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

Festive Gift Ideas for Lamey McLate Shoppers!

There are those people in life that are super organised, do all their Christmas shopping in the previous year's boxing day sales and have it wrapped by mid june.

I'm not one of them.

If like me you've just realised you have less than 2 weeks until the day itself and you haven't done any shopping yet and are dreading facing the crowds of the high street, you are not alone.

Here's some options for gifts that you can buy online and still get delivered before Chrimbo!

Lush 
An obvious one but a good one. Lush always have a tonne of awesome product releases for the holiday season (check out my post about it HERE) and they also, very handily, do a tonne of gift sets that are already beautifully wrapped and loads of them are vegan.

Check out their selection of gift sets HERE.

Food Hampers
If you don't fancy making your own, you could order one of these awesome raw food hampers from Nama! You need to leave a few days for posting as they make the contents fresh.

Certain areas within London, the delivery is free but they do ship outside of London too. Order by 22nd December for one of these hampers,

Nama recently sent me a selection of some of the items you can find in their hampers and I made a little taste test video:

Vegan Tuck Box
You can order a subscription or a single box for someone HERE. There are a bunch of boxes, including a gluten free one for the GF people in your life. Psst, you need to order by the 18th December from this site to get it before Christmas.

Vegan Kind Box
Are a subscription service that do a monthly food box and a quarterly beauty box. I have a beauty subscription with them that is totally worth it, in my opinion. You can buy past boxes as gifts, or they also have a whole page dedicated to gifts and gift sets HERE.

Real Techniques
RT often have gift sets out at this time of year and I think this one is pretty awesome. Good selection of brushes (I am a HUGE fan of RT's brushes) and a carry case too. Available from Superdrug.

Tanya Burr Beauty Box
The TB line is carried at Superdrug also and the bits I have tried have been lovely for the price. The range is cruelty free and they advised me it's vegan friendly. I did find a palette (limited edition) at this time last year that had carmine in, so now I always check through the ingredients and they seem fine on this. Available HERE.

In this box it looks like you get a trio of eyeshadows, a lip gloss, liquid highlighter, a mirror, some eyelashes and a couple of nail files. It looks pretty nice and I do like the formula of the TB eyeshadows.

Eden Perfumes

Most high end perfumes are NOT cruelty free. But if you have a favourite designer scent, chances are Eden makes a cruelty free, vegan dupe for it. I have the J'adore copy (Dior) and it is amazing!

Eden have a shop in Brighton but ship as well from their website.

Ethical Superstore

The Ethical Superstore has a section for gifts and you can filter vegan items - last posting day is 19 December on this site. 

They have booja booja truffles. Just sayin'!

Violent Veg Desk Calendar 2017

Because who doesn't want a desk calendar? I buy the Violent Veg one every year, have for at least the last 3 or 4 years now and I've already ordered next year's too. I normally buy it from one of the Calendar Club shops or stalls that always pops up in one of my local towns but as I'm avoiding the high street like the plague right now, I got it from amazon. You can also buy it from HERE (along with a tonne of other options, if hilarious veg are not for you!) for less than I paid for it from amazon. DAMMIT!

Fancypants Makeup from Charlotte Tilbury

For the fancy lady in your life - why not get her some highfalutin* makeup from Charlotte Tilbury! (*Word of the day toilet paper?)

CT is one of the only luxury makeup brands that is actually cruelty free and they have lots of vegan options (Logical Harmony has a list HERE). Also, if you go onto her site, one of the changing stories on her front page tells you how long you've got left to order in time for Christmas (8 days at the time of writing this on 14 December!!)

Personally, I've been eyeing the Filmstar Bronze and Glow kit for a LONG time. In my mind it is going to be part of my wedding makeup next year hahaha

Also, hardly any high end eyeshadow palettes are vegan, but CT has a few and I think this Golden Goddess palette looks beautiful!

More makeup

Also, you have until 19th December to order from Makeup Without Malice, which is a website that sells only vegan and cruelty free makeup!! Like this awesome VE Cosmetics eyeshadow palette!

Not really vegan related, but I found this awesome Dinosaur play doh (ish) set, for any of you that, like me, have a little family member who is obsessed with dinosaurs. If you have prime you will get this in a couple of days!

And lastly, if you really wanna get someone to sleep with love you, get them an Amazon Echo Dot! Simon got one from his friends for his birthday last month and it is AWESOME. I just kind of like bossing Alexa around. What? Don't judge me. "Alexa, play the Backstreet Boys. Erm, I mean Led Zep, play Led Zeppelin!!"

Happy shopping!
Sal xXx

Lush 2016 Festive Products

A few weeks back, I attended a blogger event at Lush in Basingstoke, where they showed us all the new Christmas products. Settle in guys, there's a lot to go through.

If you want to see my video about the event, that goes through my the products I bought on the day / what freebies I was given, please check it out below.

Otherwise, onto the new stuff. If you're a fan of Lush, you'll know they are super vegan friendly and completely against animal testing.

