NEW! Natural soap - The Little Soap Company

I'm all about the natural me. I've been meaning to make my own soap (once again) when I have the time but certain circumstances mean that I have to put that on the back burner for now. So, I finished my Dr Bronner's Liquid Castille soap (really good, might review it another time), and was on the hunt for a soap that I could use in the meantime of me making a fresh batch of soap. So I obviously didn't wash during this soap-less time. I joke.

MySupermarket is my holy grail for grocery shopping, and I somehow stumbled upon this soap. What drew me to it was the fact that I was going to make a liquid soap of the SAME SCENT so it must be fate right? Only £3.50 in Tesco which is really reasonable for an organic bar of soap.



The Little Soap Company, dainty and quaint sounding, their website will give you a more of an insight into their mantra and ethics. Very promising a first glance.

It was packaged in cardboard(??) or some sort of evidently recycled material that pleased me, but didn't surprise me at all, due to it's eco nature. The smell beautifully radiated through the packaging and it was an instant hit - went straight in my basket. Needless to say, that I'm a sucker for all things natural.

Organic Lavender & Rosemary Bar Soap (110g): Pure Organic soap made with the finest natural ingredients and totally free from detergents, SLS, alcohol, parabens, sorbates, silicones, sulphates and preservatives.

I used it as soon as I got home, and strong notes of lavender and rosemary lathered well onto my skin and permeated my bathroom and further. If you're not a fan of strong scents then this isn;t for you. It feels like I'm having an aromatherapy session of some sort when using it, but sadly, I don't know if it's because my nose it too accustomed to the smell, the scent does not linger on the body. Regardless, I feel clean and relaxed due to the nature of the aforementioned essential oils.

Sidenote: I am trying my best to reduce my waste, which is quite difficult if you're someone like me that wears heavy makeup on a daily basis. Baby wipes and black soap are a thing of the past, so I'm using a homemade cleanser to remove the excess makeup. This however does not completely remove all and does not clean the face either. Face washes that I own are targeted for acne/working on my (beyond) problematic skin so I don't want to waste them on clearing makeup off my face. It was then when I decided to use this soap to clean my face as well.

I mean, it's all natural, right? The soap doesn't claim to be anything other than a natural soap and going by the ingredients, seems perfectly fine to use on my face. I am thoroughly surprised and imrpressed by how clean my face is feeling, and it could be a coincidence, but my acne scars are clearing up a lot quicker than usual too so that is a massive bonus too!

There is nothing to fault with this product, a no frills soap, cruelty free and natural so I would genuinely give it a 10/10/ In fact, I've just gone onto their website to see what else they have to offer and the reviews are conclusive with mine.

You can buy the soap and read reviews here:https://www.littlesoapcompany.co.uk/product/english-lavender-rosemary/

Ingredients: Organic Palm Oil (Sodium Palmate), Organic Coconut Oil (Sodium Cocoate), Water (Aqua), English Lavender Oil (Lavendula Angustifolia), English Rosemary Leaf Essential Oil (Rosmarinus Officinalis), Salt (Sodium Chloride), Citric Acid (Sodium Citrate) and naturally occurring within the Essential Oils, Linalool and Limonene.

How to wash fruits and vegetables thoroughly

Washing your produce, no matter where you get them from, is essential. Not just because they might've dropped somewhere, or that they're expose to the elements, but because (unless they're home grown), they are usually covered in "nasties". By nasties I mean, pesticides, preservatives, and a whole other bunch of chemicals and toxic elements that we do not need in our system. Unfortunately, running things under water just doesn't cut it anymore, so I've got a couple of quick tips when it comes to cleansing and eating the things us vegans apparently only eat. Yeh, I went there.

1) If it's not organic, try not to eat the skin. Although people agree to disagree with this, (Google is free y'know, how do you feel about this?) It is best to peel off the skin on produce like apples, cucumbers, potatoes etc, as it removes any residual pesticides lurking in the skin.

2) Use a brush and soap to wash hard fruits and vegetables - Soap?! I haven't gone mad, I promise...yet. I often have a designated washing up brush and pour a little bit of fairy liquid onto the brush, and scrub my produce clean. An old wives tale, or a Caribbean thing it may be, but it works.

3) APPLE CIDER VINEGAR. I have a whole post coming on this nauseating beauty right here. But in the meantime, one of it's many uses is getting any nasties off your produce, especially on smaller or more delicate ones such as berries. Use 1/2 cup or 100ml for (e.g) a couple of punnets of berries and a punnet of plums. Optional, alternatively AND concurrently use 2 tsp of bicabonate of soda too. Soak produce for 10-15mins, use hands to gently wash produce under plain water too.

Hope this helps!

I'm back! But I hate vegans??

At the beginning of 2016, I wrote a post here on why I've decided to go vegan...absolute cringe at that...you'll see why if you click HERE. But through trials and tribulations, slip ups and finding my own flair, I'm proud to call myself vegan!

I personally think I'm a pretty good vegan, imo, FYI...just saying.

Now I know there's apparently "different" types of vegans which I feel is kinda elitist and snobbery. If you're vegan, in my opinion? Doesn't matter whether you're an ethical vegan or not. The end goal and outcome is the same. We don't eat/consume animal products and we're doing our best to be more environmentally friendly. I went vegan for purely personal reasons but just because my initial mentality for doing so was selfish per say, I'm not vegan for the right reasons? Bullshit. (There's no filter on this blog, btw.) I'm still vegan for health, but also for ethical and environmental grounds too.

The end goal is EXACTLY the same as us vegans, in one way or another, have the same end goal - whether it be for health, ethics, environmental reasons or whatever, none of us are contributing to the cruel industry of animal production for selfish gain.

Now, forgive me for any grammatical errors or if anyone takes offence to this (I'm ranting without the editing), however, self righteous "I'm ONLY vegan for the animals and health vegans are sooooo annoying" vegans need to step back down off their high horses. Instead of denigrating those in a community that we are ALL apart of, let's uplift each other and unite to try and spread awareness to those not engaged with veganism. You want to eat kale salad everyday? That's cool. You wanna eat potato waffles and vegan nuggets all the time? You do you. You want to spend your free time preaching the benefits of veganism whether it be for for the self or the ethics? Also good. You wanna sit and drink three glasses of vegan baileys whilst writing a blog post? Well...ok? Anyways, let's stop criticising each other on "who's a better vegan" and just make like a smoothie and chill :)

Let's sway veganism from the superfluous, prestige and borderline charm offensive omniscient flair us vegans more often than not get categorised as. Let's spread ALL the benefits of veganism that have benefited us and can benefit others too!

Notting Hill Carnival, 2017

Anyway, rant over. I'm *hopefully* back and ready to blog about all the food, fashion, beauty etc etc etc so I'm hoping anyone crazy enough to even read my blog, will find something helpful...or probably somewhat hilarious. Here for your entertainment. Follow me, it's free ;)

♡ Peace n love ♡

(Ps - was defo drinking a lot of the new vegan baileys, so excuse the rambling. Btw, It's lush...blog post on it soon, probably 4 bottles later...)