Cookbook Feature - Friday Favourites

We at The Amazing Blog love to experiment in the kitchen. Whether it’s for entertaining dinner party guests or making treats for our loved ones, we’re always trying to improve our repertoire. For those of you who love to cook and bake just as much as we do, we’ve come up with a few exciting new recipe books for you to take a look at!

As the weather warms up, so does our sweet tooth! The Clandestine Cake Club: A Year of Cake by Lynn Hill is the perfect way to experiment with a variety of delicious confections.

The drool-worthy cookbook is organized month-by-month and filled with delectable images of cakes that suit every holiday. It also features seasonal ingredients and recipes served with a little slice of history that reveals stories and traditions about the occasions that inspired them. To give you a little taste of what’s included, the book illustrates recipes for traditional cakes like Toffee Apple Gingerbread and Strawberry Pimm’s, but also includes exotic ones like Yogurt & Pecan cake as well as Canadian Maple Syrup & Bacon cake.

Fire up your oven and start practicing for the holidays with “A Year of Cake” here for £20.

If you’re craving some colourful dishes, we would recommend flipping through NOPI: The Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Ramael Scully—a collection of over 120 recipes from Yotam’s celebrated Soho restaurant.

This spectacular cookbook combines Yotam’s Middle Eastern influences with Scully’s Asian background and delivers a truly unique set of original, flavor-packed dishes. If you’re a fan of the restaurant, you’ll love learning the secrets to your favourite courses, and if you’re a cooking enthusiast, you’ll love discovering new recipes to inspire and delight. This book is chock-full of things for every occasion, from simple starters to complex main courses and puddings. As a bonus, the book itself is absolutely beautiful just to display on your shelf. The hard cover has a creamy white texture and the pages are gilded in gold.

Whether you’re looking to impress a dinner party or serve yourself a quick meal, this book is a gem to add to your collection. It’s available here for £28.

Biscuits are the quintessential English snack, so it’s only fitting that we feature a recipe book focused entirely on biscuits. Introducing Bee’s Brilliant Biscuits, a book filled to the brim with original, colourful, and flavourful unique treats for you and your loved ones.

The recipes range from classic shortbread, to cookies you can bake with your kids, to treats for you pooch, and everything in between! It even includes a page of tear-out templates to add to the fun.

You deserve better than to dunk a plain digestive into your tea. With 80 recipes to choose from, Bee’s Brilliant Biscuits has got you covered. Buy it here for £12.08.

Lip Balm Feature- Friday Favourites

After a long winter, our lips are in desperate need of some TLC. We at The Amazing Blog would love to present you with some of our favourite new options for hydrating lip care products.

Flying Wild shares the healing power of beehives with the world by producing organic beeswax based skincare from their small farm in Ballinderry, Ireland. We were given the opportunity to try the handmade Organic beeswax lip balm with raw Irish honey and rosemary, and we loved how natural and soothing it is. It contains deep moisturising grapeseed oil, protecting beeswax, healing raw Irish honey from their own beehives, refreshing rosemary, and anti-oxidising vitamin E—all of which keep our lips feeling renewed, hydrated, and protected. The creamy texture is lightweight and non-greasy, which means that it’s perfectly suited to wearing underneath other makeup products.

The Organic beeswax lip balm is available here for £3.99.

We recently raved about one of Lacrème Beauté’s bee venom products, but now we would like to introduce the organic rose lip balm. This luxuriously simple product nourishs and protects the lips from harmful UV rays with a blend of Organic Beeswax, organic coco butter, organic shea butter, almond oil, and essential oil of rose otto. The soft rose scent is quite soothing, and the light pink hue adds a slight sheen to brighten a dull complexion. The lightweight formula absorbs quickly so that you’re left with nourished lips all day long.

Purchase your own organic rose lip balm for £12 here.

The new Tinted Luxe Balms from Rouge Bunny Rouge combines an ultra-hydrating lip treatment formula with just the right amount of color. The unique blend of oils, waxes and state-of-the-art pigments create a flattering lip colour with anti-aging properties. It features a powerful active complex derived from sunflower oil designed volumise, smooth, and brighten the lips after four week of continued use. The paraben-free balm is smooth and non-sticky, and it is available in three beautiful hues.

The Rouge Bunny Rouge Tinted Luxe balm is available here for £22.74.

Style Me in Seconds

Rachel Mann Photography

A special event is popping up next week at Old Street Underground Station! This is something that all of us here at The Amazing Blog and any fashionista will be sure to attend. From April 4th to the 10th you can get a personal styling makeover by professional stylists who have dressed Victoria Beckham, Emilie Sande and Professor Green.

Rachel Mann Photography

The Style Me in Seconds pop up event is offering free styling sessions to demonstrate the uniqueness and versatility of charity shop clothing. For those of us who don’t often have the patience to rummage through rails of clothing at charity shops, this event is a great way to see the endless creative possibilities of charity shop fashion. While it might be easier to buy off the peg than to rifle through the rails, charity shops can be a treasure trove of unique and vintage pieces that can set your wardrobe apart from the rest. Professional stylists can help you experiment with new looks or add a unique twist to your existing outfits.

Rachel Mann Photography

To get a taste of what charity shops have to offer, check out the Style Me in Seconds website for more information.

Chocolate Beauty for Easter

With Easter just around the corner, a few of us at The Amazing Blog are starting to crave those Easter chocolates and sweets, and we figured you might be feeling the same way. However, none of us can afford to eat all of that excess sugar, so instead we’ve prepared a few alternatives: chocolate inspired beauty products! All of these products either have cocoa infused in them or smell deliciously of chocolate, but have none of the calories so feel free to indulge. 

