My First Vegan Festival

Today I went along to my first ever vegan festival, which evidently was the first vegan festival that had graced the city of Aberdeen!  I have been looking forward to this for months now, and I was really excited to be taking mum along as this was her first experience at any festival, never mind a vegan one!  We arrived about five minutes past ten – I paid for VIP tickets which gave us priority entrance 30 minutes before standard tickets holders, as well as a very generous goodie bag that was basically full to the brim with snacks, leaflets and discounts!

The festival consisted of two floors, which was packed to the brim with various food, charity, cosmetic and clothing stalls.  We didn’t waste any time, and did a full circle of the lower ground floor in about ten minutes, stopping to speak to the Cats Protection Charity as well as having a few tasters of the Frys Coconut Island raw energy bars – these were absolutely amazing, coco-nutty goodness that legit melts on your tongue.  The couple on the stall were both super nice and friendly, and so mum and I left both with three bars each, I went for the coconut vanilla, chilli and lime and the raw booster.

Upstairs is where ALL of the magic took place, and by magic I mean the magic act of where all of my money disappeared… and I’m not even mad about it.  The stalls were all laid out alongside the walls of the room, giving us plenty of room to walk and browse in between each stall.  We couldn’t have been upstairs any longer than 10 minutes and I had already made my next three purchases!  The first was a gorgeous candle wax melt from the Mulderie Wood stall, I picked up the fragrance Hooley which is their blend of tea tree and bergamot essential oils.  I was advised that all of their candles were made completely of essential oils and wax – 100% natural -  which was a nice surprise considering just how amazingly fragranced everything was.  I paid just £2 for such a huge wax melt, which I was advised could be broken into smaller pieces to make it last longer, something I never would have considered doing!  My next stop was The Aurora Juice Company where I received a sample of the Orange juice before purchasing one myself.  It was a really refreshing, and I’m delighted to have found that they’re based just a few miles from my home town! 

I was really excited to see that the White Rabbit Skincare company had made an appearance, as I’ve been following them online for some time now and was keen to give some of their products a go.  After a lovely chat with the stall holders I left with their Orange and Aloe Toner, which I look forward to sharing my views on with you after a few weeks of use!  Our next stop was the Iuvo Skincare stall, which I have to say I think it was one of my favourite stops from the whole entire festival.  The couple were so kind, informative and just really pleased to have us look at their products, without being pushy or overwhelming.  Mum and I left with a sweet mint bar of soap each, as well as a solid deodorant bar which I was told can last anything between a months to three months, depending of course of how often you like to apply throughout the day.  I’m really excited to give this a go, as I have recently fallen back into the habit of relying on the spray ones with lots of nasties.  I’ll report back with my verdict in the near future!

The rest of our shopping consisted of lots and lots of tasty vegan foods, which pleased up greatly as we had been looking forward to coming home with lots of treats ever since we bought the tickets.  We visited the Cool Jerk Pie stall and left with 8 pies between us including his breakfast, mince and tatties, haggis, macaroni and pulled pork pies.  Right now I can confirm that the macaroni was divine, and based on that alone if you get the chance to pick up something from his stall, go get yourself a pie!  We also treated ourselves to some wonderful brownies from the Herbivore Kitchen, which were the most delicious brownies I have tasted to date!  They were thick, sticky, moist and just packed with flavour with every bite.  After much consideration we also made sure to make a stop at Laurianne’s Raw Cake stall, which held beautifully hand crafted cakes that looks too good to eat.  Our last stop before joining the Face Plants Food stall for our Philly Steak subs was the good old Grampian Health Store, were I treated myself to a trusty Vego bar and my trusty Lemon Drizzle Naked bars. 

All in all we had a great day, the food was fantastic, atmosphere was amazing and we just really enjoyed having the opportunity to browse such fantastic vegan companies in the comfort of our own city.  So thank you to the organisers of the Vegan Aberdeen Festival for such a wonderful day, we look forward to see what next year will bring! 

Until the next one,

Handbag Essentials, Snacking Edition

Ever since college, (as IF that was a whole four years ago?!) I’ve always made sure to have a sweet treat or two lurking around in my handbag.  Once upon a time this was a technique to save the pennies on my travels in and out of town, however more recently this has become essential as I’m never sure if I’m going to be able to easily find a vegan bite to eat on the go.  These are just a few of the bits that I like to keep a hold of on the go for when I’m needing a pick me up or a sweet treat.

Nakd Bars

These have been a favourite of mine for years now, and I always find myself drifting in and out of an obsession with them.  Right now, it’s the new Lemon Drizzle one that is really doing it for me, it taste just like the base of a lemon cheesecake and satisfies all of the sweet cravings that I have with every bite.  Whilst lemon is the most distinctive flavour of all, the coconut flakes throughout add to the flavour to make for a divine treat!  It is for sure my favourite from the bunch now, closely followed by Bakewell Tart!

