Bernie's Christmas Haul

As this was Bernie's first Christmas, she's been extremely spoilt! I thought I'd do a mini round up of all the toys she got for Christmas.

Looking pretty pleased with herself.

We picked up this toy from Pets at Home earlier today, so it's not technically a Christmas present, but I thought I'd include it anyway. This is made by Kong who are pretty good at making tough chewy toys. Bernie seems to really like this one, but it doesn't seem as strong as some of Kong's other toys. These come in a variety of colours and animals and are available here for £5 each.

Next up is this treat cube which Bernie got from Luke's mum. She loves this, it's great for when we go out for a bit. We keep aside some of her breakfast and put it in the treat ball, and she's perfectly happy chasing it around the house. She can pick it up quite easily and it keeps her entertained. Happy dog, happy owners! 

This chewy ring wasn't an immediate hit, but it had to be confiscated this morning after I realised she'd started to chew the little spikes off and eat them. She likes to chase after this if you roll it along the ground. 

This toy has been christened the Loofah Dog. We're not really sure what the loofah bit is made of, so we're keeping an eye on Bernie when she plays with it to make sure she doesn't eat it. This one seems to be slightly less popular than the others, possibly because it doesn't squeak. 

The reindeer was something I happened to spot on Sainsburys on Christmas eve and decided to grab. It was incredibly popular but we've had to remove the stuffing from its head because Bernie ripped a hole in it almost instantly. 

 One of Bernie's favourite toys this Christmas has to be the stuffing-free rabbit. These toys have no stuffing in, but they do have squeakers. So if your dog does love ripping stuff up, these aren't entirely safe to be left with your dog unsupervised. We've had to remove them from ours already, as Bernie had pulled the little bags containing the squeakers out of the rabbit within about 20 minutes of playing with it. These also come in a variety of animals, but I could only find the duck on the Pets at Home site. It's here for £6.

Finally, this was Bernie's main present. I spotted this on Amazon a month or so before Christmas, and thought it looked great. The idea is the squirrels can be hidden in the trunk, or removed to be played with. Bernie seems to mainly enjoy running up and down the living room with the trunk and throwing the squirrels out as she goes. It's definitely her favourite, but she has to be rationed with it as it was quite expensive and I'm not really sure how robust it is! You can find these on Amazon here, although they are currently out of stock. You can also purchase replacement squirrels on Amazon.

Sorry for the slightly random post, but hopefully this will have been helpful and interesting to some dog owners out there! 

Did you do anything special for your pets this Christmas?

 

Christmas Haul

Hello everyone! It's nice to be back blogging again. I've decided to do a quick post about the gorgeous beauty products that I was gifted for Crimbo, as I love having a nose at what other bloggers got! I did take the opportunity to make a list for Luke and his family, so I got some lovely things from Benefit and Stila which I am itching to try out!

 First up though, the bath/shower products! I got this lovely hand cream and shower gel set from Luke's grandparents, which also came with a pretty mug. I've already tried the hand cream and it smells fantastic, and left my hands feeling super soft. 

I also got this lovely Dove set from one of Luke's aunties. I love Dove's shower gels, they leave my skin feeling so soft. I think these sets are great as well because they come with a shower puff, always handy!

This set of nail polishes came from Luke's brother and sister-in-law. I think Helen did a great job picking these out! I love the colours in this set, I don't have many metallic polishes and I can't wait to start swatching them!

I think Luke's mum might have gone a little bit crazy this year, but I'm definitely not complaining! I've wanted to try out Stila's make up for a while, and this set of lip glosses went straight on my Christmas wishlist. So many lovely colours! The shimmery shades are particularly calling to me to be tried out.

Finally, the Benefit goodies! I've been lusting after Benefit's cosmetics for ages, and I just loved the idea of the gift sets they had available for Christmas. Luke got me the How to Look the Best at Everything set, and his mum got me the Rockateur blush and the Rich is Back set. Very excited about these! (And very spoilt! Thank you so much Susan, if you're reading!)

I'm going to do some more in depth posts on these when I've had time to try them out, so you'll have to wait to see what's inside the pretty boxes! I also got a couple of samples to try out with these items.

I'm not really sure if I'll be able to get a feel for these as they are only samples, but I'm still quite interested to try them out. 

So that's my Christmas beauty haul! I hope you've enjoyed seeing what I've received, and having a sneak preview of the things I'll be reviewing in the future! What were your favourite beauty gifts this year?

Special Edition Christmas Glossybox

I wasn't really sure about getting this box after Glossybox revealed what would be in it. I'm still not 100% sure that I shouldn't have just saved my pennies to be honest!

The box is beautifully presented. I love the glamorous black and gold design, and the pretty Glossybox ribbon!

 

I'm going to start with my least favourite item and work my way up, so I'll start with the Be a Bombshell bronzer in Tanorexic. That sentence says it all really. This is listed as a blusher on the card, which is disappointing. I'd have much preferred a blusher. Also, is it just me, or is it slightly insensitive to name a bronzer 'Tanorexic'? This will probably be binned. I don't know anyone that would use it, and I certainly won't be. This is full size, and is worth £9.95

 

Next up is the Absolute! perfume stick. This is a very strong floral scent and I'm pretty sure this is going to end up in a present for my grandmother! Not my sort of thing at all. This is worth £9.50.

