Summer Fruits and Berries Rasul at Bryn Meadows

Morning all!

A spa day is always a welcome treat but after the last few weeks I was so excited to have been invited to Bryn Meadows Spa to try out their Summer Fruits and Berries Rasul offer.

This included the Rasul Mud Room Ceremony with a geranium and grapefruit scrub and a choice of mud, use of the poolside and leisure facilities for 3 hours with the usual robe, towel and slippers, followed by the Summer Berries afternoon tea with unlimited tea or coffee and a glass of Pimms.

To say I was excited was an understatement, I was looking forward to forgetting the world outside of the spa for a few hours and embracing the relaxation.

Laguna Health Spa - ESPA Optimal Skin Profacial Treatment

Hey all!

I'm sure you've seen M's post on her amazing ESPA Body Wrap so I'd like to share with you my thoughts on the ESPA Optimal Skin Profacial Treatment that I had when I visited the Laguna Health Club.

We both love a good spa treatment and knowing the new treatments at Laguna used cruelty free products from ESPA we were looking forward to visiting again.

Laguna Health and Spa - Espa Body Wrap Review

Hey All

Laguna Health and Spa have recently switched salon brands to Espa and as it's cruelty free I was pretty excited to hear this! We were lucky enough to be offered to try out some of the treatments so couldn't wait to test them out.

Laguna Health and Spa is located in the Park Plaza Hotel in Cardiff and has a beautiful swimming pool, sauna and jacuzzi, as well as a great gym (which used to be my gym and I really miss those classes!)

Validation facial - Lush Spa Cardiff

Hey All

This is another of the posts I've been meaning to write for a while, so as I'm travelling down to Cornwall I thought I would share it with you.

As soon as I heard Lush was opening a spa I was pretty excited, I love going on spa days with my mum or friends and as I love all things Lush I couldn't wait to try it out. Back in January I bought my mum a treatment for her birthday so we could go together when it was open.

Celtic Manor Spa Weekend

Hey All

Before Christmas I was lucky enough to win a weekend break at The Celtic Manor with spa treatments. To say I was excited was an understatement and of course I took L with me. I've stayed in Coldra Court before (review here) but never the main resort so couldn't wait to see the difference.

We decided to book for the middle of January so we could relax after the Christmas rush. We headed down on Friday night after work to the resort.

We got settled into our room which had the most amazing marble bathroom! Of course we took selfies. The photos I took of the room didn't come out well and show it off to it's best. I think The Celtic Manor is a thing of preference with regards for decor, for me I love it, it's old fashioned but looks good and reminds me of the hotel I stayed in when I was in Disney.

Temple Spa Treatments at the Vale Resort and Spa

Hello everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! I had the pleasure of attending the infamous Vale Resort Spa* last week to try out one of their new facials launching this month.

If you don't know much about the Vale Resort .....where on earth have you been?!

The resort contains a four star hotel with conference facilities, restaurants, champagne bars, award winning golf course, leisure, spa and sports facilities. I can reassure you that if it is good enough for the Welsh rugby team, Cardiff Blues, Welsh football team and Cardiff City FC on a regular basis plus Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool it is certainly good enough for me!

The spa contains the largest spa in Wales and offers more than 50 different traditional and holistic treatments - it is absolutely huge! There are 19 treatment rooms and 6 bespoke relaxation zones with various names and purposes, I'll talk more about these later on. The facilities also include a 20m pool, whirlpool bath, sauna and steam room plus state of the art gym, fitness studios and squash and tennis courts.

Image from The Vale Resort

Simply Bare 1 Year Anniversary Deals

Hey All

Last year I wrote about a new salon that had opened in the arcades of Cardiff (you can read about it here!) Simply Bare is now a year old. It's such a great salon and at the moment they are running some great birthday deals. Such as if you get a bikini wax you can get half price massage or facials. What better way to get the essentials done and give yourself a treat too.

Waxing is such a great way to control hair removal. I'm not a fan of shaving as I find it needs doing too often and I just don't get on with it for the bikini area so always opt for waxing or epliating. I do find epilating such a chore though. It's so much nicer to just have someone else do it.

Simply bare is a great professional salon easily located in the city centre and it opens till 6 Mon-Sat with later night opening on a Thurs which is a great for people who work. It's a bug bear on mine when things are only 9-5

The Salon still uses Lycon waxes which is a great waxing system you can read more about in my original post. Plus who doesn't love the novelty of a great smelling product that also works really well!