Natural Panda Liquorice

Whilst these are more so a new find of mine, they are for definite one of my favourite treats to reach for when my Nakd bars don’t make the cut.  Raspberry and Blueberry are two of my favourites from the range as they have the nice fruity taste to disguise the liquorice and add to the sweet sensation.  I had been stocking up at Holland and Barrett, however I have since discovered that my local green grocer sells them also, meaning that I can stock up whenever I desire. 

Nutri-Bombz

One of my favourite discoveries of the last couple of months is the Nutri-Bombz subscription box.  Each month for just £4.99 they send you a selection of energy balls that are made with nutritious ingredients and are always a unique and tasty snack.  My favourites so far have been the Coconut balls and the Mint Chocolate Brownie, as they are so packed with flavour and are perfect for desert on the go.  Despite their size, they are actually quite filling making them a perfect mid afternoon snack, hence why I like to keep them on my person when I’m on the go!  Considering some energy balls cost as much as £1.99 per portion, £4.99 for 9 is fabulous value for money if you ask me!

Have you tried any of the above snacks?  Is there anything else you think I should be snacking on? 

Until the next one,

My Superdrug Loves… B

As I’m sure you’ve heard me say before, ever since I made the decision to make all of my skincare and cosmetics cruelty free, Superdrug have been my shop of choice for all my beauty and skincare needs.  I’ve been trying out all of the skincare ranges little by little, and have to say that I’ve been so impressed with everything so far!  As a result, I’ve decided on a little series of posts to share with you all my thoughts on each one of them!  There are so many goodies to discuss, and so this time round I’ll be discussing the B range!

I’ve been pretty much obsessed with their hydraulic acid facial spritz ever since I discovered it a few months back.  It’s been my go to purchase every time I’ve been in store due to how well it works for my skin, I’m totally obsessed!  This has been the perfect find for applying before my moisturising, before my makeup powder, for setting my makeup, for refreshing my skin throughout the day and for applying late at night for a little extra hydration.  It's the perfect size for carrying in my handbag or on my person at work, which is perfect as it’s very much a necessity for me now.

For the last month and a bit B have had the most insane promotions on their skincare, which although they have switched up the promotion this month, let me tell you it’s still a pretty damn good one!  Last month they had a lot of their goodies on a better than half price offer, and not only that, but for every B product you purchased, you received a free packet of wipes, which retailed at £1.49 per pack!  Needless to say, I took great advantage of this, and now currently have two full packets and a third on the go stored away!  I can honestly say that these wipes are the best make up remover wipes I have ever used.  The micellar water wipes feel as though they hold a whole bottle of micellar water in each wipe.  They remove the majority of my makeup without any problems at all, and unlike a lot of makeup wipes that I have used in the past, they do not sting my face, nor do they leave my sin feeling tight and irritated after use.  I do go ahead and use a micellar water after a good wipe down, but these are definitely perfect for those of you who just want a quick fix without all the fuss!  I absolutely adore these wipes and will not be without them for a very long time!

The latest item that I’ve stocked up on from B is the nourishing eye cream which again I picked up on offer for half price.  As the name would suggest, it’s a really thick, creamy and nourishing eye cream that really makes a difference to the skin around my eyes.  It absorbs really quickly, and I find that it just leaves the skin feeling soft and looking less tired.  Now don’t get me wrong, I still have the mother of all dark circles under my eyes that needs three layers of concealer to cover, however I think that this might just do the trick over a prolonged period of time to help with that!

Have you tired anything from the B range yet?  Anything I should get my hands on?

Until the next one,

Taking Time Out

You’ll have noticed that I’ve been very much absent online as of late, which was very much a result of a build-up of stress. Alongside my dissertation, I also has 2 pieces of coursework to prepare before the end of the month, and a 20 minute presentation to put together.  Although I was making good time and progress on them all, I felt an overwhelming sense of guilty and uneasiness every time I wasn’t doing coursework.  I was beyond excited that this meant that I didn’t have any exams to worry about after my dissertation, as you can imagine a further 5000 words due the week after the big hand in, and a presentation that made me feel physically ill every time I thought about it was a lot on my little plate all at one time.

As a result, I had to take a break from the blog, which although I really didn’t want to do, it did in the end help me in the sense that there wasn’t another thing on my plate that I had to be maintaining.  All of my coursework is done now, and I’m pleased to say that I’m officially done with uni, forever!  I’ve a few months to wait until I get my final grade, but seeing as I’m not overly fussed about the whole graduation ceremony itself, I’ve not decided it I’m going to bother going.  I didn’t really enjoy university as much as I had hoped I would, and so I’m not convinced that I want to spend all that money celebrating a time that I didn’t enjoy.  We will see though, I may change my mind!

For now I’m taking a little time out to relax, hang out and binge watch all of the programmes that I resisted whilst in the midst of all that coursework.  I’ve a bunch of different post ideas that I can’t wait to write up, and I’m looking forward to playing around with my pictures and seeing if I can up my game a bit! 

So that’s it, I just wanted to let you know that I’m not done with blogging, I just needed a little break whilst I finished up a very exhausting semester at uni! 

Good luck to those of you with exams this month!

Until the next one,