Clear Coffee

If you, like us at The Amazing Blog, need coffee to get through the day but you worry about the inevitable teeth staining, you need to know about the first colourless coffee drink in the world; Clear Coffee. It’s a great option for that much-needed caffeine kick we crave. Forget having your coffee black or white, venture out and give clear a go!

Don’t let appearances deceive you though. It certainly doesn’t taste like water. You get the reviving boost of a double espresso, alongside a refreshing taste. Clear Coffee is made from simple ingredients, including water, coffee beans and natural caffeine, and that’s all. There are not any preservative, added aromas, sugar or sweetener. The coffee beans are high quality, freshly roasted Arabica beans. The unique taste and aroma is the result of a coffee processing method that had never been used before. Owing to the lack of artificial sweeteners, the drink is unusually sour and tangy, but it’s a moreish taste that we’re intrigued by. Our favourite way to have it is ice cold straight from the fridge, or in a cheeky little cocktail.

In short, you get a natural, refreshing coffee drink with few calories that won’t stain your teeth!

If you fancy trying out this unusual drink, you can purchase them from their Amazon page for £8.49 for a pack of 2 here or £15.99 for 4 here.

TAPPED – Birch Water

When we at The Amazing Blog came across TAPPED, we were intrigued. This birch water beverage seemed like a very appealing alternative to water, as it claims to be hydrating and thirst-quenching!

Birch water is birch sap and is collected via tapping birch trees. Birch trees store vital minerals and vitamins, including anti-oxidising manganese, in their roots and every spring this water filters up through the trunk. TAPPED have bottled (well, cartoned) this organic goodness for us to enjoy as a refreshing and healthy beverage.

With a light delicate flavour, the birch water comes in three flavours; pure organic birch water, bilberry & lingonberry and apple & root ginger. Our favourite was definitely the apple & root ginger, as the ginger brings a lovely warmth and zest. The bilberry & lingonberry is a touch sweeter, perfect for when you have a slight hankering for something sweet. Bear in mind though, they have no added sugar or artificial flavour, so the drinks are not sweet like fruit juice or flavoured waters. Not only this, but they are pure organic, filtered by nature, never from concentrate and are only 10 calories per carton!

You can purchase from the TAPPED website here or in store from a range of stores such as Ocado, Selfridges, Whole Foods and Sainsbury’s. The price for a pack of 3 cartons is £9 and 12 cartons is £30.

Christmas Stockings Fillers

For the last post of our Special Christmas Week, we are going to talk about stocking fillers. No matter our age, we're always so excited to find out what Father Christmas put in our beautiful stockings. While we love those little, fun and cute gifts, it can sometimes be difficult to find great stockings ideas for less than £15. We at The Amazing Blog have racked our brains and looked for the best stockings fillers at a reasonable price.

Let’s start with Heathcote and Ivory Gardeners Tree Tidings; this little gift set contains two hand creams and a Relax bath tablet. The shea butter hand cream as its name suggests made with shea butter(obviously) but also with other essential oils including lemon, orange and peppermint. This beautiful mix makes a highly nourishing hand cream. While the shea butter cream has a zesty and fresh scent, the Hedgerow hand cream has more of a fruity smell thanks to the blend of rhubarb, blackberry and elderflower extracts included in the formula. Together these ingredients intensely hydrate hands leaving them softer and smoother. Enriched with chamomile, lavender, eucalyptus and rosemary the bath tablets is the ideal product to help you relax while bathing. All made without Parabens and Sulphates. You can purchase the Gardeners Tree Tidings here for £6.00.

The festive period is the opportunity for us all to look at our best. With Christmas dinners and New Year events, we all like to shine bright and to have our party looks on point. And what better way to complement a look than a beautiful nail polish. A lovely and shiny nail polish is the little detail that instantly completes a look. Le Mini Macaron’s Mini Petit Bouquets nail polish set with their pretty pastel shades might just be the perfect trio for nail polishes lovers. The set contains three nail polishes including lavender; a pale purple, Rose pale; a pastel pink and wildflower a grey nail lacquer with blue hues. These nude and pastel shades will bring a modern and elegant touch to your look. Le Mini Bouquets nail polish set is available here for £24.99.

