Weekly Round-Up #25

Baked:  Mum's birthday cake

It's only been three weeks since I made my Dad's birthday cake, so I wasn't really feeling like chocolate fudge was an option, so after a quick poll on Twitter I decided to make carrot and walnut with cream cheese frosting. It's ridiculously easy to make, but was one of my favourite cakes ever, either pre or post vegan. I've had some interest in posting about how I make my cakes so easy, so next time I go shopping I'll be sure to get what I need a write a post about it. You'll see that I cheat A LOT.

I Promise You ...

As you may already know, I'm a huge fan of blogs and am subscribed to hundreds of them, I also have a rather large amount of subscriptions on YouTube. Over the past couple of weeks I've been noticing a lot of things that I personally don't like on blogs and videos, not to say that there is anything wrong with any of them, they're just not my cup of tea. They've made me think about a few blog related things and have helped me come up with a little list of things that I promise you won't ever see from me.

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Soap and Glory Hand Creams | The Comparison

I'm a big lover of hand creams and rarely go more than a couple of hours without applying some. Because I have a dog and I'm constantly playing with her and her toys, I wash my hands a lot, and that can leave the skin on my hands really dry and dehydrated. A good hand cream can solve that in one use. A brand that I've been enjoying a lot over the last year is Soap and Glory, particularly their skin care, and with 3 hand creams from them on sale I decided to buy them all and see what the difference is.

Manicure Monday | OCC - Black Dahlia

As I'm sure you'll have noticed by now, I have a bit of a thing for red-black nail polishes. I seem to have bought quite a lot over the last few months, and I'm always on the hunt for the perfect shade, not that I know exactly what I'm looking for, I just hope that I'll know when I see it. My latest addition to my red-black collection is Black Dahlia from OCC, which shares its name with the Lip Tar.

Weekly Round-Up #24

Made:  Pancakes

Pancakes are my quick and easy go-to meal when I'm craving something naughty but not fatty. I don't use any butter or oil and the only calorific thing is the maple syrup, so as long as you burn off the calories they're not that bad for you. I usually have fruit on my pancakes, whatever I have in the house will do, but I particularly like the taste of berries with maple syrup, so this time I had blueberries. I eyeball the measurements rather than use a recipe, but if anyone is interested I can write it down and post it here, let me know if that's something you'd like to see.

Lush Haul #2 | Boxing Day Sale

It's not often that I post a haul, but when I do it's because I'm genuinely excited about what I've bought, and this is the most excited I've been about a haul all year (in this instance I'm still classing it as 2014 because that's when I made my order). As you probably know already, Lush hold a sale on Boxing Day to get rid of their Christmas range, some products were 50% off, some quite a bit more. Because of the huge number of orders placed on Boxing Day I only received my parcel yesterday, but thankfully everything was present and correct. I also needed some of my staple products so I've included those at the end, where I'll attempt to see how much money I've saved.

P2 Gold & Crown Most Wanted Eyebrow Gel | Review

When I first saw the P2 Gold & Crown Eyebrow Gel on the Instagram account of the wonderful Kat from Vegan Beauty Studio, I went a little bit gaga over it. I've been looking for a vegan dupe for the Benefit Gimme Brow for months now but every product I found was either tested on animals or contained animal derived ingredients, so seeing that one suitable for vegans was available I knew I had to get my hands on it. There was only one problem, I couldn't find it online anywhere, it only seemed to be available in mainland Europe. After talking with Kat, she very kindly offered to send it to me.

Manicure Monday | Barry M - Raspberry

There's a lot to be said for a good red nail polish. Whether you want a classic red, pillar box red or something ever so slightly different, there's a red for every occasion and person. I have more reds than is probably normal, but they all have a special place in my heart, and none more so than Raspberry from Barry M.

Weekly Round-up #23

Bought:  Even more stationery

My Problem with Being Called a 'Hater'

There are few names that you can call me that really bother me, but the one that's being thrown around the internet a lot at the moment is 'hater'. It bother me for a few reasons, let me tell you why.

My Most Used Vegan Products of 2014

2014 was a really great year for me, I came a long way from my serious illness in 2013 and have made more than a full recovery. I'm in the best health I've been in for quite some years, I got out and saw friends that I hadn't seen in years and I started this blog. Partly due to reviewing products on this blog and partly to replace my old and outdated make-up, I was able to try a large selection of new products, some of which I really love and use all the time, so I thought I'd break down the year and tell you about the 15 things I really couldn't get enough of in 2014.

Manicure Monday | China Glaze - VII

After all of the glitter and nail gems I've been wearing the last few weeks I really fancied a change of pace, so went on the hunt for a simple creme polish that was in the Marsala spectrum. If you don't already know, Marsala is the Pantone colour of the year for 2015, so what better to wear for my first Manicure Monday of the year than the shade that China Glaze have dubbed to be their perfect Marsala polish?

Weekly Round-up #22

Baked:  Dad's birthday cake

It was my Dad's birthday at the beginning of the week, so I made him a chocolate fudge birthday cake, I didn't manage to get a good photo of it before it was cut, which is probably a good thing because it looked like a 4 year old decorated it. It was delicious and very rich, and I ended up having it for breakfast 2 days in a row because he gave me some to bring home. I think I may need to stick to salad for a couple of weeks to counteract all of the junk food I've eaten over the holidays.

Monthly Favourites | December 2014

December was a pretty good month for me, I was in a really great mood for most of it and I got a lot done. Because I was so busy, particularly in the last couple of weeks of it, I didn't have much chance to try a lot of new products, it was all about being as quick as I could whilst still looking put together. I did pay more attention to skin care though, after all it has been really cold, and my skin always suffers when the weather changes. The following are some of the new things I used in December, and a few old favourites too.

Palladio Beauty Animal Testing Policy

I recently contacted Palladio Beauty to ask them what their animal testing policy was, and to see if they could provide me with a list of their products which are suitable for vegans. This is what they had to say: