Weleda Week: Weleda Wild Rose Cream Bath

(affiliate link) At the Weleda Insight Day in June, we were let loose in the brand's on-site shop for a while (extra exciting when you're feeling all enthusiastic and passionate about a brand!) and I was instantly drawn to the Wild Rose Cream Bath.

Earlier in the day we were guided through Weleda's Harmonising Rose Facial which involved us all sitting around tables with bowls of warm water, flannels and gorgeous products and giving our faces a proper cleanse, tone and massage. This was surprisingly relaxing - you wouldn't think sitting in a large room full of strangers wearing disposable headbands would be a particularly soothing experience but it really was! One of the steps in the facial included the Wild Rose Cream Bath, which threw me a little at the time when actually it made perfect sense. Incredibly calming and infused with the natural relaxing fragrance of damask rose, the cream bath was used in the facial by adding a capful to a bowl of warm water and soaking a flannel in it and using it as a sort of compress to remove a cream mask from our faces. This step felt so comforting and I absolutely loved the scent so of course I sought it out in the shop straight away!
Milky and opaque, the rose cream bath is unlike any bath milk or cream I've used before. The texture is sort of unusual, it's on the runny side rather than the gloopy one, and it doesn't bubble or foam, probably because of its uber-natural inci list.

The base of the cream bath is Jojoba and Olive oil, with organic Rosehip seed oil and natural Damask Rose oil giving it that beautiful true-rose fragrance.

Sinking into a warm bath with a couple of capfuls of the cream is relaxing in both a physical and mental sense and you emerge with soft and silky skin without feeling like you're coated in something, if that makes sense?. I love using bath oils and I do like how they make my skin feel but I'm not so keen on emerging from a slippery bath so this is a great way to get the same sort of fragrant experience without the slip factor.
Weleda create a variety of different bath products- I bought my boyfriend the Arnica Muscle Soak which has gone down a treat- and I'm currently bathing my toddler using the Baby Calendula Bath which is particularly excellent at the moment as the poor little guy has chickenpox and Calendula is brilliant for reducing inflammation and soothing the skin.
The Weleda Wild Rose Cream Bath is £14.95 for 100ml at Look Fantastic.

Feather & Down Breathe Well

If you shop in Boots you've probably heard of Feather and Down and if you're already a fan you might be pleased to know they've just launched two new products. Just like the existing Sweet Dreams range, the new Breathe Well Pillow Spray and Breathe Well Bath Essence are designed to help encourage a restful night’s sleep.

The difference between these and the brand's already popular products? As well as Lavender and Chamomile, these contain Eucalyptus, Peppermint and Tea Tree essentials oils that are well known for their soothing and cooling properties, not to mention their ability to 'open the airways' a little.
With summer heating things up, Feather and Down have chosen the perfect time to launch the Breathe Well products. The Bath Essence creates just the right amount of pillowy bubbles and leaves the skin feeling sufficiently cooled and soothed. This is an ideal product for a pre-bed bath or shower before slipping between the sheets on a hot and humid night. I'll freely admit that I have been using the bath essence as a shower gel more often than not because I actually rarely find the time to soak away the day in a bath, but I assure you it's just as lovely when used in the shower!

The Pillow Spray is probably one of my new favourite things. I am a huge fan of room fragrances and pillow sprays with essential oils so it was almost a given I'd like this one. Like the bath essence, the spray features the classically comforting scent of lavender and chamomile spiked with refreshing eucalyptus, peppermint and tea tree. It really does make for a beautiful twist on your traditional sleep sprays and the addition of the three cooling 'breathe well' oils seem to lighten up the air when it feels a bit thick and humid.

An added bonus of these products is that I imagine they'd be a welcome addition to your bedtime ritual if you're feeling a bit sniffly and bunged up, whether that's down to catching a summer cold or suffering from hayfever. As it stands, I'm enjoying both products and so is my little family.

You can find Feather and Down Breathe Well Pillow Spray and Bath Essence at Boots in store and online where both products are very reasonably priced at £7 each.

