Morris & Co. - Gardening Gloves Kit

After spending so much time indoors over the winter – we’re happy to be welcoming in the spring here at The Amazing Blog and we have to confess to a small gardening habit. We think that there’s nothing better than reconnecting with the earth and getting ‘down and dirty’ ready to plant our spring vegetables and bulbs.  

In fact, it couldn’t be better timing for us to receive Morris & Co Gardening Gloves Kit sent to us by Heathcote & Ivory from their new range here. Our regular readers may remember that we’re big fans of Heathcote & Ivory products, or if you are new to us, you can find all our posts about them here.

Morris & Co. Gardening Gloves Kit is a perfect gift set for any gardener. It features a pair of lightweight fabric adjustable gloves and Shea Butter Hand Cream. We found the gloves extremely practical for gardening either in or outdoors. They certainly take their gardener’s handcare to the next level, the cream has a dreamy combination for fragrances with honeysuckle, rose and jasmine. All enriched with shea butter, pink clay, vitamin E, jojoba, evening primrose and macadamia oils. This product has a thick and creamy texture and is sure to turn the roughest skin into the soft, smooth and velvety hands. If you or anyone you know would like this Gardening Gloves Kit for only £25.00, see here.

The AIM Escape Room

At The Amazing Blog, we love to have a good bone-chilling themed challenge! Readers may remember last year we were ‘Trapped in a Prison Van’  here, and if you are like us enjoy this thrill of the game, then the AIM Escape Rooms are for you!

HQ of AIM Escape Rooms

This East London based adventure spot has four different ultra-realistic ‘rooms’ with various difficulty levels, so if you or your children fancy being spies, then Spy Heroes would be ideal for you where you all go undercover. Then in Patient Zero 2150 is where you are battling a global bio-threat, otherwise, humanity will cease to exist – one of the challenges is to see if you can hold your breath for 60 seconds!  The spookiest has to be The Psychopath’s Den, perfect for those who love a spin-chilling experience or lovers of horror movies – because here you are part of it. Or there’s the Hangover-Deja Brew for those wanting to experience what happened the morning after the night before … However, this is ONLY for Adults 18+!

The Psychopath’s Den

Are you feeling the adrenaline rush already? Then hurry to get locked up one of the themed hi-tech adventure rooms, and become a player ready to escape the room by solving a series of their puzzles and riddles. These 60-minute nerve-wracking experiences are perfect for friends and family get-togethers or as a great ‘ice-breaker’ for even a date!

Patient Zero 2150

BTW, if you don’t pick up on clues and fail to escape on time….. you will be doomed. Ha! Fear not, the staff will be watching over you and provide you with some guidance without spoiling your fun.

Of course, before entering the room in the first place you need an appointment, which can be made via an online booking system. Decide on the number of people (between 2 and 5) and select your time slot. AIM Escape Room is open 7 days a week. Prices start from £25, but it depends whether you select a peak or off-peak ticket. It’s worth checking the website from time to time as you may be lucky enough to stumble across some discounts. You can get the tickets and all the information here. Bonne chance!

Luxju Natural Hair Care Products

We keep seeing the motto: ‘Happiness is a good hair day’ pop up on Pinterest, and some of us here at The Amazing Blog couldn’t agree more! So, finding a completely natural hair care and styling brand that offers a solution for those of us with fine and frizzy hair – is a joy. Let us introduce you to Luxju Natural Hair Products who we met at a trade show late last year. Their founder set us a challenge, to see if her styling products made any real difference to our hair.

The name Luxju comes from the word luxurious, and most certainly these products feel just that. From her own experience, the founder Veronica J is only too aware of the struggle that some women face with either textured hair that has coils, curls or has been chemically processed.  Her frustration was that she couldn’t find any effective ‘natural’ products to use on her own hair. That’s when she had a light-bulb moment. Working closely with specialist labs, she went on to develop unique formulations that only have the highest quality natural and organic ingredients. They are also vegan and free from parabens, mineral oils, petroleum; plus they are cruelty, gluten, colour and fragrance-free. All of the products help to soften, nourish, hydrate the hair and define curls. For those of us here with frizzy, curly and unruly locks, this sounded like a recipe for true happiness.

