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Tuesday 12 December 2017

Dermalogica Vegan List

I asked for this a while ago from Dermalogica and forgot to post it, but it's kind of a pain posting the screenshot to facebook so here it is! haha

I asked Dermalogica for a list of their vegan items and they confirmed the following items are NOT vegan:


Vegetarians and vegans may choose to avoid products that contain the following ingredients:

PEG-8 beeswax
Beeswax
Honey
Pearl Powder
Sodium DNA (salmon byproduct)
Silk Amino Acids
Hydrolyzed Pearl

Products vegetarians and vegans may choose to avoid

Beeswax
  • Essential Cleansing Solution (Retail and Professional)

Honey
  • Gentle Soothing Booster (Retail)

Honey Extract (extrait de miel)
  • Body Microfoliant (Professional)
  • Power Recovery Pack (Professional)

Hydrolysed Pearl
  • Sheer Tint Light SPF20 (Retail)
  • Sheer Tint Dark SPF20 (Retail)
  • Sheer Tint Medium SPF20 (Retail and Professional)
  • Skin Perfect Primer SPF30 (Retail and Professional)

Pearl Powder
  • Breakout Clearing Cooling Masque (Retail)
  • Redness Relief Primer SPF20 (Retail)

PEG-8 beeswax
  • Massage Cream (Professional)

Silk Amino Acids
  • Active Moist (Retail and Professional)
  • Soothing Eye Makeup Remover (Retail and Professional)
  • Skin Smoothing Cream (Retail and Professional)

Sodium DNA (salmon by-product)
  • Oil Free Matte SPF30 (Retail)
  • Super Sensitive Shield SPF30 (Retail)
  • Daily Defense SPF15 (Retail)
  • UltraSensitive Tint SPF30 (Retail)
  • Solar Defense Booster SPF50 (Retail and Professional)

Glucosamine HCL
Since 2009 Dermalogica® has used a vegetable derived version of Glucosamine HCL, as an alternative to Chitosan. There is no allergy risk with reference to shellfish or concern for use by vegans or vegetarians.


Sal
xXx

Friday 8 December 2017

You Smell That? (a post about vegan and cruelty free perfume!)

One of the most difficult things to replace when I first went vegan was perfume. Ever since it was discovered that most high end brands are not actually cruelty free I of course stopped buying them, but I do still have a few dregs of high end perfume left (that shiz lasts forever!) But as it became time to replace them I had to look for new options.

Also, now it's gift buying season, I know a lot of people will be looking for perfumes. So here are some options for vegan perfumes for you.

Eden Perfumes
Eden are my number one pick if you are straight up looking to replace a high end scent. They're a vegan company, based in Brighton and also do mail order. They make awesome dupes of high end perfumes; I currently have four of them and have my eye on several more!

They also do a gift box, which is three 10ml perfumes of your choice, which is brilliant if you want to try a few out before committing to the full size!

You can buy from their Brighton store or from https://www.edenperfumes.co.uk/

Dolma
I was recently very kindly sent the perfume box set by Dolma, which has generous samples of all 12 of their perfumes. I was really impressed with them! I think this box is great value at £25 and a good way to find a scent you like; I do find it difficult buying perfume online without being able to try it out first.

They have Leaping Bunny and Vegan Society certification and their perfumes are free from parabens and palm oil for those that wish to avoid those ingredients.

They are pricier than Eden, but I do think their prices are reasonable for quality perfume and more affordable than some high-end perfumes.

You can buy from Dolma's website: https://www.dolma-perfumes.co.uk/ 


Fairypants
A small, vegan business that I discovered when I received one their lip scrubs in a Vegan Kind Beauty Box. Since then I've become a complete convert to their lip balms and when I realised they did perfumes, ordered a couple of those too. They are not traditional scents but fun ones, like the two I have - parma violet (my fave!!) and berry cheesecake. They're pretty strong but give them a few minutes after application to settle down and they're lovely and last ages! They also do larger bottles of perfume if you don't want a roll on, but I love these for slipping in my handbag.

You can buy from Fairypants' website: http://fairypants.co.uk/product-category/perfumes/

Pacifica
Pacifica is an all vegan, cruelty free brand that used to be pretty tricky to get hold of in the UK but I'm seeing it more and more in independent health food stores and some larger Holland and Barrett stores.

I have the spray and the roll on of the their Persian Rose and I love it. If you love rose scented things, you need this.

Lush
Let's not forget Lush; always an awesome option for loads of vegan body products and all their fragrances are vegan. My fave is vanillery - look how old this is!! They don't even make this style anymore. It is past time for me to pick up a spray!


