**WIN** LUSH Little Ro's Flowers Gift box Giveaway

Back in October (which seems like only last week!) I blogged about this years LUSH Christmas gift guide and I'm delighted to now offer one of my readers the chance to win this luxurious Little Ro's Flowers Christmas gift box. This amazing box contains six products to treat you from top to toe with sweet scents and floral fragrances. 

Little Ro's Flowers contains:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This giveaway is restricted to Ireland and the UK only. Stay tuned over on my Facebook page for international giveaway's. The lucky winner will be contacted and announced on the 16/12/14.

Love,

Sarah

LUSH Christmas 2014 Gift Guide

I rather excitedly paid the Lush store on Grafton Street in Dublin a visit recently to check out this years Christmas products. I'm here to share some pretty amazing bath melts, bubble bars, bath bombs and soaps with you. You can take this post as a gift guide for your family and friends this Christmas or if you're selfish like me you can covet it all for yourself!!  

This year I fell in love a little with the new luxury handmade Christmas themed soaps. Baked Alaska €4.25 is a real treat with it's vibrant colours. Inspiration for the design has been taken from a snowball and you will find this soap uplifting and very soothing with lemon myrtle, ylang ylang oil and grapefruit. Also new this year is Yog Nog Soap €4.50 and reindeer Rock Soap €3.95.

When I think of Lush I automatically think Bath Bombs! I love them and was the most excited about seeing my all time favourite Golden Wonder €4.75 when I went to visit. If you're a big child like me you will love this from the moment you drop it into the bath. The outer layer which looks like a delightfully wrapped gift fizzes away to reveal the next blue layer, then pink and orange and finally you're left with a luster filled bath, stars galore! We also have other favourites like Cinders €3.25, Shooting Stars €4.50 and Luxury Lush Pud €4.50.

Their Bath melts and Bubble bars are also quite fun and can be used along with your bath bombs to make for a very bubbly experience! New this year we have the Snow Angel bath melt €4.95 which offers fizz and a spectacular luster as well as that it contains fair trade organic cocoa butter which will leave your skin feeling nice and soft. Back this year is the Melting Snowman €2.95 and he's back packing a spicy warm punch with hot toddy fragrance of cinnamon oil, clove leaf, lime oil and sweet orange oil. 

New to the Bubble bar family this year is Drummers Drumming  €6.75 and Holly Go Lightly 5.95. Drummers Drumming is a bubble bar and a musical instrument in one with the sweet smell of strawberries when held under the running tap in your bath. Holly Go Lightly is just a delightful addition and really made me feel festive! Also welcome back Christmas Eve €3.85 and Magic Wand Bubble Bar €6.75. 

If you know me you will know that I go gaga for the Lush Snow Fairy limited edition shower gel and I will be following my tradition of purchasing enough to keep me going until it is available again next Christmas! An interesting update for fans, this year they have added skin softening seaweed to the Snow Fairy potion.

 My heart also skipped a beat when I laid eyes on the 12 Days Of Christmas gift box €64.95. The gift box itself is just gorgeous and would  make great storage in the new year. Inside you will find twelve festive products, one to use everyday in the run up to Christmas. 

Contains: Karma soap, The olive branch shower gel, Cinders bath bomb, Golden Wonder bath bomb, Snow Angel bath melt, Hot toddy shower gel, Dashing Santa bath bomb, Honey I washed the kids, Celebrate body lotion, Holly go lightly bubble bar, Lord of Misrule bath bomb and Star light Star bright bath bomb.

There you have it, this years Lush Christmas products that I'm excited about. I'd love to know what your Christmas favourites are in the comments below and I will not apologise for bringing you this post before the arrival of Halloween because I honestly cannot wait for the festive season to arrive! 

Now go forth and check out #LushChristmas for yourself in the nearest store to you.

Love,

Sarah

My Afternoon Tea experience at Bellinter House

Bellinter House is an 18th century manor nestled in the countryside of Co Meath. Being only a stone throw away from where I grew up I'm surprised that I had not visited before and was delighted to have recently received a voucher for Afternoon Tea for two which gave me the perfect excuse to go check it out.

Not knowing what to expect I called the morning of my visit too see if I needed to book and was told I could just walk in which is nice if you're in a spur of the moment kinda mood! There was lots of parking outside and we fell in love with the romantic setting straight away. The outside of the house was surrounded by rose bushes and the staircase leading up the the reception was full of character and very inviting.

We went through reception, passed the library and drawing room which took us to the bar. The entire building was decorated with a mixture of old and new furniture. Very quirky, colourful and simply amazing. Friendly staff and a cosy atmosphere made Bellinter house a real home away from home experience for us. As the weather was good (believe it or not!) we decided to sit outside and I'm so glad we did as we had a lovely view of the back of the house and the surrounding countryside.

John had never been to afternoon tea before so it was exciting to see his reaction when the three tier cake stand of absolute goodness arrived. We had a selection of sandwiches made up of chicken and cheese, salmon and salad and plain salad. We moved swiftly onto the lemon scones. Can I just stop and say HOLY MARY MOTHER OF GOD! If you know me you will know that I am obsessed with lemon cake. These scones made my weekend folks, simply delicious! Yummy butter, cream and jam accompanied them also. I think John felt like it was a bit of a race or else he wanted everything for himself because before we knew it we had made it to heaven...I mean the top tier! Chocolate biscuit cake, mini strawberry meringues and a chocolate mouse filled cake with raspberry on top.  I got a cappuccino sprinkled with chocolate and John had a pot of tea.

Overall we really enjoyed our visit to Bellinter House and will be back again. Afternoon Tea for two costs just €25 which is a really great price for the service, atmosphere and of course yummy food.

Check out their website and see just how wonderful this place is. The drawing room has a vintage pool table which is great for the guys. Stable rooms perfect for a girlie getaway and bath house for luxury treatments. 

Love,

Sarah