Flashing For The World To See | Jessops Leeds

Hey everyone!

Welcome to a brand new blog post! Today, I'm talking to you all about an event that I was invited to a while ago. I've been busy for a plethora of reasons, but, still I thought that I'd tell you all about it.

Like every other post, if this post isn't what you're interested in, then please don't read it. There is nearly over 400 posts on Jamie Sowden, therefore, there is probably something that you will enjoy reading, even if you don't enjoy reading this post.

Jessops are a photography brand that specify in all things cameras and technology. They also have courses to help with things such as photography and technology.

I made my way down to the store (which is located on the Headrow which also contains stores like TK Maxx, Homesense, and, Argos), I instantly was shown around the amazing new store which mixed cool metals with bright colours. Everything was in sections which made it easy to locate what you needed. Lenses? Over there! Cameras? Over there! Drones? Over there!

When you walk in to the Leeds branch, you're met with screens which mean that you can sort out the photos that you want to print off. The amazing store staff even showed how simple it was to upload and print off photos. All you had to realy do was put in either an SD card or connect the bluettooth from your phone to the screen, select your photos, choose what sizze and in moments they would be able to be printed for you to keep forever.

I then got to have a go with an Instax Mini, which I had never tried before. I love the concept of a sort of smaller, on the go, Polaroid, that means that you can take pictures of memories that you will want to cherish forever and have physical copies to put into scrapbooks or whatnot, right there and then. I honestly thought that I would get an awful shot, as, I'm more used to a viewfinder on the back of my bulky Canon DSLR, or, the screen of my iPhone, but, I got quite an alright shot.

After this, I got to experiment with Jessops' new digital masterpiece, the Shuffle Print, you connect your phone to the printer via bluetooth, or, enter your SD card, select 13 photos and the machine puts them into a random order and then you can adjust them however you want. As it was my first time using it, I might have made a picture of myself from a photoshoot, have no head... Oops.. You also get to choose what colour frame it goes with to suit the room that you will be putting it in's, aesthetics.

Following on from this, I had one more good look at the store, printed off some photos, and, said my goodbyes.

Check out Jessops here.

Thanks for reading this post. I hope that you come back next time to read another post.

Thanks for reading!
Jamie x

Metamorphosis - Changing From One To The Other | Lush York Revamp Event

Hey!

Welcome to anoWether post! Lush York invited me a couple of weeks ago to the pre-launch to their revamped store so I thought that today I would talk to you guys about what went on during the night of the event.

Metamorphosis Bath Bomb 

On the day of the event, I had an exam before finding Luke at the bus stop (finding because he's normally never at the same place due to wherever the bus decides to stop) therefore I had to run down the hill and find him as soon as my exam was over. We then got the train to Leeds then the first train possible to York. The train was absolutely packed which meant I found the first two seats and sat myself and Luke down on them for the duration of the train journey.

We arrived and weirdly I didn't struggle to get out of the station like I have done many times before. We then made our way to Lush which again, I actually knew where I was going which was oretty amazing as I haven't visited York in about 12 months before this event. We arrived a tad bit too early so we decided to wander on to Starbucks to kill some time so I mainly ended up charing my phone up to ensure that I could do some social media exposure of the event.

We wondered over to the store which was about a minute away from Starbucks and introduced ourselves to a couple of other bloggers who were very friendly. We were greeted by a member of staff and offered a glass of sparkling juice and to help ourselves with nibbles.

We then roamed around and had a little look at the general layout of the store. We were then brought to silence via the staff that were looking after us and was told that we would be shown demos and would have talks about some of the products that were new to Lush.

We were then shown a demonstration of the new bath ballistic at Lush which is called Yellow Submarine which is obviously a homage to the band The Beatles but also it has been available (I think) via the Hard Days Night Spa Treatment which is again based on The Beatles and is only available at the Liverpool Spa store (I think) but this ballistic is shaped like a little Yellow Submarine with a pink tail which whizzes through your bath. This contains Brazillian Orange, Coriander Seed and Lemongrass Oils which sounds like a weird mix but due to the Brazillian Orange and Lemongrass Oils it creates a tropical scent which reminds me of Pina Colada's somehow. £3.95.

After this we had a little look at the bath bombs as a whole and the hair section as Luke has wanted to get into the hair products that Lush have to offer as he hasn't really been encapsulated within it due to the solid concept od shampoos, conditioners and hot oil treatments that Lush sell.

