I Love… is the first cosmetics company to commit to adding breast cancer awareness signs and symptoms labels to their limited edition Perfectly Peachy Bath & Shower Crème as part of CoppaFeel!’s new #showerhijack campaign and I wrote about it HERE.

Then as a subscriber there is a list of products to choose from to make up your box and you can see them all here and this is what I chose:

Bubble T – Bath & Shower Jelly - As a brand Bubble T is one I have seen written about quite a few times and as I had never tried any of the products, I thought this would be a great opportunity.  More than a shower gel, the Bath and Shower Jelly has a great malleable texture to cleanse and refresh. Ideal for the bath as the jelly won’t slip or slide off your hands. Scoop and lather! This one is the Summer Fruits Tea scent and it smells really fruity.

Fillerina – Hyaluronic Acid Gel Filler (grade 2). Okay so this really caught my attention with the words 'Revolutionary No Needle Filler' and it is a dermo-cosmetic filler for at-home use that containts the first ever blend of six hyaluronic acids with different weights and structures to facilitate in the plumping of tissues without puncturing the skin and I am really looking forward to giving it a try!

So there you have my box of treats for this month and all for the bargain price of £6.95 and some really intriguing products to try this month.  What do you think?

Magazine Freebies

There are some months when Magazine Freebies are brilliant, awful, non-existent, repetitive or down right gotta have them all. This month is one of those 'gotta have them all' months because there are some serious products to be trying out there.

Elle Magazine is perhaps the one most people will be grabbing for and hunting down because it has a world exclusive with Benefit for their new product They're Real Tinted Primer. This is a lash primer that can be worn alone for a more natural look or under mascara for those lashes which are just seriously wow. As soon as I heard this was to be released, I wanted to try it and the sample in Elle is a really decent sized 3g tube. Alongside the Tinted Primer there is also an introductory leaflet for 'Easy on the eyes' by the fabulous Lisa Potter-Dixon plus special price offer for the full version.

Glamour Magazine have teamed up with Clinique to give readers the chance to try four different products - Pop Lip Colour and Primer in two shades: Cherry Pop and Nude Pop or there is a choice of High Impact Mascara in Black or the Dramatically Different Moisturising Lotion+. If you manage to get all four freebies, they are said to have a value of £29!

InStyle have teamed with with Eyeko to bring you the Black Magic Mascara. There have been a few Eyeko freebies this year, usually an eye liner which I never use, so it will be interesting to see how the mascara works and it is said to be worth £12.

Red Magazine is being a little bit different this time and is offering you a free drink from Starbucks with a funky little Starbucks designed mug card.

Harpers Bazaar is another magazine to grab as soon as you see it because it has a sample of Estee Lauders Advanced Night Repair worth £11.

How good are the freebies this month? I am quite impressed.  Have you managed to collect any?

What I am watching!

Sitting down and relaxing is not something that comes naturally to me, my Gran always referred to my constant fidgeting as having 'ants in my pants' because I am so naturally restless.  So whilst I am ironing, cooking, cleaning, just have a face mask on or even having a bath, if there isn't a book I am currently hooked on, then I always have something to watch on TV.  Now I am not your average soap addict, I grew out of those many years ago after the storylines became totally depressing and a bit samey from Walford to Emmerdale, so instead I find myself obsessing over American TV dramas which I much prefer.

At home we have more than one TV, so the mister and I can watch our own thing, unless there is a show we both like. Now our lounge television is getting on a bit and needs replacing and everytime we see an advert for the new 4K TV from Panasonic we both immediately want it, the picture is just stunning and so much better than either TV.  However, it is on a wishlist and will have to wait.

I am not one of those people who can re-watch a TV show having watched it once, so I am signed up to Amazon Prime which gives me a great opportunity to watch whatever I want when I want and some of my favourite shows of late have been:

Castle - This is one of those TV shows I can just keep on watching.  It is about the mystery novelist Richard Castle who is friends with the Mayor and manages to get himself a job as a consultant to work with New York police to find a killer (or killers) who is modelling his crimes after scenes from Castle's novels.  I am now onto season 8 and just love the show.  It is easy to watch, requires no thought process and is easy to follow.

Sons of Anarchy - I have finally finished this show and wow what an ending.  I am not going to spoil it for anyone but if you love bad boy bikers then this is the show for you. The show is centered around SAMCRO (Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redwood Original) and features characters such as Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam for whom it is worth watching just for him)and it is essentially about the lives of a close-knit outlaw motorcycle club operating in Charming, a fictional town in California's Central Valley.  You can read more about it on the Wiki page if you like the sound of it.

Criminal Minds - I started watching this show years ago and have recently got back into the swing of things.  The show is set primarily at the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) and is based in Quantico, Virginia, and the main focal part of the show lies with the rather talented group of FBI Profilers who set out to catch various criminals that local police forces seem unable to catch thanks to their analysis and behavioural profiling. If you like shows like CSI or Graceland then this is one to watch.

The Blacklist - This is my latest 'must watch' show and it began a few days ago thanks to an advert during the football. Raymond "Red" Reddington who is a former United States Navy officer turned high-profile criminal, voluntarily surrenders to the FBI after eluding capture for what I can gather is decades. He tells the FBI that he has a list of the most dangerous criminals in the world that he has compiled over the years and is willing to guide their operations in exchange for immunity from prosecution, there is however one caveat and that is his insistance to work with rookie FBI Profier Elizabeth Keen. I am only a few episodes into this show and am already hooked.

I would love to know what it is you are watching right now and whether you have a TV series you would recommend my watching.

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