M&S
All M&S's own brand toiletries and cosmetics are Leaping Bunny approved and I'm pretty sure that all their perfumes are vegan. They do mention in the product description on the website if a product is vegan and I could only find a couple that don't mention it, so I live chatted with them and they said yes they're vegan but they recommend checking with them if you're interested in any that don't stipulate vegan (!!). So yeah, just double check if it doesn't say but I think you're pretty much safe.

My faves are these: 
True red, more of an evening scent for me

and Inspire is a lovely fresh scent, that is perfect for daytime


Body Shop
It looks as though all their perfumes are vegan, but to be safe, I just search 'vegan' on their website then filter fragrance. Anyone else a 90s teen that misses Dewberry and finds White Musk super nostalgic?? No? Just me then.


If you do want a perfume from a high end brand, there are a couple of options:

Charlotte Tilbury - Scent of a Dream
Simon is actually getting me this for Christmas. It's tough to describe but it smells very grown up to me! In fact I've heard a few people describe it as 'granny-ish', which I'm totally ok with!
Pic from their website, obvs!

Illamasqua - Freak
One of my all time favourite perfumes!


Kat Von D - Saint & Sinner
I only have a small bag size of Saint and this was about £20 - the full size is about £60 I think. It's nice but I don't find it lasts all day. Plus this fucker leaked in my makeup bag on my way home from honeymoon and destroyed my ABH brow wiz, so I'm still salty at it! hehe


What's your favourite perfume, have I missed yours out?

Happy Fri-yay
Sal xXx

Tuesday 5 December 2017

Vegan Christmas Gift Ideas

OK, less than 3 weeks to the big day - are you as behind with gift buying as me? Good, I'm not alone. So here's some ideas for vegan chrimbo gifts.

Perfume is a pretty standard gift for Christmas, I am working on a post about that but for now, if you want a gift set, how about:

Dolma Vegan Perfumes do a bunch of gift sets, including a set of 12 perfumes in miniature and a tester of their aftershaves: https://www.dolma-perfumes.co.uk/product-category/boxed-gift-sets/ (I have the set of 12 miniatures and there's some lovely ones in there!)

Eden Perfumes make a gift set of 3 x 10ml of your choice: https://www.edenperfumes.co.uk/gift-box

A Kind Mama gift box:
This small vegan business makes awesome looking brownies, donuts and other treats and does a mixed treat box that would make a really nice gift. Available from http://www.akindmama.com/


Lily England Brushes: their brushes are awesome, vegan and beautiful and would make a lovely gift for anyone who needs some brushes. Available from https://www.lilyengland.com/


Blues Designs Candles
Another nice gift is candles and my favourites are made by a company called Blues Designs. I realllly love her wax melts, I'm not exaggerating when I say the one in my burner at the moment has been in there for AGES! I must have burnt it 10 times and it still throws out fragrance. They're amazing. Available from http://www.bluesdesigns.co.uk/


Not on the High Street have some really cool vegan gifts including vegan cookie dough sets, fancy vegan cheese sets, truffles and tshirts! Just type vegan into the search bar, or check out these things that look pretty great to me....

Salted Caramel Truffles
Peanut Butter Praline Truffles
Cute 'Go Vegan' T-shirt
Set of 3 Tyne Cheases
Vegan Cookie Dough Variety Pack

If you have a fudge fan in your life (or just wanna treat yoself - you should do that!), check out Slab Fudge; they have a bunch of vegan flavours and the salted caramel one, well that is just magnificent! In fact, I'm ordering some for myself, all for me, all the fudge!! everyone for the Christmas period.


If you have a makeup lover in your life, an eyeshadow palette might be a good gift. Here's my picks for....

Fancy.... Charlotte Tilbury's Instant Eye Palette. This palette is really high quality and swanky AF!
Clearly not my pic! From the CT Website


If you have a fan of colourful makeup, Juvia's place make some super pigmented and awesome palettes at a mid-range price point. The only eyeshadow palette that isn't vegan is the Saharan palette I believe (check ingredients for Carmine/CI75470). I have the Nubian 2 (and the Zulu which is sadly out of stock as I write this) and I need MORE! They are awesome. You can find JP in the UK at Beautybay.
Pic from Beautybay

Affordable palettes? Check out TAM Beauty's website for Makeup Revolution, Freedom and I heart Makeup. My current fave is the Soph x Makeup Revolution Palette. Vegan products are identified in the product description. Sorry for stupid side-ways photo... Blogger will not let me rotate this sucker!