Veronica very kindly gave us the trio from the range to try. The very first product we used was the Luxju Nourishing Hair Mist.  It is specially designed to moisturise the scalp and keep hair healthy, soft and conditioned. The mist is super-light with purified water that’s enriched with aloe vera to help repair dead skin cells on the scalp and leave the hair smooth and shiny; the green tea extract helps fight scalp dryness or dandruff and amla fruit that helps to thicken the hair. We used this spray as the first item from the trio, by spraying it onto our scalp and dry hair. It felt fresh and cool, and helped to ‘refresh the hair’ leaving it feeling more hydrated; and although this is fragrance-free, there was a delicious hint of a green tea/coconut combo.

Next, we used the Luxju Nourishing Hair Crème. This product aims to bring strength, curl definition and moisture to the hair. We loved how rich and buttery the texture felt when applied, and it melted beautifully into our damp hair before styling.  We also liked the key ingredients (similar to above) plus aloe vera, baobab and neem seed and coconut oil all of which are famed for moisturising dry hair and adding shine and softness.

For the finishing touch, we used Luxju Nourishing Frizz Control Oil. What we liked about this special Oil is that you can control frizz, flyaway hair days, plus keep your hair from being dry and brittle. The combination of key ingredients like castor, sesame, broccoli and camellia seeds help to seal in moisture like no other – without leaving the hair lank and greasy. Castor seed oil thickens hair and reduces split ends and the sesame seed oil nourishes and strengthens hair from the roots. Top tip from us, make sure to use this product on dry or damp hair from roots to tip to achieve optimum results.

Conclusion? Well, we took the challenge and Veronika we think you have some winning products here because they really do work! Please can you develop a shampoo and conditioner for us too? Regardless of your hair type, we think that these three products can be used every day to rock gorgeous hair! You can purchase items individually starting from £41 each here

Nakin Natural Anti-Ageing: Eye Cream Complex & Performance Face Serum

As they say ‘the eyes are the window to the soul’ and we think that having good skin is a reflection of a healthy lifestyle. As regular readers will know, at The Amazing Blog we’re always searching for great products that help to defy the ageing process. Today’s #amazingfinds are Nakin Performance Face Serum and Nakin Eye Cream Complex. As some of you may remember, we’ve already reviewed some of Nakin skincare products before (see here ) so it’ll come as no surprise we were really excited to try these two.

The founder Cris Beetham has been a pioneer of natural skincare for the past 20+ years with expertise in the anti-ageing and natural cosmetics sectors, thus making her brand one of the first innovative British skincare brands. This award-winning range of skincare offers a luxurious skincare system of cleansers, moisturisers and treatments. Their carefully selected natural ingredients not only target ageing skin, but also a multitude of other skin issues like sensitivity and skin repair.

Nakin Performance Face Serum is perfect for aiding sun-damaged or dull-looking skin and helping to restore one’s complexion back to its former glory. It is rich in anti-oxidant oils and extracts which prevent damage from skin stressors. Enriched with hydrolyzed hibiscus extract and hyaluronic acid these both help to boost hydration and skin elasticity. The pomegranate extract helps to reverse the sun’s damage, and best of all their products are suitable for all skin types. It’s recommended to apply the Serum to a cleansed face before moisturising to achieve optimum results. It quickly absorbs, leaving the skin feeling incredibly soft and silky. Due to its wonderful hydrating qualities, we think that it would also make the ideal primer under a tinted moisturiser or mineral makeup.

Nakin Eye Cream Complex is a light eye cream designed to reduce the appearance of fine lines, puffy eyes and dark circles. Again, it is enriched with hydrolyzed hibiscus extract, hyaluronic acid and pomegranate that help to rejuvenate the skin. It also has caffeine, green tea and seaweed extracts which compress the blood vessels and reduces eye puffiness. The cholera vulgaris here helps to improve your blood circulation for the removal of dark circles. Just apply a small amount of the cream with your finger and carefully dab around your eye area both morning and evening. We love that it absorbs easily and has a delicate fragrance.

These are tried and tested products, and we whole-heartedly recommend Nakin skincare which is also vegetarian, cruelty-free and has no nasties. You can purchase a 50ml Nakin Performance Face Serum at £25 here, and a 15ml bottle Nakin Eye Cream Complex at £18 here.  

