Tropic Skincare

I've only ever watched one series of The Apprentice but it happened to be the one a couple of years ago where Susan Ma reached the final. She was my favourite out of the Apprentices that year and her idea was to develop her existing skincare range. Fast forward a couple of years and although she didn't win the series Lord Sugar chose to invest and the full range of skincare products and make up was launched earlier this year and has already won several awards. It's sold in the same way as Neal's Yard and Body Shop sell their stuff in that you book an 'ambassador' to come to your house to do demos for you and your friends and you can then order any products through them. As the host you get 15% of any sales to use against products for yourself. I booked a party as one of my friends had started selling it and the range is completely vegan. I must say I was really impressed with the quality of the products which smell amazing. I've got a bit lazy about looking after my skin and as I'm about to have a birthday and will be ticking the next age bracket on forms I treated myself and bought the box set of the full facial skincare range.


Of course I couldn't have people round without doing some baking. I made a coffee and walnut cake with speculoos frosting, a chocolate chai cake with coconut and cardomon frosting, lavender shortbread and chocolate chip and rosemary cookies. I also splashed out on some of the new Pukka Teas and can report that the Peppermint and Liquorice and the Earl Gray with Lavender are both excellent.


Going back to the spread the chocolate chip rosemary cookies are a new Isa recipe. They are part of the new video range that she's just brought out and are predictably excellent. I'm getting Isa Does It for my birthday and I can't wait to get my hands on it. Has anybody tried anything from it yet?

Edit - My skin has responded really well to the products, I'm really enjoying using them.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cola de Mono

Image
Colo de Mono (Tail of the Monkey) is a Chilean concoction traditionally drunk ice cold at Christmastime. Obviously their winters are a lot warmer than ours so in the UK it's more suited to this time of year. The Chileans use aguadiente an overproof cane spirit. I use Cachaca 51 which I have in for Mojitos and Caipirinhas. Traditionally made with cows milk, here is my vegan version. Colo De Mono Makes 1 pint Serves 4 2 cups of vanilla soy milk 1/3 cup of caster sugar 1/3 teaspoon of cinammon 3 teaspoons of instant coffee 1/2 cup of spirit* Bring the milk, sugar and cinnamon to a low boil in a pan stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Turn off the heat and stir in the coffee. Leave to cool. Once cool add the spirit and chill in the fridge. It will keep for 2 weeks. Serve over ice or straight up but make it cold. * Spirit - I use Cachaca but have heard that people use tequila too.
Read more

Interview With Lisa Goddard of Lily and Dilly

Image
If you've eaten vegan cake in Manchester City Centre in the last few years then chances are you'll have eaten cake baked by Lisa Goddard of bakery Lily and Dilly . We caught up with Lisa to find out what set her on the vegan baking path! So, Lily and Dilly? What made you set up as an independent bakery and where does the name come from? Having worked as a stop frame animator for 12 years, I was getting rather fed up with short term contracts, so the last time I was made redundant, I decided not to chase work round the country, and if that meant a career change, then so be it. A friend of mine had just set up The Cocoa Emporium as an independent Chocolatier, so I gave her a hand whilst navigating through the benefits system, mostly to get me out of bed on a morning! Doing baking for her farmers market was fun, as it was one of my main hobbies, so when she asked if I fancied getting a little shop  with her, it seemed a nice chance to start something new. We got the shop...
Read more

Growing your own, bargains and a breakfast recipe

Image
I've started sprouting again! In my old flat I used to do sprouting all the time. The flat was in an old 1930's building and had radiators run from a central boiler room and it was always nice and warm. The constant warm temp made sprouting pretty fail safe. Now I'm in a Derbyshire stone house where it's not as warm the results haven't been as great and I gave up trying  but with this very hot summer we are having I thought I would give it another go and I'm glad I have done. As I already have the seeds it kind of feels like free food too! I'm using these sprouts  from A Vogel. This week I've grown alfalfa but pictured is my first attempt from the week before which was a mix of radish, lentil and rocket which grew into lovely peppery tasting sprouts that we used to garnish our bowl meals for the week. These took 4 days to grow and I nearly gave up on day 2 because I could see mold. Luckily I googled and found out that it wasn't mold at all but r...
Read more