Christmas Kits: Soap and Glory The Whole She-Bang

Before we chat about Soap and Glory's newest Christmas release, I just wanted to take a moment to thank you all for your patience with me this week. At the moment I've got a lot of family stuff going on (read more here), so posting is going to be a little sporadic for the foreseeable future. I also wanted to thank you all for the sweet messages, it means a lot!

I still have a lot of Christmas gift stuff I want to share with you, so I'm going to try and get as much of it up as possible, as and when I can! 

Let's talk about The Whole She-Bang, shall we!?

When Soap and Glory invite you to a top secret launch party, with no more information than a location and a time, you have to go, otherwise the curiosity will probably kill you. That's what happened to me anyway, so I headed to Cahoots on Monday, to see what the team had up their sleeves. 

We had an evening of drinks, nibbles in an underground carriage, chatting all about this years big bonanza gift set, The Whole She-Bang. Soap and Glory lovers out there will know that each year the brand releases a big gift set at Christmas filled with their favourite picks, and it tends to be a bargain that sells out year on year. The perfect opportunity to stock up on bath bits for a new year. This year Soap and Glory teamed up with The Rodnik Band to create a pop art inspired beauty bag stuffed with goodies, which hits the shelves of Boots on Friday.

The bag houses a bunch of Soap and Glory favourites, the Clean On Me Shower Gel, Peaches and Cream Cleansing Milk, Scrub of Your Life Body Scrub, Heel Genius Foot Cream, The Righteous Butter Body Butter, The Righteous Butter Sunkissed Tint Body Lotion, Thick and Fast Mascara, a Sexy MotherPucker Lipgloss, and a Hand Food Hand Cream, not pictured because my Nan pinched it before I could photograph it!

Soap and Glory products are kind of a safe bet Christmas present, they are just real people pleasers. Good effective products, that smell amazing and are reasonably priced - I have yet to try anything from the brand and not like it. 

This goes into Boots stores and online on Friday, and will be priced at a bargain £30. It's guaranteed to sell out, so set your alarms to get your mitts on it!

What are your favourite Soap and Glory products?

My Christmas Break in iPhone Photos

1. My idea of fancying up an outfit, wearing a mulberry coloured skirt instead of a black one.

2. Cuddles with kitty, I'm sure she knew I was going away so she was EXTRA cute and cuddly to make me feel extra guilty for leaving. 

3. The night before, in an airport hotel club lounge, eating a sandwich the size of my face. It was seriously tasty, and I got to collapse after into the biggest bed I've ever slept in.

4. Sneaky duty free purchases. I was pretty restrained I think, one Chanel lipstick and a repurchase of my MAC concealer!

5. Obligatory cloud shot!

6. Our beautiful ski chalet, the perfect mix of rustic and cosy.

7. French bakeries. 'nuff said.

8. I got really bad travel sickness and altitude sickness, so I spent the entire week with anti sickness bands on! They really helped!

9. Beautiful snowy mountains (that were slightly freezing).

10. The most delicious lemon meringue pie the world has ever seen.

11. Christmas day on the mountain, eating lasagne and drinking whiskey and coke.

12. The end of holiday award for 24/7 style and best whiskey drinking was aaaaaall mine. I think it's the only award I've ever won.

13. Up early to head to the airport, with an overnight dumping of a foot of snow. It was pretty awesome.

14. Back home and reunited with the boy for Second Christmas. He even wore a festive hat for the occasion.

15. Pretty table settings! 

16. My New Years eve meal, a delicious charcuterie platter of meaty goodness.

17. You can't sit in my house with a blanket without a cat attacking it.

18. Christmas dinner on Second Christmas!

19. Easing my sore hip with lots of bubble baths. Lush Holly Holightly Bubble bar was really doing it for me.

20. I found unicorn pyjamas in the sale. I bought them.

21. My gorgeous new handbag, a very generous present from my boyfriend's parents!

22. Trying out a selfie stick with some of my favourite small people.

In The Alps

Saturday morning we were up horrifyingly early (3am, urgh) to catch the first flight out to the Alps. This is our first trip to a ski resort (although only my dad and sister are skiing) and it's fair to say we haven't had the best of luck so far! A unseasonably mild start to the Winter means that there's no snow in the village (we are lucky that we have snow on the mountains, a lot of ski resorts here don't!), and in the first three days here I've had altitude sickness and my sister's broken her wrist in a freak accident on a magic carpet. So we haven't had the best of starts! However, other than that it's been pretty relaxed, the village here is absolutely stunning, the mountains are the perfect combination of snowy and sunny, and we lucked out with an amazing chalet and hosts.

So we are spending Christmas here (we fly home Saturday) and we are having our Christmas day on Sunday once we are back home! Our plans for the first Christmas day involve visiting the ice caves on top of the glacier, and maybe a touch of ice skating, whilst everyone else goes skiing. I've got my travel sickness bands so I'm feeling much better now, and my sister has a cast on her wrist but is soldiering on!

How have you spent the run up to Christmas?

