Celtic Herbal - Balms and Candles

We at The Amazing Blog tend to opt for peaceful scents that lift our mood, and Celtic Herbal certainly does just the trick. Celtic Herbal is a Welsh artisan company, who incorporate both their love for natural ingredients, and the surrounding Welsh landscape, the one in which they source some of their key ingredients. What makes each product all the more special, is the fact that they are handmade, and not tested on animals.

We tried four products from their range: two balms and two candles. The handy-sized balms offer a simple solution for dry and cracked skin and fit perfectly into our handbags to use on the go. Celtic Herbal’s Peppermint Lip Balm is made from 100% natural beeswax and has a cooling effect. It’s made up of lovely ingredients, like peppermint oil, sweet almond oil, castor seed oil, sunflower seed oil, and calendula officinalis flower extract. We loved the piquant of the mint which gave a teeny bit of a tingle, and we found that this balm kept our lips moist and supple throughout the day.

With the Celtic Herbal Sleep Balm with Mandarin & Ylang Ylang, we found that when applied to the pulse points it helped to relax our mind. This Sleep Balm is made with warming mandarin oil to ease pressure and Ylang Ylang for calmness. It’s 100% natural and contains mandarin orange peel oil, beeswax, sweet almond oil, castor seed oil, and cananga odorata flower oil. Good to apply at the end of a busy day to bring peace and harmony.

Aromatherapy harnesses the power of botanicals and essential oils, and there are so many different ways to utilise it. Celtic Herbal has created candles from ethically sourced soy wax which are made in small batches to ensure the highest quality. Their Natural Rose Geranium & Grapefruit Travel Soy Candle comes from the Refresh range, emitting a sweet and floral scent that is connected to the balance of the nervous system. It’s said to help lift depression and relieve anxiety - we found it very mood enhancing.

The final product that we tried was their Natural Mandarin, Lime & Basil Travel Soy Candle. This comes from the Purify range. Its warm and uplifting scent intends to bring clarity and fresh perspectives. Perfect to help you unwind after a long journey. The 30g travel candles have a clean burning time of four hours, and the 105g candles can last up to twenty-five hours. Time to breathe in and relax! Purchase the Celtic Herbal Peppermint Lip Balm 15g here for £4.00; Sleep Balm with Mandarin & Ylang Ylang 25g here for £5.50; Natural Rose Geranium & Grapefruit Travel Soy Candle 30g here for £5.50; Natural Mandarin, Lime & Basil Travel Soy Candle 30g here for £5.50.

Friday Favourites: Perfume boxes

The scent of a perfume often reveals a person’s personality. Finding the right fragrance that embodies who we are is a struggle. With so many fragrances out there, it can feel impossible to narrow it down. The Amazing Blog has rounded up some fantastic fragrances that we are sure you will love. Whether you prefer a sensual, floral or bold scent, there is something that will suit you. These Discovery and Sample sets are also the perfect gift!

JO LOVES FRANGRANCE DISCOVERY GIFT EXPERIENCE

The famous Jo Malone rules the fragrance market, and for good reason! Jo started her fast-growing company, Jo Malone London, in her London kitchen. This scent mixologist gained huge recognition for her accomplishments, leading to her selling the company to Estée Lauder Companies in 1999 where she worked as the Creative Director until 2006.

Jo Malone is back with her new company Jo Loves, inspired by her beloved memories. We are so excited to see new beautiful and high-quality fragrances from her! The Jo Loves Fragrance Discovery Gift Experience is a wonderful way to explore some of Jo Malone’s long-lasting incredible scents to find one that best suits you. The Fragrance Discovery Gift Experience consists of ten 2ml vials. The best part? Jo Loves will send you your favourite fragrance in the form of a 50ml bottle of Eau de Toilette. The fragrances include Pomelo, White Rose & Lemon Leaves, Mandarin, Smoked Plum & Leather, Red Truffle 21, Shards of Cedar & Red Thyme, No. 42 The Flower Shop, Gardenia, Pink Vetiver, and Green Orange & Coriander. With this wide array of aromas to test and choose from, you are sure to fall in love with at least one!

Our go-to of the bunch has to be the Smoked Plum & Leather, but you can purchase the set here for £105 to see which one you fancy.

SANA JARDIN DISCOVERY SET

Next up, we’ve got the Sana Jardin Discovery Set. Sana Jardin is the first socially-conscious luxury fragrance brand. They strive to create social change through commerce called The Beyond Sustainability Movement. This movement aims to make female entrepreneurs agents of change in their communities while preserving that commnicity's skills. This set comes with seven vials of 2ml Eau de Parfums. The first fragrance is Berber Blonde No. 1, which has a slightly musky aroma with beautiful notes of Moroccan orange blossom and North African neroli. Tiger By Her Side No. 2 is just as seductive as the name suggests. It has notes of amber, Moroccan rose, patchouli and Somalian Incense. It is the perfect scent for those who want to get in touch with their wild side. Savage Jasime No. 3 is a rather heady, musky scent as well, but with a floral twist from the infusion of Moroccan jasmine.