So if you're looking for a great salon in Cardiff for waxing, massages or facials go check out the ladies at Simply Bare. It's also number 1 on trip adviser at the moment with some really great reviews so don't just take my word for it!

Love M

xxx

Celtic Manor - Pamper at the Manor

Hey All

Last Monday we were lucky enough to be invited to a pamper evening at Celtic Manor. It's a spa I've been dying to go to for ages and we both love a good spa day so couldn't wait to head there.

Celtic Manor is a huge hotel with two separate types of accommodation within the hotel and lodges on site, golf course and many other activites for an stay including the Forum Spa.

This place is huge and after going in a different entrance to L I promptly got lost, the staff instantly impressed me as I must have been looking lost a member of staff walked out of a conference room to ask if I needed help.

On arriving we were taken to the changing rooms where we all had our own personalised lockers filled with robes, towels and some treats. The robes were so big and comfy I wanted to just stay lounged in it.

Once we'd all gotten changed we were welcomed with Champagne and chocolate covered strawberries and taken into the main reception. The forum spa uses Elemis and Leighton Denny products which are two brands I love. Elemis skincare is a current favourite of mine and my skin always feels better after using it.

On the evening we got to have back, neck and shoulder massages, Elemis Biotec Facials, AND a file and polish. We were also allowed to explore the spa area and got to see the treatment room for the Elemis Herbal Steam Temple. The room was beautiful and felt like somewhere in Morocco with the amazing tiles floor and sparkly ceiling. This is a treatment I think I'll be booking if I visit again. You get three different types of mud to apply to different areas of the body and get to relax on the heated seats. At the end of the treatment a rainforest type shower starts. How amazing does that sound!



Every area of the spa felt luxurious and I loved that even the toilets has Elemis products to use. A great feature that we all agreed was great was that the women's changing rooms had a female only sauna, jacuzzi and steam room. This is great for days where you maybe don't want to be around too many people. I imagine this would be really popular area for groups of women enjoying a spa day.

The main swimming pool is one of the most beautiful I've seen. With an amazing mural on the ceiling and massive glass windows behind the hot tub so you can look out to beautiful scenery. It felt so relaxing in there and the swimming pool was a decent size.



The make up was something we of course couldn't resist a little swatch of. These eye shadows were such pretty, easy to wear, everyday colours.

Here I am enjoying my massage chair. We were a bit dubious of the chairs but it was so easy to relax on them. These were put up in a lovely chill out area with sun loungers and magazines. This area also has massive windows with green fields to look out on. We're already planning a day spa trip here and looking forward to some chill time in this area.



The files and polish all uses Leighton Denny products. There were an amazing range of colours. L went for a gorgeous pearl shimmer shade. I couldn't resist a gorgeous greige colour. I've had Leighton Denny manicures before. They always last a resonable amount of time. For me no polish lasts that long without chipping.











We've saved the best till last here. The Biotec Facials. This link explains all the types fully. This is a new and exclusive treatment. There are a combination of seven, target specific treatments to offer personalised facials with great results.

L went with the Resurfacing Facial while I went for the Radiance facial. They both started with a cleanse of the skin followed by a tool that gave the skin a gentle exfoliation. This felt a bit weird at first and made a buzzing sound like you'd expect an ultra-sonic tool to. Next up I had a mask put on then the rollers were used to massage the mask into the skin. L's facial then moved onto a light treatment to help treat scars and fine lines. 

We both felt so relaxed during these and loved how soft our skin felt after. This is another thing we've said we need to go back for more and imagine that if this could be done on a monthly basis we'd really notice the difference in our skin.




The Celtic Manor offer great spa days for all budgets and can include stays in the hotel (Obama stayed here during the NATO talks!!)  and meals. We'll definitely be back.

They even hold bootcamp weekends with Lucy Mecklenburgh (from TOWIE and Results with Lucy) and to experience a bootcamp with her would be amazing!! They consider the whole package in these weekend deals so you get food, exercise classes and wellbeing talks which would be great to listen to.

Huge thanks to Celtic Manor Forum Spa for the amazing treatments and totally relaxing us after some busy weeks.
We also left with an amazing goodie bag of Elemis products so we will be sure to review them when we manage to try them all out - we have been completely overwhelmed with the generosity of Celtic Manor, their customer service is second to none.


