Friday 12 July 2019

The Best Tools For The Job

As well as running my beauty blog and all my social media channels, which I do on my own without any help at all, I also work full time in quite a stressful and incredibly busy job, this sometimes includes working evenings and weekends throughout the year.
Photo by on Unsplash
Running an office with 6 members of staff is quite full on and to be able to do all of the above, I spend a lot of my working week online, be it writing emails, sorting websites, delivering campaigns, doing my own social media, writing a blog post, uploading and editing photographs, I need to ensure I have all the right tools available to me and the most important one is having the best Fibre Broadband I can have.  I need to ensure that my provider gives me the fastest upload and download speeds available within my area and I also want to ensure that each staff member has everything they need to do their job, if all 6 of us are online at the same time, I don’t want it to affect the broadband speed with constant buffering.

So, having just had my office completely renovated from top to bottom, I now find myself in a brand new part of the building that had never before been used.  There was no telephone lines, no media ports and not even a single plug socket that had been used.  This meant that having ended my previous telephone and broadband contract after 15 years, I was able to look for a better deal. So, one single look using my work postcode as to which company offered the best deal took less than 5 minutes to complete and now instead of having less than a 20mb speed, which was quite shocking, we now have 59mb and the difference is incredible, a report takes less than 2 minutes to upload onto our online portal now whereas it could be anything up to 15 minutes before we switched over.  Meetings on Skype no longer buffer and constantly state we have connection issues.

The majority of my work is now done online, I have business skype meetings, phone conferences and whilst I am in the office, especially if I am working late then I have the ability to have music on in the background and in the office we are all hooked up to Spotify and each takes it in turns to play our choice of music, I usually always have the news on in the background, some days I need background noise to be more productive than I would usually be, other days it might be the cricket or my newest love for crime podcasts, there is nothing quite like swearing at an excel spreadsheet whilst listening to a serial killer programme, it removes the temptation to just throw the monitor out of the window!

For blogging, I often write posts during my lunchtime, whilst on a break or before an evening meeting and that often means I need to do a bit of research, fact-checking and photo editing and uploading all from my office.  If you have a slow broadband connection, it can take forever to load some sites due to their fancy graphics and constant pop-up adverts (annoying). The one thing I've noticed a huge change with having better broadband is just how quickly I can do all of the above.

I fully accept that having the internet is a luxury and having superfast fibre-optic broadband more so, especially when some areas of the country struggle to get a signal on their mobile phone never mind WiFi, but it is a luxury that I need to do my job and to blog. 



















*this post contains PR samples and/or Affiliate Links unless indicated otherwise - you can learn more on my Disclaimer page.

Wednesday 10 July 2019

Floral Street Discovery Set

Have you ever really wanted a new fragrance but have been so overwhelmed with the sheer number available in all kind of wonderful descriptions, families and concoctions? Right now I am obsessed with Floral Street fragrances, especially their newest launch Electric Rhubarb which I reviewed on my blog here
Floral Street Discovery Set
Floral Street can be found nestled in the heart of Covent Garden and it is described as being a brand built on the streets of London and one which is about breaking with tradition. It’s about peeling back the curtain of the secret world of fragrance. It’s about ease, modernity and joy. For me, what Floral Street has done is challenge my view of comfortable fragrances and instead convinced me to change things up and reach out of my comfort zone and I have just the product to do that with.

Meet the Floral Street discovery set (£14), a mini scent wardrobe which contains a 1.5ml sized bottle of all eight perfumes from Floral Street, excluding Electric Rhubarb.
Floral Street Discovery Set
 So inside you will find London Poppy, Wonderland Peony, Neon Rose, Wild Vanilla Orchid, Iris Goddess, Chypre Sublime, Black Lotus and Ylang Ylang Espresso.  All of these fragrances have been created by Jerome Epinette, one of the finest perfumers in the industry and someone I have been lucky enough to meet and listen too. Jerome is known for his mastery of natural ingredients and created each one of these scents using prized raw materials which have been sourced and synthesised by the iconic fragrance house Robertet.  Each fragrance tells its own story and each one is all fused with the dynamic energy of London and each one has an incredible 20% perfume oil level which not only makes these scents long-lasting but is also the reason they capture your attention.