Christmas is the time to be merry, eat great food and drink delicious tipples. However, as years pass by, we start getting bored of the usual tastes and flavours. For those who like us want to add a little twist to their tipples, Popaball has created the Popaball Bursting Juice bubbles for Gin, Prosecco and Vodka. The Blueberry and Lemon Bursting Juice Bubbles for Gin, with its sweet and zesty taste instantly add a burst of sweetness and juiciness to your drink. The Apple & Cherry Bubbles for Vodka, (our favourite) taste delightfully good; the sensation of the Popaballs bursting in the mouth is just incredible; it brings drinking Vodka to a whole new level. The Shimmer Blueberry Bubbles for Prosecco is ideal to add a little touch of glam in your prosecco. Just add the blueberry bubbles and the shimmering liquid, watch the sparkle forms and enjoy the fruity taste.  The bubbles are suitable for vegetarians. You can purchase all the Popaballs from Cotswold Trading. See here for the bubbles for Gin £3.79, the bubbles for Vodka here for £3.79 and the shimmer bubbles for prosecco here for £4.49. Guaranteed to add a bit of an extra 'fizz' to your Christmas tipple!

We at The Amazing Blog appreciate a warm and relaxing bath once in a while. And when we do so, we love using the most calming and beautifully scented bath products. Sloane Home excel in the art of making stunning bath salts. Our preferred ones remain the Lady Grey, bath salts with a zesty and fresh perfume, the Topiary Garden, is a more floral and classic scent and the Rose Garden has a sensual and luxurious fragrance. All bath salts are made with Dead Sea salts well known for its therapeutic properties. The bath salts help you relax by easing muscles and uplifting the spirit. There are nothing more agreeable than soaking in a warm and welcoming bath after a long day and these fantastic bath salts from Sloane home are just what you need. Purchase the bath salts here for £16.50 each.

Hang on a minute you really thought that we would give you some stockings fillers tips without including one treat? Come on you should know better, we here at The Amazing Blog can’t resist the temptation of delicious and savoury candies. Our addiction of this season is The Fudge Kitchen award-winning sliders; the brand specialised in making gourmet handmade fudges, its sliders include six fudges with three different flavours. The Gin Selection pack include two Bitter Orange and Cubeb Gin, two Juniper and Kaffir Lime Dry Gin and two Sloe Gin fudge. This box with its popping and rich flavours will ravish your delicate palate. The Salted Selection include Isle of Sky Salted caramel fudges, Cornish Smoked salted Maple fudges, and Maldon Sea Salted Chocolate fudges. These fudges are at the same time creamy, sweet and smooth. The sea salts included in the recipes add a little touch of zest and crunch that balances perfectly well with the sweetness of the other ingredients. You can purchase Fudge Kitchen's Salted fudges and Gin fudges here for £8.00 each.

Christmas Gifts for Men

Let’s face it we all know how difficult it is to find that perfect man gift. Every year struggle offering the same things: Aftershave, watches, ties or even socks! This year at The Amazing Blog we've had enough of the mundane and have a few more unusual gifts ideas to suggest...

Question: Who loves a well-groomed man with a smooth and perfectly shaved face? Answer: We do!  That's why we think that the Cornerstone personalised gift set is the perfect gift for those who like to step up their shaving game. The £30 Shaving Gift Set includes a face scrub, a shave gel, a personalised razor with engraved initials (an added bonus) and a post-shave balm.

Before shaving, the Face Scrub gently exfoliates the skin removing dirt and impurities which helps for a smoother shaving. Enriched with eucalyptus oil and ginger extracts the Sensitive Shave Gel is formulated to protect sensitive skin from irritation and shaving cuts. Eucalyptus works as a highly protecting ingredient with its antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties. The gel enables a smooth and comfortable shaving experience. The Aluminium Razor is made with five high-quality fine blades. Each blade is made from Japanese chromium steel and designed to reduce the risk of burns and clogging. The razor has an Aloe Vera strip that helps the blades glide smoothly. Finish the shaving in apotheosis with the Sensitive Cooling Post-Shave Balm. Infused with mint and honey, this refreshing balm instantly replenishes, hydrates and cools the skin. This set also comes with a £10 gift card - bonus! Purchase the Cornerstone gift set here for £30. They also have a Cornerstone subscription club - see website for details.

Christmas means gifts, wine and good food. It’s the time of the year when we do our best to be an aspiring 'Nigella' cooking gourmet meals for our loved ones, made with delicious, rich and luxurious ingredients. When January comes its time for a slowdown generally with a detox and rather boring food. However, this year why not make the whole year feel like Christmas with the L’Atelier Des Chefs Cooking Classes.

