Lightopia Festival 2020

At The Amazing Blog we love to share our #AmazingFinds and today we want to tell you about the breathtaking Lightopia Festival which has just opened. Perhaps you’ve already heard about it? Well, this year be prepared to be blown away by the new additions to this lighting phenomime which showcases at London’s Chiswick House Gardens, until 1st March.

Lightopia invites us to “step into a world like no other” and explore landscapes of light, lanterns in all shapes and sizes, and massive 3D projections. Prepare to be carried into a virtually magical universe where nature seems to prevail and magnify itself throughout the art of enlightenment.  You follow along the smartly illuminated path, where attention, senses and even emotions are mobilised by the different forms - some of them are interactive - the various designs or colours of the lanterns and the impressive 3D projections which really give life to the show. 

However, besides visual appeal, Lightopia also has a cultural and spiritual dimension. The Festival is inspired by an ancient Chinese celebration during which people light thousands of lanterns to ward off evil spirits and symbolise a bright future. Just as the traditional Chinese lanterns, Lightopia installations carry a meaning. 

The theme of the Festival this year is Harmony. The artworks symbolically refer to various life and human experiences. The Love Gate, Tree of Life and Happy Valley are among other art installations with evocative names. They make big dreamers feel like they’re on some kind of initiatory voyage where concepts and values such as positive energy, inclusivity or spirituality are poetically illustrated. Yet, you have to wait until nightfall to see the magic happen...

The Lightopia Festival is a unique experience to share with family, friends or alone. This is a chance to have a pleasant walk, create good, shining memories and take some beautiful pictures. 

But don’t take our word for it, go and see for yourself! You can book your ticket on Eventbrite here: prices (without the booking fees) go up to £13 for a child ticket; £20 for the adult fare. We recommend booking your ticket online in advance as the tickets booked or bought on-site are slightly more expensive. You can also find further information on the Lightopia Festival, here.

Friday Favourites – Healing Face Mists

Don’t you love it when you wake up, spray your face with a natural, delicate and fresh face mist, both invigorating and uplifting, all to start your day off right. At The Amazing Blog, we’ve always been keen on facial mists, but in our recent search we’ve found that too many high street facial mists are ineffective, watery or filled with chemicals. Today we’re happy to say that we’ve discovered some new and natural healing mist solutions to share with you.  We hope you enjoy them as much as we have.

The first #Amazingfind healing mist we have is from Max and Me, a company dedicated to making you look better but also feeling better.

The brand was founded by Max and Tanja Gruber, who set out to create skincare that they quote that it “Goes beyond mere product performance. Skincare that suffuses you with a most beautiful, vibrant flow of energy.” Max is the entrepreneurial spirit of the pair, and designed the company’s structure so it is as fully ethical as possible particularly regarding ingredient sourcing and sustainability. His partner, Tanja trained in Energetic Healing, Kinesiology, and Aromatherapy for three years at the Austrian Academy of Kinesiology. The couple’s respective backgrounds fused into a line of unique skin care products with an energy-healing basis.

The Intuitive is a botanical facial mist that has a blend of ingredients to ‘elevate skin, soul, and spirit’. One of the main ingredients, palo santo, is an Ecuadorian-sourced plant that heals and increases positive energy around you, which uplifts your mood. On top of this, wild agonis essential oil regulates your circadian rhythm for better sleeping at night, and blue tansy relaxes and calms your mind. These natural ingredients work to balance the flow of energy around you and reduce any negative ions while smelling like the woods after it rains. They are also gentle yet effective for inflamed, dry, or acne-prone skin.

Besides providing much-needed relief to our dry summer skin, what drew us to this product was its healing effects. When we sprayed it, we instantly felt tranquil - and it’s something that we’ve carried with us throughout the day even as we walked through the busy London streets. You can use this facial mist for many purposes, such as a room and pillow spray or mixed with a balm for a face mask, but we preferred using it on freshly cleansed skin to let our moisturiser soak in better. The spray has very fine particles, which evenly distribute the mist onto your face, and is hand-blended into a sturdy glass bottle. You can purchase The Intuitive (100ml) here for 70 €.

The next product we have for you is made specifically for skin hydration by Alexandra Soveral. As regular readers will know, we recently featured her Sweet Orange & Rosemary Shampoo. Soveral founded the brand with her business partner Jori Aleem to form natural products developed using cutting edge science. Before starting her beauty and perfume line, Soveral spent time understanding skin as an aromatherapist and facialist. She also learned how to curate products organically as a cosmetic designer. The company is also dedicated to sustainability and given the Positive Luxury Butterfly Mark, which ‘identifies the luxury brands that meet the highest standards of verified innovation, social, and environmental performance’. It uses pure and natural ingredients found in its Floral Rain Hydrating Face Mist.

This face mist combines vitamins and antioxidants with essential oils that hydrate and even your skin, making it optimal to use as a toner to prep your face for oils, serums, or moisturiser. Aloe vera nourishes your skin but doesn’t make the product watery so that you can use it over make up for a midday skin pick-me-up. The orange blossom and rose scent is also refreshing to use on your neck and décolletage. We found that it smells good when sprayed around your surroundings as with just a single spritz of the mist, the fragrance holds its aroma. It is hand-blended in London and packaged in a recyclable plastic bottle. You can buy the Hydrating Face Mist (250ml) here for £45.

Finally, to complete this week’s Friday Favourite’s trio of healing mists, we have the Universal Soul Company’s, 3-in-1 Soul Mist in their signature fragrance STILL. The luxury lifestyle brand was founded by well-known British actress Sara Griffiths to value all five of your senses amid all the media and technology that surrounds us and empower others through positive well-being. The company focuses on the idea of ‘profit for purpose’ and donates a portion of its revenue to different causes as another way to enable others. The Universal Soul Company also has the Positive Luxury Butterfly Mark of approval for sustainability.

The name of the Soul Mist comes from its three intended uses: room spray, meditation, and pillow mist. Instead of needing three separate products, only this mist is necessary throughout your day from morning until night. Patchouli and vetiver base notes combine to create a strong musky scent while lavender oil and may chang layered on top of it create a sweet floral fragrance that appears a few moments after spraying the mist. May chang has been proven to relieve fatigue and lethargy, leaving you in a better mood and lavender helps you sleep and relieves body aches. The mist is made with 100 per cent natural essential oils and mineral waters, which break up air molecules and generate negative ions of well-being like being near a waterfall or the ocean. It is alcohol-free, vegan, cruelty-free, and has no artificial fragrances, so it is safe for use on your face and around children, animals, and furniture.

The 3-in-1 Soul Mist is Universal’s first brand product, and it does not disappoint. The smell made us feel instantly relaxed and lasted. We found it was particularly helpful in making us feel less stressed when waking up and getting going in the morning. You can purchase the hand-blended product (100ml) here for £37.

These three healing mists prove that creating a relaxed state of mind is not just reserved for a retreat or an exclusive yoga studio. In fact, they teach you how you can build a tranquil zone of your own with just one spray. Using each of these healing mists helped us to feel like we could conquer the day with both an uplifted mood and more radiant looking skin!