Christmas 2015 with Therapie Roques Oneil

Therapie by Roques Oneil is a brand that I have a lot of time for. From the uplifting and mentally stimulating effects of the Restore Aura Spray to the cult favourite Himalayan Detox Salts, Therapie is one of those suits-all brands with products that boast universal appeal. It's for this reason that Therapie products make fantastic stocking fillers and gorgeous presents that I for one would be more than happy to find under the tree on the 25th. For Christmas this year, Therapie have a beautiful collection of ready made gifts including the Love Me Kit, the Discover Me Kit and the Value Duo.

The Love Me Kit includes Joie Uplifting Bath Infusion, limited edition Love Candle, Cherish Skin Repair Serum and Awaken Skin Rehab Scrub. I have tried both the Cherish serum and Joie bath infusion and can report that both products are soothing, relaxing and undeniably luxurious. The Love Me Kit is £140.

Therapie Love Me Kit

The Discover Me Kit (not pictured) is £38 and features Boost Hair and Body Wash, Himalayan Detox Salts, Cherish Skin Repair Serum, Restore Aura Spray and Equilibrium Bath & Shower Essence. This little kit with 5 favourite products is a brilliant introduction to the brand.

The Value Duo includes a 100ml bottle of Restore Aura Spray and a generous 500g pouch of the coveted Bath Salts. The duo is £48 but worth £63.

Therapie Value Duo

Therapie also have a selection of minis at very reasonable price points that make great stocking fillers or secret Santa gifts (or a little something for yourself, obviously). I've had the chance to try a few of the minis including the Restore Aura Spray and they are such a great way to try out some products before investing in the full sizes. At the moment, Therapie have a special promotion in which they are offering a free 100g sachet of Himalayan Bath Salts with the purchase of 3 minis, so now is the perfect time to discover the brand.
You can find out more about the glorious brand that is Therapie Roques Oneil and shop the brand here.

Post contains samples.

L'Occitane Black Soap

It's not often that I feel like blogging about soap (unless it comes from Lush, obviously) but this one is a little bit different. L'Occitane Black Soap has been available for a good few months now and it's proved to be a very popular addition to the Aromachologie range.

I love balm- type products so I knew when I first saw the black soap in a L'Occitane store it would only be a matter of time before it took pride of place in my bathroom.
Because I'm a bit impulsive (just a tad), I took this home without even looking inside the tin so it really was a complete surprise once I opened it up and was met with the sight of semi-transparent black balmy sludge stuff and the scent of eucalyptus.

The black soap is essentially an olive oil based paste ('paste' sounds marginally more pleasant than 'sludge') with the addition of eucalyptus essential oil and is part of the L'Occitane 'Rebalancing' collection. The Rebalancing collection also includes a massage cream, exfoliating shower gel, bath infusion and a face mask but there's just something a bit extra special about the soap that got a lot of people interested.

Because of the consistency of the soap, it took me a while to figure out the best way to use it. I realise how ridiculous this sounds. My fail safe method is just to scoop a little bit out with my finger and spread it over wet skin before going to town with the loofah and getting all sudsy. It leaves me feeling clean but maybe wanting a little more in terms of fragrance? It just smells like eucaplyptus really, which is lovely of course but the scent doesn't tend to linger on my skin once I've rinsed the soap off. I suppose the fact that the scent doesn't stick around makes it suitable for pretty much everyone, after all, eucalyptus is quite a medicinal scent and might not be the kind of thing you want to walk around smelling of (especially for those of us who grew up in Australia with parents who used eucalyptus oil to remove ticks from the dogs). That said, if you're feeling a bit under the weather or as if you're coming down with a case of the winter lurgies, the eucalyptus in the black soap should help you breathe a little easier, which is never a bad thing.

Overall, I do enjoy using the L'Occitane soap. It is quite refreshing and sort of fun to use and has garnered a load of positive feedback on the L'Occitane website. As an end note - L'Occitane advise that you use the soap once or twice a week as a treatment, which I don't really adhere to. To me, it's just soap - and a pretty good one at that.

L'Occitane Black Soap is £16 in store and online.

Champneys Cracker Collection

Christmas crackers are such a pretty way to present gifts aren't they? You can just pop them under the tree as ready wrapped presents or add them to your Christmas table setting for an extra special touch. Over the years we've seen quite a few brands get on board with this festive concept but what really stood out to me with this Champneys offering is the value, quality and affordable price point.