My Perfect Christmas Stocking

I'm not doing a gift guide series on my main blog this year, partly because I think there are enough out there already, and partly because I have no idea what to get anyone myself right now. I was doing a little reading the other night and I realised that whilst there are a lot of beauty stocking filler ideas out there, there aren't any more general stocking filler guides. So I thought, to get us in the festive mood, I'd share my perfect Christmas stocking, in the hope that it will give you some ideas, for others or maybe for your list!

A yard of Jaffa Cakes: Start as we mean to go on. Pretty much every year Father Christmas pops one of these in my stocking, which is good because as anyone who knows me well (Joanna) will tell you I'm obsessed with Jaffa Cakes. I have a feeling this won't make it into my stocking this year, since we're away for Christmas, not sure this is TSA friendly!

A sleep mask: I know this is kinda weird, and sleep masks are kinda a love/hate thing, but I love them. I'm travelling a lot at the moment, and my sleep schedule is kinda backwards, I'm normally sleeping while the suns up, so it's handy to have something to block out the eyes. I have a sleep mask but it's on it's last legs, and it's made of satin, which isn't the most comfortable, so I'm after something a little softer!

Beauty bits I get through fast: This is a little something my mum always does, she sneaks in a few of the products I repurchase three or four times a year. When I was fifteen it was Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse and Max Factor Masterpiece Mascara, these days it's Soap and Glory Archery brow pencil (the one with the spoolie, not the pen), Bourjois Volume One Second Mascara, & L'Oreal Stylo Lumi Concealer. Very handy.

Socks: Am I the only person in the world who LOVES getting socks for Christmas? I'm convinced there's a sock demon in my flat who eats the last slice of cake and steals my socks. Where do they go?!

A Lush bathbomb: I've cut back on the amount of these I buy, it works out pretty expensive per bath! I like to treat myself occasionally though, and hell, it's Christmas! 

Teeny tiny notebooks: I'm literally stationery obsessed, I love having little paperback notebooks to keep in my handbag, for writing notes, but I've also gotten hooked on turning them into mini scrapbooks of special events, one for my trip to New York, one for LA, one for the boyfriend's birthday weekend, stuff like that. It's fun and less pressure than a massive scrapbook.

A Starbucks Christmas mug: Need I explain this one? I like coffee. I like Christmas. I like Instagrammable mugs. You get the idea.

Stickers: Because I'm basically five. I've gotten really into decorating my planner & scrapbooking this year, and you can never have too many cute stickers. I've got my eye on these.

What would you like to find in your stocking this year?

The Tami Made Me Do It, Festive Haul

Every now and then you've just got to go shopping. So when Tami messaged me saying she was going to be in London and did I fancy touring all the Christmas halls on Oxford Street with her, I was all for it. It's never too early to get festive, is it?

I was moderately restrained (I know, woah) and even managed not to buy any makeup (cough cough, Tami bought six lipsticks, cough), and most of the things I bought had a festive theme, so I thought I'd spread the Christmas cheer early, and show you what I got.

First up, the only beauty-related thing I got, I finally got my hands on the Lush Northern Lights Bath Bomb, which has been sold out literally EVERYWHERE. The scent isn't my favourite but have you seen what it does to your bath?! Excited to try this out this week!

After that, a pilgramage to the Tottenham Court Road Paperchase was a must, since Tami had never been and that place is like STATIONERY MECCA. I was very restrained and only picked up these adorable festive robin stickers to go in my Erin Condren Life Planner, because who can resist a glittery robin wearing a festive hat. Not me, that's who. I did manage not to buy seventy notebooks, but my receipt had a voucher for five pound off a £20 spend so that might happen soon.

We then accidentally on purpose fell into Tiger, where I proceeded to buy ALL THE FESTIVE STATIONERY. We've got post it notes with mummy and baby polar bears and penguins. They were a pound, how was I supposed to leave them behind?! I also bought festive washi tape. Because reasons. All of this is going in the Erin Condren, because to do lists are much nicer when they're festive, right? 

Also from Tiger, I picked up two teeny tiny, itsy bitsy, festive candle holders. I feel like these make the room feel a bit more christmassy, but they could still be used year round and not look like I forgot to put them away. Also they were a pound each, so I couldn't really leave them, could I? 

And lastly, a few festive additions from the Hell that is Primark on Oxford street, on a Friday evening. Just no, don't go if you can help it. I finally found the perfect festive bedding that combines the three most important factors - 1, it's festive, 2, it's brushed cotton, and 3, it's neutral enough that the boyfriend won't reject it. I want to put this on the bed right now, but The Boy says I have to wait until at least the second half of November. Boring.

Also from Primark, bargain festive fairy lights, to put on the TV stand in our living room, or possibly over our headboard. £1.50, you can't really go wrong can you? Also in the queue (AKA AISLE OF DEATH, where I usually buy ten packs of sweets and more socks than I could wear in a year), I found this little set of fairisle false nails, that I thought, for a pound, I might as well try out. They actually look like a good size, and they were quite cute. I'll report back on my Beauty Blog how they are!

Okay, be honest, is it too soon to be this festive?