There were so many products that I would literally be here all day writing about them. So I'm going go through the products that I liked the most. To see the full Christmas range from Lush, take a look at their website, HERE.

All the products listed below are Vegan

Firstly, they now make 1KG bottles of Snow Fairy shower gel!! I already have a stash so didn't buy any but that is pretty exciting. (They also do a 1KG of Rose Jam for you RJ fans out there!)

BATH BOMBS/BALLISTICS 

Never Mind the Ballistics: This one is half covered with pink cocoa butter so that it melts slower than the other side. It smells amazing and is pretty cool looking.

The official info from Lush: "God save the clean! This bath bomb contains Lime and Sweet Orange to shake up your mood. Luxurious fair trade cocoa butter melts in the bath to add moisture to the skin and helps the bath bomb to roll in the water, creating a colourful, spinning spectacle. Fresh Bananas are blended in to the mix, these feed the skin with vitamins A, C and E. This innovative bath bomb is multi layered and sprayed with vivid pink cocoa butter bath melt that melts whilst the yellow size fizzes faster- this one was inspired by the Sex Pistols "Never Mind The Bollocks" album."

January Favourites

Helloooo,

It's February, so it's time for a favourites post. They're mostly makeup but there's a few food bits too, so I'm just gonna mix it up.

Firstly, this Pro Melt liquid lipstick/gloss from Freedom Makeup. The colour I love is called Up and it's just the most perfect pink. I find myself reaching for this almost every day as it goes with most eye looks. So pretty. It's a comfortable texture too, it's kind of like a very pigmented gloss, but melts is a good description.

A food one - M&S brought out loads of gelatine free sweets recently, YAY. Not all of them are vegan - some of the shiny sweets have beeswax in. But these are vegan and they are SO good. They really do taste like the fizzy drinks they represent. Yummy.

Then these churros. These are from Asda's frozen section and they just take about 10 minutes in the oven. To melt the choccy sachet, I just chuck it in a cup of hot water. OMG these are so good. I don't think they're limited edition either!

Next up, my new phone case! I found this in tesco, heheh. It's a clear case so you can see the colour of your phone through it, but it's covered in pugs! So cute.

I discovered these recently. They are salty snacks made of snap peas and yes they are vegetabley and they don't fool me into thinking they're crisps. But they're pretty nice for a lower fat snack! I saw a few flavours in the supermarket too.

OK I probably shouldn't really include this, because I literally opened it 2 days ago. However, I LOVE it already. It's the Indelible Paint in Purplexed by Medusa Makeup (I got it from Cutecosmetics.co.uk). Firstly the shade is gorgeous but most important, it is SO pigmented.

This is seriously one swipe! Most coloured eyeliner, even awesome ones like Makeup Geek's, need a second layer to get full pigmentation. This doesn't at all. One swipe! Look at that... amazing!

I got this cute lil piggy from Primark, of all places. Basically it suckers onto the back of your phone and you can then use it as a stand. Really helpful when I'm watching youtube on my phone! :)

Next up is this baby; Lush's Ultrabalm. I feel like I've had a stinking cold for a month. I haven't but I feel like it! This has been saving my poor, chapped, sore nose. I put a teeny bit of this on my nostrils after every nose blow and it helped so much. I have also been using it as lip balm, because my lips have been mega mega dry.

Having a cold plays extra havoc on my already dry skin. It's already dry because it's been so cold but add a stupid cold on and ergh. So I find that foundations with less coverage are better. So I've been reaching for this foundation a lot. The shade is pretty much a perfect match for me and I love the coverage of it. It's enough to even out my skin but it's not heavy; my skin still looks like skin. I can then use concealer to cover any imperfections showing through.

Something I've been loving recently is the Becca Under Eye Brightening Corrector. It's brightening, obviously but also it works as kind of a primer for your concealer. I have pretty dark circles under my eyes and this helps a lot and gives me a lovely bright inner corner too.

Lastly, is another Freedom product; the brow powder. I use Soft Brown, just the lighter of the 2 shades. I bought this back in December and I loved it straight away. It's the perfect shade for me and it's really soft and blends out perfectly. They do a pro palette of all their shades which I am definitely picking up for my pro kit. Freedom is super affordable and you can find it in Superdrug.

 

So that's it. What have you all been loving this month?

Sal xXx

Some new stuff to play with

Today I thought I'd show you a couple of new things I've bought recently and my first impressions of them. First up:

The Tanya Burr Peachy Glow Palette

Look... so pretty! I do love the packaging on Tanya's range and some of the Christmas stuff which is out now I believe, looks very intriguing.

This palette has a bronzer, a blush and a highlighter.

The bronzer is pretty pigmented and I am very pale so I use a super fluffy powder brush or a duo fibre face brush to apply it. It has a bit of shimmer in and is quite warm; it's lovely.

The blush, is a lot darker (on me) than it looks. I don't think it works on my skin tone WITH the bronzer, alone it's quite nice.

The highlighter is lovely, really lovely, but then you might have guess that I love me some glowage!