The Champneys Cracker Collection is only £10 and includes four large crackers in a pastel colour scheme, each containing a 50ml product - perfect for splitting up and using as stocking fillers or secret santa gifts or of course just keeping the packaging intact and gifting the whole thing.

This set was actually my first taste of what Champneys have to offer and the rich scents and perfectly pampering feel of the products have now made me understand why this is such a well loved and respected brand.

Inside the crackers:
Heavenly Day Relaxing Shower Cream
A calming shower cream infused with the relaxing scents of geranium, lavender and chamomile.
Summer Dream Rewarding Shower Gel
A rich shower gel with summer fruit fragrances Grapefruit, Orange and Lemon Peel oils combine with Peach, Mango and Passionfruit scents rounded off with a touch of Sandalwood. Zingy and refreshing, especially for this time of year!
Citrus Blush Enlivening Shower Gel
A zesty shower gel with Mandarin, Lemon Oil and Cardamom.
Citrus Blush Enlivening Body Lotion
A refreshing blend of Mandarin, Lemon Oil and Cardamom with a Sweet Almond Oil and Vitamin E base.

Champneys have also created a range of gift sets and hampers to suit virtually any budget this Christmas including:  The Bag of Delights (£12) which features three body butters and a body soufflé. Bubble Heaven (£16) that includes three delicious Bath Soaks. The Relaxation Hamper that's brimming with bath and body goodies and a candle and socks! (£60)  - and the Bath Basket Collection (£30) that includes a Bubble Heaven, Shower Cream, Body Lotion, Face Cloth and Towel.
Personally I have my eye on this Luxury Throw (£25), probably because it looks so warm and fluffy and it's freakishly freezing right now.

The Champneys Cracker Collection and all of their other gifts are available at Boots in store and online.

Post contains sample

L'Erbolario Narciso Sublime Bath Foam & Candle

Italian plant-based beauty brand L'Erbolario have pretty much bottled Spring with the Narciso Sublime collection. As a rule, I'm not much of a florals girl and will usually choose gourmande/ vanilla scents over anything too flowery but I must make an exception with this scent because it is a little bit gorgeous.

The Narciso Sublime range is based around the fragrance of the Narcissus flower ( also known as the daffodil but Narcissus sounds so much better) - a pretty special flower really because it is known to bloom before all the other flowers. With this in mind, this is a lovely fragrance for this time of the year when we're all still walking around with our coats on yet have secretly already started fake tanning as if we're willing the sun to come out.

I have the Narciso Sublime Bath Foam and Perfumed Candle to try and have so far been enjoying both rather a lot!

I've turned into quite the bath dweller recently so the bath foam couldn't have come at a better time to a more willing guinea pig! A couple of glugs added to a running bath produce fluffy, foamy bubbles that leave the skin delicately scented with the narcissus fragrance. Narcissus flowers and Narcissus distilled water combine with almond oil sufactants (basically a natural cleansing agent) and oat amino acids to soften the skin while you soak. The skin softening and toning agents are just a bonus to me really because the scent alone makes the bath foam worth using!

The Narciso Sublime Perfumed Candle is a proper luxury candle with a very decent scent throw considering its compact size. The candle is soy-based and encased in a heavy little glass jar with the prettiest/ cutest/ swooniest (not a word) design featuring illustrations of the Naricissus flowers. As you can see I have burned it a little already but I'm glad I've photographed it now so I can actually start burning it recklessly.

The Narciso Sublime collection also includes an Eau de Parfum, Cream Talc, Soap, Body Oil and Body Cream and can be found online or at the L'Erbolario store in London N1.

This post contains a sample

Cheap Thrills: Nspa Indulgent Bath Syrups

The labels say it all so not a whole lot needs to be said for these bargain beauties but I will tell you this:

• You can buy them at Asda
• They're only £2
• They're available in all sorts of gorgeous scents including Chocolate Waffle and Gingerbread Latte
• They come in ginormous 500ml bottles
• They smell D E L I C I O U S 

Nspa produce a whole range of tasty smelling bath and body products at seriously affordable prices. 

As mentioned, you can find these at Asda, but in the meantime treat yourself to a little virtual window shopping by visiting Nspa.

Have you  tried these? Give them a whirl, they're seriously yummy (though I don't suggest you actually ingest them)

Thanks for reading :)