Once we had a quick glance, we were then called over to have a demonstration of another bath ballistic which has just arrived to all Lush stores. This is called Metamorphosis. This is a grey ball with a quirky design on the top of it. When you drop it into the water, it turns the water a sort of black/grey colour but this bomb doesn't disappoint as the bath product has different colours within therefore making the water different bright colours such as yellow and pink... (I think that Lush are loving the Yellow and Pink combo at the moment.) This product has Black Pepper and Cinnamon Leaf Oils and Myrrh Resinoid which creates a Spicy scent but all of these three actually help to calm sore muscles. £4.25

We also had a demo of the new Gourmet Soaps which are different to the other Lush soaps for many reasons but the main two are the texture and the ingredients. The texture is more squidgy compared to say Honey I Washed The Kids Soap or Karma Soap and thats because of the Oil quantity within the product and the oil being from the Slush Fund which ensures the connection between the communties that provide the Fair Trade ingredients that go into the products at Lush, Ro's Argan Soap contains Slush Fund which cintains Moroccan Slush Funded Argan Oil, Lemon, Rose and Egyptian Geranium Oils, Rose Absolute, Red and Yellow Rose Petals. These soaps cut like butter. The other Gourmet Soap is Olive Tree which contains SLush Funded Olive Oil from Palestine. Green Olives, Extra Virgin Coconut Oil, Cypress, Pettigrain and Rose Oils. £9/120g.

Myself and Luke looked at the new Gorilla Perfume Wall which reminds me of a massive bookcase and I absolutely love it! It means that every different scent has a perfect little section such as Sun having its own section and Karma etc. My only problem is if more Gorllla Perfume Volumes come out with more scents then where will they go? I sprayed a bit of Sun and I remembered instantly why I love this citrus based scent., I also found Kerbside Violet for Luke but I'm sure Luke can tell you why he likes that particular scent.

We then had a demonstration of Scrubee which was a part of the Mothers Day 2017 collection which is a scrub on one side and a moisturiser on the other side but sadly it contains Honey so Vegans can't use it but honestly I'm not sure if Vegans would want to use something that looks like an animal as it slowly dies from you using it... This product contains Ground Almonds and Coconut Shells to exfoliate and Shea and Cocoa Butter to nourish the skin. £6.95.

After this demo, a staff member asked if I needed any help and as I use a lot of beauty products I wanted to ensure I was using the correct things for my skin so she talked to me about my skin and brought over a cleanser and a toner to try out, The cleanser is called Angels On Bare Skin and this cleanser is the best thing for all skin types and was one of the first beauty products that Lush released (I think.) This product contains Ground Almonds and Lavender Oil. The almonds help to exfoliate and Lavender Oil is known for balancing out the sebum oils within the skin which a lack of or an excess of can produce spots and can define whether you have dry, oily, normal or combination skin. It also contains lots of other goodies to help the skin out and Eau Roma Toner Water which helps the pores and contains Rose Water to calm down and soothe skin therefore this is perfect for post shaving or for sensitive skin.

The Lush staff then called us over to try out Sleepy Body Lotion which was a massive sell out at Christmas 2016. This shares the same scent as Twilight which contains Lavender and Tonka whcih helps you to drift off into a natural sleep. I like this due to the fact that it helps you drift off but I cant use this all the time as the scent is quite strong in my opinion.

Once the demonstrations were done with, we roamed around and decided to get a few little goodies. Luke browsed and decided on a couple of Violet based products and if you want to find out what those are then you can find out on his post. I browsed the store and decided to pick up an Intergalactic bath ballistic as I love the colours of the water with this product but at the same time I love the strong scent of Mint.

We also received a goody bag which contained a Metamorphosis and a Yellow Submarine to try, a sample of Sleepy Body Lotion to use and a bottle Pan Galactic Garge Blaster Solid Mouthwash Tabs

We said bye to the staff and made our way back up to the train station and headed home.

Check out all these products and more via checking out Lush's website here.

What's your favourite Lush product? Let me know down below! 

Thank you to the amazing staff at Lush York and the PR staff at Lush HQ for inviting me to the event and for putting on an amazing night and being stars throughout the night. I hope that you have enjoyed this post and that you come back for another blog post.

Thanks for reading!
Jamie x

Diary Of A Meowing Lushie | Lush Leeds Spa Relaunch & Christmas Bloggers Event

Meow!

This has to be my ultimate favourite Christmas Lush product! 

I got invited to an event at Lush Leeds Spa as they decided to revamp their store in time for the new year. (I'm also classing this as a Diary Of A Meowing Lushie post as well its about Lush and it makes sense to put them with the other DOAML posts. This post is probably going to be a long one so it might be best if you make yourself a cup of tea/coffee/hot chocolate/wine and some food beforehand.

Oh, also I don't take great photos so the photos in this post won't be amazing but you can just look at the pretty products in the pictures instead of caring about how good the lighting, shot etc is. 

Before the event itself, myself and Luke decided to go to Trinity Kitchen to meet some other Leeds bloggers for something to eat. This included the lovely Faith, Kariss and many others. Myself and Luke finally met them and chatted for a bit before I went with Kariss to go get some food. I ended up buying myself and Luke a burrito from Tortilla because I know that I like burritos. I made my way back to the table, took a picture of my food for Instagram like any other blogger would and ate my food. We all then talked about anything and everything blogger wise, Faith had bought a Paneer Wrap from Manjits Kitchen but they had given her and her friend an extra one so she shared it about (in Luke's words like it was a drug) for everyone to try. I was a bit hesitant because lactose but I tried it anyway and oh my god it was gorgeous. The Paneer was to die for and I already know that I am going back into TK to treat myself to one.