Love L and M

xxx

      

Ener-chi

Hello there!

We've got a joint review for you today, courtesy of a lovely spa in Cardiff called Ener-chi. They have two branches in Cardiff, one in Radyr and one in Penarth.

They aim to combine the mind, body and spirit of individuals through the medium of beautifying, healing and relaxing rituals.

They have a wide range of treatments including facials, massage and personal grooming with products from brands such as Dr Haushka, Caudalie, Antipodes and Glamglow.

They sent us a beauty pack for our own little relaxing pamper sessions at home, and before we went out last weekend we put a girly film on and put our feet up..... 

The cute beauty pack contained a Glamglow Youthmud Tinglexfoliate treatment, Caudalie Detox Oil, Dr Haushka Rose Day Cream and a Pukka Cool Mint Green tea for a start to finish pamper set.

We've both heard a LOT about Glamglow and their mud treatments; their results have been raved about and we couldn't wait to get the packet open and onto our faces!

It definitely does what it says on the packet; it tingles! When we first put it on we did a little dance around the room as it tingled and then it settled down and began to dry, here's a quick selfie:

The most interesting part was as it dried, you could see all of our pores! It was really weird but hopefully this means our pores were getting an extra deep clean.

We also boiled the kettle and made ourselves a cup of mint green tea to fully relax, mint teas are one of our favourites and a daily occurrence.

After it had dried we washed it off with warm water and a muslin cloth, it came off quite easily and our skin felt really clean and smooth afterwards.

Next we applied the Caudalie Polyphenol Overnight Detox Oil. As we were going for a night out we didn't apply as much as was stated but the few drops we did apply absorbed really quickly into the skin and didn't leave any trace.




I've used it since and applied the full 6 drops as an overnight treatment and my skin drank it up!

It's really quite nice and I'd definitely look into purchasing it in future, I've heard a lot about Caudalie but this was the first product I've tried.





The tiny vial was so cute but actually held a lot of product as I thought it would only hold enough for one application. But I've used it at least twice since and still have another left.

A few hours later we then applied a Rose day Cream from Dr Haushka, another first for me. Dr Haushka is a brand that I've heard so much about but have never tried anything from. Their packaging and display are beautiful, and the product itself was luxurious.





Allegedly the centrepiece of the Dr Hauschka range the day cream nourishes and protects a wide range of skin types including from redness and irritation which is something that we all experience at some point.

All of these products were lovely to try out and it was lovely of Enerchi to send us samples of their range. After having a full body massage there a few weeks ago I will be sure to visit again, their staff were really friendly and my massage was out of this world!Not only was it a head to toe massage it included a facial too and I was honestly the most relaxed I've ever been (if extremely oily afterwards too!)

You can find Ener-chi's website here, check out their range of treatments and the brands they stock!

What's your favourite treatment? Have you tried anything from Caudalie, Glamglow or Dr Hauschka?

L xxx

Hey all

As L said we decided to treat ourselevs

ourselves to a full on pamper before we went out. Glam glow is something i was so excited to try after hearing so much about it. The fact it fully opened the pores impressed me and my skin was so smooth after wards! It was quite red though but it did go down within the hour.

As our skin was so soft we followed up with the oil. Being oily skinned i was dubious to put this on before a night out so had planned to leave it on for a few hours then cleanse my skin before I got ready. I was so surprised though as my skin just soaked up the oil and was left feeling soft and smooth and not at all greasy. This is now firmly on my wish list.

I love trying new products like this and it wad good to be able to try a little routine. As L said they have two salons in the local area and stock a lot more products including some amazing scented candles and some great gifts. You can also buy online at ener-chi.co.uk.

Happy Friday!

Love M

xxx

Life Lately

Evening All

Hope you've all had a great weekend. Mine was spent at home with my family. This past month due to one thing or another I've been home lots. It's going to be hard for me as I'm now not going home for about 2 months which is going to feel ages. I love weekends at home. They always speed by too quickly.

My past week has been a bit of a quiet one.My Saturday last week was busy seeing the guy I'm seeing before he went to Egypt and I did something I never thought I'd do. I did some promo work. I was so nervous but it was such good fun. It was in local gay bars promoting a new drink. It felt like being on a night out but getting paid to be there. I'm really hoping I can do more as it's a great way for extra cash!