Christopher Courtney offers a luxurious Anti-Oxidant Chocolate Spa Body Scrub that you can use for a decadent pampering session at home. This exfoliator is rich in anti-aging properties and multi-vitamins to rejuvenate and revive dull skin. Key ingredients include: Cocoa Extract, Mango Powder, Pineapple Powder, Honey, Aloe, Apricot Kernel Oil, Dead Sea Salt, Calendula Oil, Marshmallow Extract, Nettle Extract, Rooibos Extract, Sweet Orange Essential Oil, and Mandarin Essential Oil. Your skin will be left feeling buttery soft and smelling like cocoa.

Pick up a jar of this luxurious scrub for yourself or as a gift to friends or family here for £31.

Everyone knows about the cult favorite Chocolate Bar Eye Shadow Palette by Too Faced, but have you seen the newest member of the collection? Introducing the Chocolate Bon Bons Eye Shadow Collection, a palette filled with 16 matte and shimmer eye shadow shades in the shape of little hearts. So cute we could just eat it! Each shadow is infused with anti-oxidant rich cocoa powder, so it smells absolutely divine too. The palette gives you 11 neutral shades plus 5 pops of color so you have plenty of room to experiment with loads of different looks. If you’re not that adventurous or just not sure where to begin, Too Faced also includes three looks in their signature Glamour Guide to help you get started.

These Chocolate Bon Bons are guaranteed to last you much longer than a few pieces of chocolate. Get it here for £37.

We know everyone goes crazy over Lush‘s holiday themed products, and we love them too so we definitely recommend picking up a few new bath bombs—but what we’d really like to focus on is the Cupcake Fresh Face Mask that’s available all-year round (you’ll be glad about this). It features Rhassoul mud, a highly absorbent ingredient that works with cocoa powder to draw out dirt and impurities—leaving you with a deeply cleansed face. Fresh mint stimulates and tones the skin whilst linseed and cocoa butter do the moisturising work for you. Only 10-15 minutes are needed for you to see a significant improvements in the texture of your skin!

This vegan friendly and cruelty-free product is available for £6.75 here.

We all hate the toxic smell of nail polish remover, so why not swap out yours with one that’ll satisfy your sweet tooth? Ciate’s new Choc Pot Dark Chocolate Nail Polish Remover is a nourishing and gentle formula that will quickly remove your existing nail polish so you can switch up your mani in a matter of moments. The non-drying acetone-free formulation is enriched with intensely hydrating Marula Oil, Vitamins B5 and E to condition and care for nails while leaving behind a deliciously chocolately aroma!

Get rid of that nasty smelling polish remover and get a chocolate scented one here for £6.

Friday Favourites - Tanning Feature

Warmer seasons are slowly starting to creep up on us, which only means one thing: serious tanning prep! Here at The Amazing Blog, we are big fans of fake tanning and believe that everyone should be a little bit bronzed. So, we have come up with a few products to get you looking tip top in time for the summer.

It’s essential to prep your skin before applying your tanning lotion, and Kissed by Mii has got you covered. By using Seriously Smoothing Exfoliator and Moisturiser, you will be prepped and ready for a streak free and even glow. Prepare your skin by first using the exfoliator. Getting rid of dead skin helps create a smooth and flawless tan while also removing any tan left over from a previous time.

After using the exfoliator, the Seriously Smoothing Moisturiser will hydrate and prime your skin for a longer lasting glow. Paying particular attention to moisturise dry areas such as elbows and knees will help you avoid uneven spots.

Your skin is now ready to receive the Effortlessly Easy Tanning Mousse - Delicately Light. This blend of red seaweed, green algae and coral seaweed, will be perfect for the first-timers. With a light and airy texture, easy to apply and very fast to dry, the mousse will give you the perfect flawless tan in 6-8 hours. We particularly love its fresh marine scent which remind us our long walk along the seafront.

To get ready for the maximum glow, check out the Seriously Smoothing Exfoliator here for £12.95, the Seriously Smoothing Moisturiser here for £13.95 and the Effortlessly Easy Tanning Mousse - Delicately Light here for £23.95.

Benefit has just created a great range to give you that enviable summer glow, and we were excited when they sent us the newest members of their bronzing line, Hoola Zero Tanlines and Dew The Hoola, launching tomorrow (March 12th)! The Hoola Zero Tanlines will give you bronzed skin for up to 12 hours, streak free! Apply all over the body for instant colour with the hands free sponge applicator. It gives you an even tan while avoiding orange hands. We also adore the subtle beachy fragrance that lightly sticks on the skin.

Once we have tanned our bodies, we can use Dew The Hoola liquid bronzer for a lightweight, natural, and shimmerless glow on the face. The liquid bronzer is perfect for year-round because of its soft-matte finish and seamless blending ability. You’ll look and smell like you’ve just returned from paradise.

 ‘Hoola your way to a beachin bod!’ Get Hoola Zero Tanlines here for only £19.50, and Dew The Hoola here for £22.50!

There is nothing worse than waking up in the morning after carefully applying your tan to find that most of it has come off on your bedsheets. With Bronzie to save the day, that can now be a thing of the past. The onesie is designed to keep and protect your fake tan; you can say goodbye to streaky legs and a stained bedsheet.

Here is how the Bronzie system works: the fabric is made from a lightweight versatile material which has been specially designed to glide over just-tanned skin. It features underarm mesh knit panels to ensure that your skin can breathe. There is a velour hood for added comfort as well as an asymmetrical zip to allow you to ease your body in and out, so you have minimal contact post tan. The Bronzie is designed to be worn everywhere: the salon, the shops, around the home, and to bed—making it the ultimate lounge wear.

Available in Gold label or Classic; look gorgeous and have a streak free tan by getting your Bronzie here for £34.99.