There's always a vegan gift box from one of the subscription companies (you can usually buy gifts or past boxes) like:

Vegan Tuck Box - sweets & treats
The Vegan Kind - snacks or beauty
VOBEAUTY
The Cruelty Free Beauty Box

Shaving kit?
If you have someone who shaves in your life, a nice brush and some vegan shaving cream could be good. This one from The Body Shop is the one my hubz uses and he likes it a lot (it convinced him to trade in his old shaving brush and foam for a cruelty free/vegan option - yay!)


Lush
They always have a tonne of Christmas gift sets and they clearly mark their vegan options (in store, on packaging and on the website! The ones that catch my eye are the Snow Fairy sets and this one with Rose Jam scented goodies in!
pic from Lush's website


Or of course if you have a bunch of cash to waste on a daft, yet awesome toy - how about an app controlled BB8? (Anyone else so excited for next week's film release that they have midnight showing tickets?)

Yeah I know! It's pretty cool though! Available from Amazon


Happy shopping :)
Sal xXx

Wednesday 29 November 2017

Vegan and Cruelty Free Gel Polish Manicures

I get asked a lot which gel polishes are vegan friendly and it's been ages since I researched it. So I decided to contact some of the well known brands see which ones were OK. don't see your favourite? Leave me a comment and I will contact them, if I have not already. NB: these are gel polishes that cure under a UV/LED light, not 'gel effect' polishes.


Firstly, feel free to bookmark this page as I will update it as and when there are changes, or I get new replies. These are my findings so far:


CRUELTY FREE (any marked vegan relates only to the gel polish unless otherwise stated):

Salon Treatments
- Bio Sculpture vegan
- The Gel Bottle** vegan - all products
- Gelish / Polygel vegan [Nail Harmony]
- Ink London vegan - all products except their Kolinsky brushes, which are natural hair
- Orly Gel Fx vegan (Orly are Logical Harmony approved, so I only contacted them to ask if Gel FX was vegan)
- The Manicure Company vegan


**my nail lady uses The Gel Bottle and it is AH-MAZING! Seriously. Nothing has ever stayed on my nails as well as this, including cheapo acrylic!


At Home Systems
- Leighton Denny vegan - all products (not technically a gel polish but they make a gel top coat that goes on top of any regular polish)
- Madam Glam vegan 
- Red Carpet Manicure vegan 
- SensatioNail vegan friendly (NOTE, the website says that the products don't contain animal ingredients but their CS told me that all shades except the following are vegan, these shades contain carmine: Original SensatioNail - Jelly Sherbet & Ravishing Raisin. SensatioNail Express - Want a Peach of Me? Made Him Blush, Merry Meringue & Lovely Lychee.)
- Bluesky - previously on the no list for not being able to confirm if they sell in china but bluesky are now Vegan Society registered! Win!

NOT CRUELTY FREE or GREY AREA BRANDS

- Shellac [CND brand]: not cruelty free - 26.02.2018 originally they were on my ok list above but they have this week been added to Logical Harmony's avoid list for testing where required by law. So clearly they are big fat liars! 
- OPI GelColor: not cruelty free
- Jessica: grey area. Replied with generic 'we are cruelty free' statement 12.10.2017 and have not responded to any further questions sent that day and chased several times since.


Brands I have contacted, but have received no or limited replies from to date; I will update as received
- Kiss Everlasting Gel Polish: I originally contacted them on 09.10.2017 and again 21.11.2017. No reply received.
- IBD Just Gel: emailed 21.11.17, no reply received to date.


Happy humpday!
Sal
xXx

Friday 10 November 2017

Lily England Makeup Brushes

Recently I was contacted by the owner of Lily England, who make really pretty vegan makeup brushes, asking if I'd like to try some of their brushes. I of course said yes please and they sent me this absolutely beautiful package of brushes!


The sent me two sets, one that comes in a lovely faux leather bag and contains 2 face brushes and 3 eye brushes. The bag is the perfect size for my makeup brushes and I took it with me on honeymoon as it holds quite a few!

They also sent me the 8 piece eye brush set


Hopefully you already know that I wouldn't recommend something just because I got it sent to me, so when I say I love these brushes you can trust that. I went on my hen do the day after I received them and they were thoroughly put through their paces!

In fact they were used on pretty much all 8 hens at one point or another over the weekend! At least one of my bridesmaids ordered the 8 piece set before we even got home and I ordered 2 more sets as birthday gifts for some friends of ours' daughters, who are just getting into makeup.