I also ended up out with my housemate last Sunday and we went to the pub for a drink (that's such a lethal saying for me. Popping to the pub for one never ends in one!). After proper cider and at least 4 large glasses of wine it's safe to say my week started off very badly. My Monday was spent in a horrible hung over mess!!

As I knew it was going to be a busy weekend I kept last week pretty few. Dangerous for me. Way too many of my evenings were spent browsing ebay. Especially after doing my Superdry wishlist last week and now these are mine and there are lots more in my wishlist!

My brother is getting married in Cyprus in June so I've been eyeing up dresses for ages. I finally found the perfect one a month ago and it finally came into stock last week. It's perfect for me. I love the unusual lime green colour and back detail!

I'm a huge graze box fan. I only have it once a fortnight due to price. I love getting post and getting food from the post is even better!! I have had the robin since Christmas and he now has a fox friend!

My Saturday was spent with my niece's. I love them to bits but they are hard work. Someone please tell me it's easier when it's your own children. I took them to the park swimming and then did their hair. I love playing with their hair and how girly my oldest niece is. She is like a mini me! 

Yesterday I got to go and see my grandad that I've not seen for over two years due to family issues. It was amazing to get to see him again and catch up with him. It's hard to see my grandparents age though!

I've been a bit moody and stressed lately and have struggled with things getting on top of me. My mum has really started to notice so today treated me to a spa day. It was lush to spend the day with her. We had a nice healthy lunch, a gym session, sauna and then went for a lush facial. I was so relaxed I almost fell asleep. As I've really been struggling with my skin my mum also treated me to an Elemis cleanser. I can't wait to put it to the test.

Now it's back to the real world for me and a day in work tomorrow before a day off and a visit to Kamigata for more pink hair!! Whooo!!

Tomorrow night I get to see Deaf Havana and I can't wait!

Hope you all have amazing weeks. Bring on the long weekend!

Love M

xxx

Tea Time!

Both me and M have been so busy the last few weeks and lots of things have happened, so I decided to do a catch up post instead of a product review today. So get yourself a brew and settle down.....

I am absolutely loving my new job and it's everything I've been hoping for....but helllllllllllllllllllll is it hard work!

There's so much to learn my brain feels like its about to explode every evening I come home, I've even got into bed at 7pm and completely crashed out til the next day.

I'm still training but now that I've got the basics I'm getting to do a lot more fun things (if you can call analysing drugs a fun thing?!) so fingers crossed my brain won't be so bombarded soon.

They've even offered for me to a PhD next year...eeeeek!

The biggest event this week was of course M's birthday! We had a lush day at the spa on Thursday, we started off in the gym knowing that we had a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge afternoon tea to follow:



Look at those sandwiches, warm scones and welsh cakes, pastries and even jelly and strawberries!

There must have been 1000s of calories on this tray so I was pretty glad I'd been to the gym before it.

 

Afterwards we got glammed up and went for a few cocktails before M met her family for food.

I wore out an animal print jump suit with nude court shoes, and M had on a dress she got for her birthday which was a gorgeous burgundy lace dress from Lydia Rose Brights collection.

 

We have the same plan of attack whenever we go for cocktails, first drink is a Cosmo followed by a Long Island Iced Tea. After that we tend to grab whatever else is on the deal (ha!) but we thought we'd try a different one called a Kentucky Jewel which we would 100% recommend ;)

We also went shopping last weekend and I picked up a few naughty pieces!
First up was an unplanned dress purchase....a beautiful red dress from Oasis in the sale for £35. I couldn't resist it as it was so beautiful on, a classic shape and colour......and in the sale!

The blazer was a cheeky Zara purchase. I did need a blazer for the weddings I have coming up, and although this beauty was £50 I know it will be worn a lot and will go with every dress that I have to wear to weddings and other summer events. Hopefully this will be worth the cash!

I've been working hard at the gym recently so I decided to pick myself up some new trainers. I know everyone loves the super bright coral Nikes and I would love to get some for myself but at £90 with crazy delivery I will have to wait for now!
I picked these up from the Nike Factory store for a bargainous £38 and cannot wait to rock up to the gym today with them on.

What have you been up to recently? What have you been spending on and looking forward to?

Me and M have a night out planned for next week.....I'm thinking of wearing the red dress! Do you like it?

Hope you're all having a gorgeous weekend in the sun!

L xxx