L’Atelier Des Chefs is one of UK’s best cookery schools it offers classes from a quick 30 minutes to an intense 4 hours tuition for anyone wanting to learn more about creating great food. The school provides a great and diverse range of class themes including French, Thai and Asian cuisine. They offer a diverse selection of Seasonal and Healthy Eating, Pastry and Sweet Things, Greek, Moroccan, Burger Making, Street Food and of course British food.

The classes are run by professional chefs that are passionate about sharing their expert tips. These classes are the opportunity to expand your recipe repertoire and learn new techniques in a fun environment. These culinary courses are the ideal gift offering the opportunity for your man to don his chefs hat and become the latest cooking maestro! For a  90 minutes cooking classes, a gift card is available here for £58.

This year we have found the perfect gift for gin lovers. It is the Gin Tasting Experience for Two, at Brennen & Brown distillery. This unique olfactory experience will take you through a voyage of sensorial discovery guaranteed to tantalise the taste buds. There will be demonstrations of their innovative distilling techniques where you will also glean more about the history of Gin. During the tasting class, you will not only drink and taste fabulous gins but also learn more about the different botanicals which create the individual gin flavours. It is a an experience for two, which always makes it more fun to share. The experiences starts at 5.30pm and run on a Thursday and Friday with occasional Saturday. You can buy a Gin Tasting Gift Card here for £35.

Interflora’s Gentleman's Indulgent Mini Hamper is a real treat for anyone with a sweet tooth. This luxurious gourmet hamper has everything your man could need for a quick snack. The basket includes Cartwright & Butler Chocolate Peanut Cookies, Bespoke Pickle by Blue Writing, and Thomas J.Fudge's Tangy Stilton Wafers. In fact, there are a plethora of treats including Cambrook Brilliantly Baked Salted Mixed Nuts, Copperpot Caramel & Sea Salt Butter Fudge, Yorkshire Popcorn Salted, Fair & Square Milk Chocolate, Haribo Jelly Beans with Blue Ribbon and Green & Pleasant Natural Cider. All very tempting, not only that but Interflora also includes two bottles of refreshing artisan cider to boot! Perfect for your chap, we're sure he'll bless you as he sits back, relaxes and enjoys these in front of the TV. You can purchase the hamper here for £35.

Wallets are a Christmas gifts classic, and so last but not least, we thought we'd include our favourite one.  We love this beautiful Gentlemen’s Hardware Bi-Fold Leather Wallet. Made with hard-wearing tan leather this stylish and sophisticated wallet is a must-have man accessory. Designed with multiple compartments and card slots this wallet enables the owner to have a well-organised wallet that is fast and easy to use. It has an advanced RFID lining that blocks any unwanted contactless payments. The wallet comes in an elegant, smart branded tin box. Apart from its great quality what we particularly like is the embossed words on the inside seam: “Fortune Favours the Brave”. What a great motto for that special man in your life. The wallet can be purchased here for £40.

Conscious Water

Mindfulness is something we try to work on here in the office at TheAmazingBlog Therefore anything that enhance this state of mind is a huge plus. Enter centre right Conscious Water which is a 100% natural flower essence water enhancer. You simply add it to water for a refreshing drink and to add an aspiration to your day. There are six aspirations to choose between; sweet dreams, clarity, love, serenity, rejuvenation, and happiness.

By choosing one of the Conscious Water aspiration sachets and drinking it, you are reminding yourself to take a moment to yourself each day to reflect on who you are, and what you would like to achieve. In our hurly burly world we just love this idea. Other than the affirmations, there are a variety of flavours that offer a very subtle and pleasant herbal taste and making our London tap water a bit more interesting! The natural herbal remedies of plant extracts and flower essences are a wonderful alternative to traditional medicines. Ilan Azouri, the founder, claims that herbal remedies give him a good life balance and happiness, and that's what we're aiming for!

If you are one for mindfulness, these Conscious Waters are a great way of taking a brief moment out of your day to focus on yourself, and step away from the hectic world that we live in. We think that they make an original gift or stocking filler for Christmas. They contain only natural flavourings, no artificial colours and chemcials or artificial preservatives. Purchase a pack of 30 for £39, or a tasting pack for £8.95 on their website here.