I received the EuPhidra lip gloss in a very sheer looking shade. It's got quite a bit of glitter to it though, which I didn't manage to pick up very well in the pictures unfortunately. I like the scent too, it's quite a strong vanilla. This is full-size and worth £11.90.

I received the Butter London nail lacquer in Tee Total. I'm not really impressed by the shade to be honest. It's just a very plain chocolate brown, not something I'd have normally picked for myself and not a colour I would associate with Christmas. Here I've applied two coats, and it's still quite streaky. This is full-size and worth £12.

Lovely bit of Christmas tree bokeh going on here :)

I also got the Philip B African Shea Butter shampoo. I'm quite excited to try this out as shampoo is a hair product that I won't just put on a shelf and forget about. It doesn't seem to have a particularly powerful scent, but I have a slight cold so my nose is a bit bunged up haha! 

 

Finally, we have the So Susan Luminizer. I really like this, it's very shimmery and will look gorgeous on the skin. I've swatched it on my hand and a little really does go a long way, which is good as my sample seems to be more or less empty. This is full-size and is worth £25.

I had a bit of a job capturing the shimmer but you can sort of see it.

Well as I've written this, I've sort of talked myself into disliking the box more than I originally thought I did! The box just doesn't really feel like a particularly Christmassy box to me, and to have 'full-size' samples that are pretty much empty is a bit of a swizz. I'm hoping that the standard December box is a little bit more impressive, and I'm not sure that I'll be bothering with any more of the limited edition boxes. After December's box, I should have enough Glossydots for a free January box. Depending on what that's like, I might very well cancel and sign up with either Birchbox or Love Me Beauty. People seem to be a lot more satisfied with those!

Limited Collection and Alice and Eliza Christmas Goodies

I'm lucky enough to know someone who works behind the scenes at Marks and Spencers, who has very kindly sent me some of their Christmas range!

 

This is the selection of Alice and Eliza goodies I was sent. I love the cute fair isle pattern and deer print!

These are bath fizzers, and they smell great! I can't wait to try these out. The scent is described as 'Christmas spices and crisp evergreens', so perfect for winter evenings. These are available here for £4.

This is a hand warmer. I always like to have gloves handy when the weather starts to get chilly, but I really love the idea of these! You snap the metal disc inside the hand warmer to start a chemical reaction which heats up. According to the website, you can re-use the hand warmer by placing it in boiling water, however it doesn't say how long you're meant to leave it in for! It just says '5-7' and I'm not whether it means seconds or minutes. I'll have to give it a try. The hand warmers are available here in a range of covers for £5.

This is a strawberry lip balm. It smells fantastic, but I've not tried it out yet to see how well it does at moisturising! This lip balm is also available in Orange and Frozen Blackberry from here for £3.

This is such a cute set of polishes! I'm really keen to do a Nails of the Day post with these. The set also comes with an emery board. I can't find this on the Marks and Spencer website, so I'm not sure how much it costs!

The last item from the Alice and Eliza collection is this cute wash bag! This set comes with a shower cream and body puff, the website lists the set as containing a hand cream too, but it isn't pictured online and my set didn't come with one. You can buy this set here for £7.50.

 

Now on to the Limited Collection stuff! I love the bright colourful packaging! Again, loving the deer print.

First up is this cute make up set. This includes four eye shadows, blusher, eyeliner, mascara, lip gloss, and a little brush and applicator. You can get this set here for £12.50.

Here are some swatches of the eye shadows and the blusher. The shadows are all shimmery apart from the brown shade which is matte. They're all really pigmented though, and the blusher is a really cute natural pink.

This is the lip gloss and eye liner. The liner applied really easily, and the gloss is a lovely semi sheer pink.

 I was pretty intrigued by this when I first spotted it! This brush has a really light shimmer powder stored in the handle, which is applied when you use the brush on your skin.

Shimmer!

I thought I would get in a right mess with this but it was surprisingly mess-free! You can buy the brush here for £7.50.

Next up is this eye shadow palette. This has got some great shades in it, and comes with a handy applicator too.

Swatches! The silver is pretty much the same as the one in the other set, but I really love the silvery green colour in this palette. You can get this here for £8.50.

This is one of my favourite items from the selection I was sent. I love the colour of the blush and the deer printed into the powder.

This is such a pretty pink! This blusher is available here for £6.

 

This is the last item from my awesome Christmas selection! These eye shadow dusts are so pigmented, but I can see myself making a complete mess with these. There's a reason I normally stick to pressed shadows!

 

 Look at that blue! I couldn't really do these shadows justice with the light today, but take my word for it, these are gorgeous. The blue has got little shimmery bits of gold in which look awesome, the purple is really pigmented, and the pink is just a really soft light shade. You can get this set here for £9.50.

Overall, I think that Marks and Spencer has got some great stocking fillers available this year! I can't wait to try out all of these properly. Keep your eyes peeled for some more in-depth reviews soon!

*Although these items were sent to me for review purposes, all opinions expressed are my own*