Sandalwood Temple No. 4 is a blend of East Indian Sandalwood, cedarwood, Madagascan vanilla, neroli, and Haitian vetiver. It all comes together to create a wonderfully seductive scent that is sure to turn heads once others get a whiff. Celestial Patchouli No. 5 has an intense and rich aroma with notes of patchouli, leather, sandalwood. Not only that, there are floral hints of rose and jasmine with a touch of cinnamon bark for an invigorating experience. Nubian Musk No. 6 is another musky scent that is amplified by a bit of vanilla, jasmine, rose, and grapefruit flower. Revolution De La Fleur No. 7 is a tropical and floral fragrance comprised of Moroccan ylang-ylang and frangipani.

If these fragrances have caught your interest, you can purchase the 7 x 2ml vials of Eau de Parfum from Sana Jardin Discovery Set here for £30.

APRIL AROMATICS

One of our newest discoveries is the Deluxe Sample Set from April Aromatics. Founded by perfumer Tanja Bochnig in New York, April Aromatics perfumes are free from animal ingredients (besides beeswax), certified organic or wild-crafted, and contain 100% natural ingredients. In addition, the packaging is recyclable! The April Aromatics 7 Chakra Oil Set was a winner of the 2018 Beauty Shortlist Editors' Choice Award. 

With this set, you receive 10 out of the range of 15 fragrances that they offer. Each Eau de Parfum vial contains 2.5ml of the fragrance, which they say equates to about 28 spritzes. These scents are deliciously intense and super long-lasting. To make the choice a bit easier on you, for the summer evenings, we recommend adding Ray of Light and Rosenlust to your list. These two have unique and evocative aromas that we don’t want to ever run out! Ray of Light has notes of lemon, lime, pink grapefruit, and bergamot. A citrus infusion! Rosenlust contains a soft floral mix of tonka, ambrette, and sandalwood.

You can purchase the Deluxe Sample Set of 10 x 2.5ml vials of Eau de Parfum from April Aromatics here for €111.

EDEN PERFUMES SAMPLE GIFT BOX

If you are looking for an environmentally-conscious scent, then we recommend Eden Perfumes. Eden Perfumes is a family-run vegan company from beautiful Brighton. They say: "Botanical cruelty-free perfumes consciously crafted with respect to the planet and all beings." Their products are 100% vegan and not tested on animals. They have similar, not identical, scents to popular ones on the market with over 200 fragrances to choose from, all of the fragrances come in Eau de Parfum strength, not Eau de Toilette! Unlike many others, Eden Perfumes doesn't contain animal notes, such as musk, milk, and honey.

We tried a Sample Gift Box where you can choose your own three combinations. The one that Eden Perfumes sent us contained these three scents: No. 309 Daisy (a floral, woody musk), No. 420 Ispahan Oud (oriental floral; unisex), and No. 475 Neroli (subtly sweet and citrus aromatic; unisex). While those three scents are wildly different and luxurious, we were drawn to Daisy and felt that with its versatility, it could to be worn day through to night. Eden Perfumes has dozens of scents, all of which are very reasonably priced. We deeply encourage you to see the full range for a little spoiling fragrance spree.

Purchase an Eden Perfumes Gift Box of 3  x 10ml bottles of your choice for £21.60 here. Curious about the scents we highlighted? Then you too can purchase a 30ml bottle of No. 309 Daisy, No. 420 Ispahan Oud, and No. 475 Neroli for £18.00 each.

We'd like to give a special thank you to April Aromatics for sending us a 30ml bottle of Rose L’Orange, which we will be reviewing in August. We hope that we have inspired you with our choices. Now get spritzing! 

Craft Club Box

Here at The Amazing Blog we love crafting—but sometimes we find that we don’t have the time or patience to gather ideas and all of the supplies for new projects. Luckily, Craft Club Box takes care of that problem for us! 

The monthly subscription service delivers a sewing kit and instructions for one complete project plus extra crafting supplies to grow your collection, along with a complementary eMagazine. The kits are suitable for all ages and levels of sewing experience, so they’re perfect whether you’re old or new. We think Craft Club Box would also be the perfect gift for your friends or family! To give you an idea of what it's like, February’s box called “Go Nuts For Doughnuts!” featured an incredibly cute stuffed doughnut pincushion project, complete with a full set of instructions, needles, pins, felt, thread, and surprise extras.

The boxes cost £10 per month plus £3 p&p and can be purchased in increments of 3 months, 6 months, or 12 months (save up to 10%). If you’re interested in getting crafty or purchasing a subscription for a friend, check them out here!