They are super soft and really pretty, which my terrible photography doesn't do justice to. I use the eye brushes basically every day, I love them and you will be seeing them next time I do a favourites / makeup video I'm sure.

Also, since I got these brushes, I ordered the face cleansing brush, which I also really like but I have only used it a few times so I don't have a full review of that yet. I have my eye on their rose gold detangling brush too, (yes I'm a sucker for rose gold!) so no doubt I'll be ordering that soon.

Laterz
Sal xXx

Tuesday 7 November 2017

Southampton Vegan Festival

This weekend just gone was the first Southampton vegan festival and my husband and I (yep, we got married! More on that another time though!) got in the car, drove the hour or so to get there to check it out.

It was worth the trip, we ate some really good food and always spent way to much moolah on stuff to take home. Here's what we got...

We started with some Greek food from Greek Vegan Deli Specialities; having just come back from our honeymoon in Crete, we had to! And we were not disappointed. We both got a pitta (which was amazing!) filled with tofu halloumi, falafel, salad and a bunch of dips including vegan taramasalata! avocado, some sort of sweetcorn relish and what I think was beetroot hummus.

It was so good, I mean look at it! (I love that they gave us a fork too, as it was a messy sucker!)

I also grabbed some of their baklava to take home, which Simon and I ate for lunch the next morning.

After we ate, we decided to have a leisurely wander around and this is what we bought:

We got a couple of pieces of cake from Vegan Sweet Tooth, London to share. We went for the pistachio, pomegranate and rose cake. The frosting tasted like straight up soya yogurt to me, which I wasn't a fan of at first but actually it worked well with the cake. The cake was really tasty and I liked the rose flavour.


We also bought a piece of the nutella brownie which I wasn't a huge fan of, it just tasted healthy, if you know what I mean! haha. It was good but I'd have preferred it to be sweeter.

Then we found the VeggiJelli stand which interested Simon, as he has requested a trifle for his upcoming birthday! We got 4 packs to take with us.

And some ready made to eat then and there. It was pretty good and they told us it works well for trifle as the fruit won't stop it setting. The more important question I forgot to ask was will vodka stop it setting (like the sachets of veggie jelly crystals you can buy in holland and barrett!!)?? I'll let you know!


Then we went to the Eden stand so I could get a new bottle of their J'adore copy! I ended up buying that and their copy of Flower Bomb. Plus two for Simon! I've been trying to find a copy of his Mont Blanc aftershave for ages and after a chat with the lovely owner, he advised me that one of their Abercrombie copies is actually exactly the same. And it is pretty spot on!! So yay. We also picked up their copy of Jean-Paul Gaultier's classic for men.


I spotted a stand called LoveSeitan and as I do, I had to give it a go! I bought a half loaf of the original seitan, but they had a curry version, a smokey and a couple of others.

Then one of my favourite things, was some fudge from Slab! I got two bars of the Tiger Butter (chocolate and peanut butter), a cookies and cream and a salted caramel. Honestly I thought the tiger butter would be my favourite and it is really really really good, but the salted caramel was my favourite! SO good, I will definitely be ordering some more of their vegan bars from their website.

We also of course had to pay a visit to Hannah Banana's stand, as she made our amazing wedding cakes last month and we are big fans! We grabbed a couple of cupcakes, not picture, for a friend of ours working on the Sea Shepherd stand, as she missed out on our wedding cake and we also grabbed a slice of the Speculoos cake and some jaffa cakes. We did have a jaffa cake cake at our wedding, but all the jaffa cakes were eaten before I got a chance to have one, so I was really pleased that Simon spotted these - and they were yummy!!




Lastly, we managed to snag the last Drunken Mushroom Pie from the Mr Nice Pie stand; Simon and I ate this last night and it was really good!

Then before we snuck off, we grabbed a burger to share from Got No Beef (which also had a FroYo section too, but I forgot to get some). Lighting was crap so my pics are not so great, but hopefully you get the idea. This was a tasty burger! We got cheeseburgers, with the mild cheese and all the toppings :)


The lighting really was shite!


So all in all it was really good and worth the trip!

I believe the venue will be different next year, which is probably a good thing. There were definitely a few issues, it was in a nightclub so lighting was low, hence my even shitter photos than ususal and although apparently the venue said the parking was free beforehand, they changed their minds on the day - not the fault of the organisers though and I don't remember it being particularly expensive to park!

Did anyone go? What did you think?

Laters
Sal xXx

Friday 15 September 2017

A Friday Quickie about Makeup Revolution

FRI-YAY!