Everyone else then decided to go to MeatLiquor for a cocktail but as I had no ID, myself and Luke thought it would be a good idea to go to Costa instead. We bought a Black Forest Hot Chocolate each and sipped it whilst chatting to kill time before the event. I love the Black Forest Hot Chocolate as it's sweet but fruity at the same time and slightly reminds me of The Comforter in drink form.

We made our way to Lush and talked to Kellie and a few other bloggers outside whilst things were setting up inside. We made our way in, gave our names to the woman with a clipboard, chatted to Urika for a minute or so then decided to look around the revamped store seeing what things they had done to the store. We did this whilst having a glass of something sparkling within our hands.

The first place that we ventured into was the island of bath products which now had an adorned 'Take A Bath' banner above it with cone like accessories dangling above the products. The store have not added anything since I last went in but the island was filled with all of the Christmas exclusives and some of the items from the new Winter range such as the new bath oils (check out my Lime Pastille bath oil review here) and the Big Bang Bubble Bar.

Avobath 

We then wandered around the Face Mask section where there was a member of staff behind who we talked to. She asked us about blogging and how busy the day had been and things about the Face Masks including the Christmas Exclusive Cranberry Face Mask.

We then wandered around to the new Soap section which is now behind the Face Masks. Another staff member came up to us and talked about the soaps and which one was our favourite. Luke said Snowcake which I absolutely loathe whereas I said tie up between Honey I Washed The Kids and Reindeer Rock (I love the Comforter scent to the point where I did a blog post about it here).

We then wandered onto the Gorilla Perfume section which had been moved from a corner to next to the Shower products. I rarely use the GP range due to not really knowing the scents but I am fascinated in that they change scent depending on the PH level of your skin which means that it is different depending on where you apply it and if another person uses the same scent then it can have a completely different level of scent to it. I talked to Urika about them and she explained that she likes Vanillary and Sun so I tried them both out and oh my god I am in love with both of them. They do liquid and solid versions but as the solid ones are a lot cheaper then that means I may treat myself to one in the future.

Luke wanted to smell the new Shower Creams as he was tempted to buy one but wasn't sure which one he actually liked. The fact that I also have The Comforter Shower Cream which I swear by may have influenced him wanting a look. He realised by the end of the search that he liked both Beautiful and Wash That Man Out Of My Hair due to the citrus and fresh notes in both products. We chatted to Urika a bit more and then ventured onto the hair section.

Now, I only really ventured into Lush's haircare when I went to the Oxford Street store due to the Hair Lab (I did a blog post about the samples I got from it and what I thought of them and you can read it here) so I was wondering what differences they had made to the section as I had checked out the haircare section more in detail since around September. They have put more of the products onto shelving and grouped things together such as the Hot Oil Treatments which I haven't tried yet I have one somehow and other things such as the styling products such as Queen Bee Hair Honey which is great for afro like hair or Hair Custard which adds moisture and shine to hair but also smells like custard!

We then decided to make our own Butterball because why not? I did do this before and I said that I would tell you guys about it in another post which I didn't get around to doing so I shall sum it up right now. You put on a pair of Lush's infamously known blue gloves. You then mix the ingredients together which had already been done for us which Citric Acid, Sodium Bicarb, Cocoa Butter and a few other things. Once you have done this, you grab one half of the mould and pack as much of the mixture into the mould, you repeat and then you press the two together and twist the two together until they join together and form a ball and voila you have a Butterball! You have to leave any product that you make from Lush for 24 hours so the product can fully set. Luke had a bit of trouble with putting on the gloves but otherwise we both managed to make one which we got to take home with us.

After roaming and picking up products for a bit longer, myself and Luke decided to go downstairs to the spa. (Well, it is called LUSH Leeds Spa for a reason!) We went down the spiral staircase into a world of imagination. I would like to say that I'm joking but it is literally a world of imagination and is nothing like the shop floor. We wandered around and ended up in a treatment room which we took a few pictures of. After about two minutes, someone came in and told us that the room that we had stumbled into was actually the treatment for The Planets which contains three parts to represent the past, present and future. If you want to know more about the treatment then click here. There is also more treatments that go on within the Spa including one simply called The Comforter which contains a Comforter Chocolate body mask which sounds amazing especially to someone who loves The Comforter scent. If you want to know more about then click here. We also ate some sandwiches and cake that were offered within the Spa which were delicious. I was then treated to a hand and arm massage with an oil treatment that they use within the spa which I can't remember the name of but it was simply divine. We then went back up to the shop floor to buy some products and do anything else.

I then decided to spend some money on some products but wasn't sure on what I wanted so a lovely Lush staff member helped me out or tried to in my case and then I decided exactly what I wanted. I also received a goodie bag from the event which I am so grateful for as it has all gone in my Lush drawer. I shall be doing another blog post explaining what I got so look out for that soon!

I am so grateful to Lush for inviting me to this event and I can't thank them enough. I also met Urika which I am so grateful for as she is amazing. I hope that you have enjoyed reading this post and looking at the photos. I hope to see you next time for another blog post!

Meow!
Jamie x