Friday Favourites - Cookbooks

With a weekend of dinner parties ahead of us, what better way to spend an early evening than flicking through a plethora of new cookbooks for some heavenly inspiration. Here at The Amazing Blog, we want to share with you some of the most mouth watering  new cookbooks that have just launched.

Honey & Co  is a tiny restaurant hidden in the backstreets of Central London. It lures you in with their talent of baked goodies. Bringing food from the Middle East, husband and wife team Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich founded Honey & Co. which specialises in the most yummy selection cakes and desserts.

However, now you don’t even need to leave the comfort of your home to get these delicious desserts, as Sarit and Itamar have launched Honey & Co cookbook. With recipes such a spiced carrot and walnut cake, raspberry and rose kadaif nests and apricot and elderflower jam just to name a few. Our favourite has to be cranberry, orange and almond caramel cookies. A simple and easy recipe and which had everyones taste buds going as soon as we opened the oven. Honey & Co: The Baking Book by Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich is published by Saltyard Books in £25 hardback. Alternatively you can buy online here from The Book People. Also available as an eBook. 

As fruit goes with seasons so does cheese and reading through the pages of A Year in Cheese cookbook by Alex and Leo Guarneri we discovered so many things we didn’t know about this amazing source of calcium, we were left amazed! Alex and Leo take us on a journey through the seasons, explaining little gems like why you can’t have a proper goat’s curd in the Winter.

Their eye catching pictures will help you to spring from this damp February into a lustrous Summer with the freshness of their mozzarella and ricotta recipes.  And when it gets colder and all you want is to stay at home having dinner with your closest friends, the gruyere and reblochon menu suggestions will be the perfect choice. The recipes are so easy to follow that once you finished you just can't wait to start cooking again! If you want to explore the world of cheese then look no further. The book is available on White Stuff here for £20.

The finalist contestant Luis Troyano from The Great British Bake Off in 2014, decided to share his culinary knowledge publishing his very own book; Bake it Great. It is not a random collection of recipes but a proper baking course that guided us from the fundamentals. Starting from fillings like jam and custard, Luis teaches us how to cook the perfect bases for our little gastronomic accomplishments.

Here there is a recipe for every palate, we only had to open the book and whatever creation came up, we were only too happy to wear our aprons and start baking. We particularly liked the Butterscotch meringue tart and the traditional Empanadas. What we really liked was that at the very end of the book Luis listed few of the best shops where to find some of the harder to find ingredients. Buy your copy here a £13.60 for the hardcover and £10.79 for the Kindle edition.

Hosting a party and need a little inspiration for canapes? Look no further as the Clink Canape Cookbook has got it covered. Behind this cookbook is a heart-warming story, as it is created by Alberto Crisci founder of Clink Charity. This charity aims to reduce re-offending of prisoners through training and rehabilitation giving them new found culinary skills. These are then put into use at the Clink Restaurants in London, Wales, Cheshire and Surrey.

Alberto has compiled a collection of over 100 different canapé recipes from the friends, ambassadors and also from the prisoners at the Clink. With delicious recipes like mushroom and stilton tartlets, peach with cured ham bruschetta and smoked eel and beef terrine with horseradish; this cookbook is sure to get your taste buds tingling with delight. Grab the Clink Canapé Cookbook here for £14.99

Sally Clarke founded her legendary Notting Hill restaurant in 1984, pioneering seasonal fine dining and British cuisine. Now she celebrates it's thirty year anniversary by writing her own cookbook, 30 Ingredients. This book captures Sally’s love and passion for simple cooking.

The recipes are surrounded by Sally’s favourite thirty ingredients that she loves to cook with. There are so many delicious recipes with salad of duck breast with balsamic-roasted peaches and shallots to baked tomatoes with garlic and herb crumbs, you honestly wont know where to start! For more cooking inspiration, click here to get your copy at only £19.99.

Farrington Oils - Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil

Here at The Amazing Blog, we’re always looking for interesting new ways to spice up our meals. Experimenting with flavours has been known to end in disaster, but there’s always the possibility of discovering something utterly delicious. When we swapped out our regular Olive Oil for Farrington’s Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil, we were pleasantly surprised by the tasty flavour.

With the launch of Mellow Yellow in 2005, Farrington’s became the first ‘seed to bottle’ producer in Britain. In addition to having a cutely designed bottle, this oil has great health benefits, being cold-pressed, low in saturated fat content and packed full of Omega 3. Did we mention that it’s also vegan, gluten-free, and dairy-free? We love to drizzle it over salads, and think it’s going to make a delicious addition to some of our summer dishes (if it lasts that long). If you’re looking to be more adventurous with the oil, check out the brand’s product page for yummy recipes. We’ve got our eye on the Courgette Cake.

Farrington’s Mellow Yellow Rapeseed Oil is available in supermarkets across Britain and Ireland in both 250ml and 500ml bottles, all of which are listed on the brand’s website.