The fragrances from left to right with their descriptions are:

  • London Poppy - Described as being a love letter to London: a city as tough as ever-lasting poppies. A city that sees the sun through the clouds, a scent that opens with a bright beam of light. Sicilian lemon and Florida orange bring the zing. A salt-spray marine note adds an unexpected sea-facing view. The ultimate urban mood-lifter. London Poppy sits within the floral family.
  • Wonderful Peony - Described as being a sweet floral stuffed full of peonies, pink berries and violets. A shot of cedarwood lends a woody-balsamic warmth, while vetiver injects the tiniest hint of hazelnut. Sophisticated, not soft. Captivating not cute. Wonderful Peony sits within the Floral Family
  • Neon Rose - Described as being for the fiery, quirky, striking and expressive. Like freshly-chopped jasmine and roses draped around your neck. And yet, no roses were harmed in the making of this showpiece - these buds were cooked up in our lab for extra punch. Super-clean, super-floral. Neon Rose sits within the Floral Family.
  • Wild Vanilla Orchid - Described as being a vanilla, but not as you know it. A raw-edged confection of creamy vanilla beans, blossom, cassis and citrus, dressed in a bunch of just-plucked jasmine. Offsetting the lingering sweetness; bamboo and sandalwood bend and fold underneath. Laid-back but exquisite. White tulle and high top, in fragrance form. Sits within the Oriental Family.
  • Iris Goddess - there’s nothing shy about these violets. An explosion of powdery petals collide with ripe red fruits. Black vanilla, warm musks and earthy carrot seed bring exoticisim and depth, sparkling lemon zest and red chilli pepper add a jolt of life. Other-worldly and mystical. From the forest to the desert. An adventure in a bottle. iris Goddess sits within the Chypre Family.
  • Chypre Sublime - Because Floral Street never smelled a flower they didn’t like, they loaded almost all of them into this un-put-down-able blend. Purified damask rose, violets, patchouli and geranium tap their feet. Olibanum – used to awaken the spirit in meditation – offers a resin-soaked wooden table for the flowers to perch on. A fragrance for musicians, painters and poets. Chypre Sublime sits within the Chypre Family.
  • Black Lotus - Described as being the classic English-Rose dressed in a black leather jacket. Intoxicating, spirited, bohemian and alive. Complex and multi-faceted, the sweet honeyed scent of centifolia rose adds depth to lighter, spicy nuances by way of red peppercorn and saffron. Once smelt, forever adored. Black Lotus sits within the Oriental Family.
  • Ylang Ylang Espresso - Described as being for the rebels. The thinkers. And the leaders: a powerful fragrance with its own electric current. A strikingly modern blend of red rose, ylang ylang and jasmine cross paths with a soothing cloud of just-brewed coffee, fresh cream and Sichuan pepper – sustainably harvested from the foothills of the Himalayas. A fragrance to get lost in. Ylang Ylang Espresso sits within the Chypre Family.
Within this collection, there is something for everything. Whether you like your florals, your musks, something with a hint of spice, something more earthy, something a little bit out of your comfort zone or even just something new that you are yet to discover.  This fragrance discovery set has given me the opportunity to move away from a department store and fragrance shops to try each one of these fragrances within the surroundings I am more likely to frequent.  Whenever I try a fragrance, unless I have purchased it before, I would never buy it immediately after trying it in a store because it never quite smells the same, they are all mixed in together with the surrounding air, what other people are wearing and other factors.

Having tried all eight of these fragrances, there isn't a single one I dislike, even Wild Vanilla Orchid surprised me because I cannot stand the heavy scent of Vanilla, it gives me a headache, this but scent was light on the vanilla and smelt wonderful of Jasmine, which happens to be one of my favourite fragrances notes.  Despite not disliking any of these, there are two which I absolutely adored and they are Black Lotus and London Poppy, both smell absolutely differently but they are both just divine and I have no doubts will be added to my growing collection.
Floral Street Fragrance Vials
Aside from fragrances, Floral Street has quite a collection of Body Creams and Body washes, which all match the fragrances within this discovery set, but I recently noticed a huge arsenal of Candles and Reed diffusers too, so those I am looking forward to getting to know over time, again as with the fragrances, there is a lot of choices.

This Discovery Set is priced at just £14 here and the fragrances themselves are priced at £22 for 10ml and £58 for 50ml. Each Floral Street fragrance comes tucked inside a ground-breaking pulp carton with an embossed lid, made from recyclable paper packaging and held together with a re-usable brightly-coloured band. A totally recyclable and biodegradable box - a first for the world of fragrance. The box can then be re-purposed to store jewellery, crystals, herbal teas, as a seed tray for plants and herbs - and just about anything else. All of the fragrances as also Cruelty-free and Vegan too.

From the descriptions given above, do any of the fragrances capture your attention?




*this post contains PR samples and/or Affiliate Links unless indicated otherwise - you can learn more on my Disclaimer page.
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