PARA’KITO®

There’s really nothing quite like a run around the pond in Hyde Park or an evening stroll after work around the boating lake in Battersea Park, refreshing, energising and invigorating. However, at The Amazing Blog, we’re all only too aware of the dreaded mosquito bites that come with the territory of being near still water. We may get a great workout but then return home covered in itchy bites. This is when we discovered PARA’KITO® to help solve the problem.

According to PARA’KITO®, the world is a wonderful place full of exciting adventures. They want you to embrace this world, go travel and explore - all free from the nuisance of mosquitoes! Hence, the brand has created a new generation of topical repellents to combat mosquitoes and ticks. Cleverly they have achieved the feat of combining a mosquito repellent with extremely effective natural formulations for optimal protection that you can trust.

After several years of research and development with a team of determined biochemists, the brand has created some unique formulations. While traditional mosquito repellents tend to resort to alcohol and chemical surfactants as binders, PARA’KITO®, has incorporated patented technologies with only natural formulations in water-based or dry oil formulas.

The brand has released two key ranges of products.  The first being a repellent for tropical areas and the second is a repellent for regions in Europe. These come as a roll-on and spray product, these include cellulose and clay (ClayCell technology) allowing PARA’KITO® to avoid the toxic impacts of active ingredients through the skin and potentially into the bloodstream. It uses a mineral (clay) and vegetal extract (cellulose) as binders, with no alcohol or synthetic surfactants. These are able to reduce the repellent actives’ penetration into the epidermis, enhancing product efficacy. Furthermore, PARA’KITO® also uses Citrepel which contains PMD in its products, thus setting the company apart from traditional repellent brands. Citrepel is a natural derivative of citronella Java essential oil. It has the highest and most stable concentration of PMD (p-menthane-diol), a repellent very effective on a wide variety of insects, especially mosquitoes and ticks. PMD is the only natural repellent that provides the most protection against mosquitoes. It acts on the sensory receptors of mosquitoes with a level of efficacy similar to the 3 other active ingredients which are synthetic chemicals (DEET, IR3535 and Icaridin). That’s all the technical stuff!

PARA’KITO® have quite a few different types of repellents, one is a Pellet filled with natural essential oils which is worn as a wrist or ankle band. Made of comfy neoprene and comes with two refills that diffuse as a unique cocktail of natural essential oils that effectively mask our olfactory signals. These pellets last up to 15 days and include ingredients of citronella, rosemary geranium mint, clove and peppermint essential oils.

The products we tried were five from the range (see above photo). Let’s start with the Family Spray and Roll On in the green range, which is for Europe. They provide complete protection for the whole family for 8 hours against tiger mosquitoes and 5 hours against ticks.  Whereas The Tropical Spray and Roll On is a stronger formula for up to 10 hours protection against tiger mosquitoes and up to 6 hours against the Anopheles (malaria vector) as well as 7 hours against ticks.  Both ranges come with a wristband too – best for full protection - see here both the Roll-Ons and Sprays start from £14.95 ea. They feel gentle on the skin and smell deliciously of citronella without a trace of anything chemical (i.e. DEET!) Each helps safeguard you against mosquitoes depending on the geographical region that you’re in. What sets these products apart is that they don’t use any artificial chemicals and serve as a brilliant alternative to chemical repellents.

They also have a mosquito and tick repellent in the form of a water-resistant Dry Oil. It has a 6 hour proven efficacy and can be used as a skin moisturiser or after-sun care. This product uses coconut oil extracts, vitamin E and organic vegetal oils, as these moisturising lipophilic compounds have an affinity with the epidermis. The unique HydraActive™ technology boosts the active’s repellence by achieving, at a lower concentration, with optimal and prolonged efficacy. The Dry Oil product is renowned for its moisturising and nourishing properties as well as with highly concentrated of  Citrepel® and extracts of shea butter and liquorice to smooth and repair the skin, priced at £14.95 for a 75ml bottle.  Our favourite from this range? The Dry Oil wins hands down! Head over to their official website here to buy the full range, and protect yourself against these horrible blood-sucking beasties!