If you saw my Beauty Chat Video recently then you'll have seen me talk about my frustration about companies like TAM Beauty who will not confirm which products are vegan.

Well I was super excited to read yesterday that they now do show this information on their website. I went and checked and yep, it's there!

I'm so excited that I can now recommend them again, as I do think they're a great, affordable and vegan friendly brand.

To check if a product is vegan, go to the product's page on the website and just scroll down (you might have to click 'ingredients':

click to enlarge

If you're looking for loads of affordable dupes for high end or non vegan products, check out TAM Beauty!

Have an awesome weekend!

Sal xXx

Thursday 14 September 2017

The Bird in the Hand Pub, Sandhurst

Just a food quickie today.... So it's not often I find a local place with awesome vegan options (that isn't a chain restaurant!) but I heard about this place through the Reading Vegans Facebook group and Simon and I decided to go check it out yesterday.

They have a separate vegetarian menu and lots of it is either vegan already or could be made vegan. They also said to me that if you ring the day before, they'll get in extra ingredients to make something more exciting for you, specially and they always carry vegan ice cream and custard. They also make a vegan apple crumble.

I decided on sausage and mash -they use Linda McCartney sausages (my fave!) and it was delicious. Look how fancy the potato is too!!

I was too full for dessert, this was a pretty big lunch.



Next time we go we're going to try going on a Sunday for lunch and I'll call them beforehand to see what they come up with. Keep an eye on my instagram if you want to see that.

So if you live in the Surrey/Hants border areas; this place is near Yateley/Camberley - about a 5-10 minute drive from the Meadows and is well worth a visit.

Sal xXx

Tuesday 29 August 2017

Poundland / Makeup Gallery Vegan List

So I've seen LOADS of people recommend the Poundland liquid eyeliner and when I googled it I found loads of people saying it's cruelty free but couldn't find anything concrete. UPDATE: THE LINER IS NOT VEGAN ANY MORE AS OF FEB 2019.

So I messaged Poundland and here is their response (TL:DR, I'm happy they're cruelty free and they also sent me a vegan list.) PLEASE SEE THIS POST FOR AN UPDATED VEGAN LIST - FEB 2019.

My questions plus their responses in purple:

The answers to your enquiry are below.

  • Do Poundland/Makeup Gallery test on animals at any point in products (ingredients and final product), or do any 3rd parties do so on your behalf? I can confirm that none of the Make-Up Gallery products have been tested on animals, Our supplier has never commissioned animal testing to be conducted on the products that we sell.
  • Do you ensure your suppliers are cruelty free? Yes
  • Do you / would you test on animals if required by law? We currently sell Make Up Gallery inside the EU where it is illegal to be sell cosmetics tested on animals. There is no plan to expand the business outside the EU.
  • Do you sell these products in any countries where mandatory testing is required (such as mainland China)? No


NB: just to make totally sure, I went back to them to double check that there is no animal testing by Poundland or suppliers on either ingredients or finished products and they confirmed there is not!

Please see list of products suitable for Vegans and or vegetarians

I'VE POSTED AN UPDATED LIST, 27 FEB 2019 - PLEASE CLICK HERE FOR UPDATED LIST.

So there you can. I can tell you I've tried the liquid eyeliner and that shiz doesn't budge so if you want a super cheap eyeliner that works, you can do worse than that one! 

Have an awesome week!
Sal xXx


Thursday 10 August 2017

The Vegan Kind August Beauty and Lifestyle Boxes

It's that time of the month again when the Vegan Kind lifestyle box arrives! Also, it's August so it's time for a quarterly beauty box too. (I also unboxed both of these on my Instagram Stories, so if you're quick you may still catch it!)

Here's a sneak peak inside both the boxes:

Lifestyle box

Contents
- Sweet Freedom Choc Pot
- Candy Kitten Sweet Peach sweets
- Almighty Foods Strawberry Blonde Botanical Bar
- PhD Protein Superfood Mango Smoothie
- We Are Tea Super Berry tea bag
- Emily Veg Crisps
- Native Unearthed Activated Charcoal Deodorant Balm


Beauty Box

Contents:
- Eden Perfumes 10ml "Daisy"
- Chirp Body Hair Mask
- Zerreau Beauty Waterless Body Wash Foam
- Figs & Rouge Hero Cream
- Faith In Nature Brave Botanicals Shampoo sample
- Tisserand 'Happy' Aromatherapy roller ball


What do you think? As always I think both boxes are great!

Sal xXx