I thought I had taken swatch photos but I didn't, sorry peeps. But look how pretty they are. I love the embossing on the TB shadows and powders, so cute.

Next up:

Lush's Rosy Cheeks Fresh Face Mask
I thought this was limited edition, but apparently not, as it's still showing on the Lush website.

I applied this with a flat foundation brush (once a beautician, always a beautician) as I didn't want to dip my fingers into a fresh mask. It's got kaolin in, so it's one of those that dries and then you can very satisfyingly make stupid faces til it cracks!

I used it once today an washed it off in the shower. I love the smell (I'm a sucker for anything rosy). I need a few more uses, however it's approaching it's use by date fast. Hopefully I'll get a couple more goes out of it.

Look how sexeh I am!

That's all for today, but I do have a couple of other new things to play with too, as well as a buttload of stuff from NY that I still haven't tried! 

Sal xXx

October Favourites

It's almost the end of the month so I thought it was good timing for a favourites post. I don't have many this month; mainly due to being away and a lot of my favourites this month are the same as last month! Also, I currently have lower back spasms, so these photos are brought to you courtesy of diazepam! haha

Starting with this one:

Lush solid perfume in Honey I Washed the Kids

This was limited edition and I believe it's all gone now, in fact it was gone in about 2 hours after it went on sale, because it was a 'kitchen' item. It was totally by chance that I found out they were going to sell this briefly but I had to buy it. This used to be my favourite Lush fragrance and I was really sad when they discontinued it because the soap with the same fragrance isn't vegan.

I lovvvve the smell of this perfume. It doesn't last as long as the other lush solid perfumes do, maybe because it's a pot, not a stick, so you probably don't actually put as much on. But it's teeny so it's perfect for throwing in your bag for a touch up.

 

B. Replenishing Facial Oil
I bought this a while ago and have recently started using it more often and have been loving it. It smells of roses and it's great for dry skin. I generally use a serum for my morning moisturiser, as I tend to do my makeup straight after moisturising. This though is great for nighttime. I put about 3 drops, that's all you need, onto my fingertips and massage it into clean skin. When I wake up, it's all sunk in and my skin feels really nice. I get really dry skin, especially at this time of year and this definitely helps.

Autograph Lipstick in Parfait Pink
I have had this lipstick in my collection for AGES but I recently dug it out for a bridal makeup trial I did a while ago, thinking it would be the perfect colour for the bride to be's complexion (it was!). Anyway I remembered how much I love it. Perfect nude peachy pink, everyday colour.  Unfortunately, I don't think they make this colour anymore, which is a real shame; but I do love the M&S lipsticks. (For Autograph's vegan options, take a look at my recent post.)

It's a bit lighter on the lips, in real life.

Superdrug Micellar Cleansing Wipes
Firstly I should say I never use wipes on my face and don't recommend them. But I do like them for cleaning up and for taking off swatches when I'm taking photos. They take most makeup off in one swipe and they don't smell obnoxious either. I haven't tried them on my face because as I said, I'm not a fan of wipes for the face and the last time I tried Micellar water, it broke me out. But if you like wipes, give them a go.

GOSH Velvet Touch Lipliner in Pink Pleasure
Such a pretty vibrant pink. I love these liners (both the eye and lip liners); they are really creamy but also really long lasting. This looks great alone, or with a gloss or lipstick over the top to mute it a bit.

Sorry it's a bit of a crap swatch, to see it on me, check out my last FOTD post.

B. Stunning Vibrant Eye Shimmers
I have a few of these, my favourite one is Copper and I've been using that a lot lately, but could I find the bugger to photograph it? No. No I could not. So here's a couple of others I have.

This shade is called Rockstar and it's such a beautiful silvery taupe. It's seriously gorgeous. I use it all over the lid with a nice warm brown in the crease and it makes a lovely and really quick smokey eye! These set and once they set, they don't budge. Love them. I like to apply them with my next favourite....

Crown Infinity Blending Fluff Brush
I ordered this brush for a post I'm working on and I love it. In shape and size, it's very similar to the MAC 217 which is neither cruelty free or vegan. Synthetic brushes are the best thing for cream shadow, so this brush is great for applying the cream shadows I mentioned above. You can blend with it and pack colour on too. Plus it washes up really well. Crown Brushes are awesome, cheap and have lots of vegan options.

My last favourite are these brilliant earrings from Sour Cherry. I saw them and had to have them, because Moss is one of the greatest characters ever. Ever. 

Look at these motherflipping things, they are ruddy awesome. Simon thinks they look tacky; personally that makes them ever better in my book! haha

So that is it for this month.

I have decided that in November, I'm going to Instagram a picture of my lipstick/lip product every day and make sure that it's different every day. So if you want to see 30 days of vegan lip products, follow me on Instagram. Although if you don't have Instagram, don't worry; I'll be recapping each week's lips of the day on here and also my Facebook page.

Also, if you have Instagram and want to join in (you don't have to do it every day, but if you are rocking an ace colour one day and want to document it) just hashtag it #alienontoast or #monthofveganlips so I can see it!

Sal
xXx