Mother's Day at Lush Cosmetics

Its that time again where Lush launches another fabulous seasonal range, this season they've smashed it with the Mothers Day collection. There were many tempting goodies but I went for the Bubbleroon's and the Honey Bear massage bar. With my love of marble the colourful marble designs on top of the bubbleroon's automatically made me go out and purchase them. I picked up Mother Of Pearl (blue), Citrus Are Doing It For Themselves (red) and Purple Drain (purple). I was super impressed with the Whole Lotta Love Bubbleroon from the Valentine's collection and I am certainly not let down by these and the amount of bubbles they produce.

Mother Of Pearl is for when you're fed up of masquerading as a functioning human being, crumble this jasmine and orange flower bubbleroon under running water, slip into a hot bath and hide away for a while. Clear skies are ahead as silky murumuru and Fair Trade shea butters melt into the water softening skin. Mimosa absolute has a sweet, floral and slightly woody aroma that can help promote feelings of calm. In skincare products mimosa helps to nourish and soften the skin whilst also assisting in cleansing the skin of excess oil and dirt. This bubbleroon makes your bath a calming shade of blue perfect for relaxing on Mothers Day. 

Citrus Are Doing It For Themselves for a bath others will drool over, simply crumble this lemon and grapefruit oil bubbleroon under running water. Mouth watering bubbles of lime and lemon myrtle oils will spring forth, refreshing your skin and lifting the spirits. Again, it has the murumuru and Fair Trade shea butters centre that melts away to soften your skin. Tart and sweet to the nose, this citrus bubbleroon will leave you feeling revived and wanting more.

Purple Drain, Purple Drain, I only wanted to see you bathing in the Purple Drain. If you're done with feeling blue, seeing red or just need to add a little colour back into your day, bathe with warming and stimulating clove bud and black pepper oils. As silky murumuru and shea butters swirl in the water, softening your skin, fresh peppermint oil rejuvenates, leaving you light as air and ready to go dancing in the rain. This one makes your bath the prettiest purple bubbly bath I ever did see.  

Don't worry Goldilocks, you'll get beary soft skin with this caramel-scented delight. Fair Trade organic cocoa butter and shea butter melts between your paws and smoothes gently over your body, leaving you with skin that is just right! Clove leaf oil warms, whilst a blend of moisturising honey, dark chocolate and Tonka smell sweet as sugar. I also heard a rumour that the ingredients are similar to the bath oils so I could also potentially use this in the bath and have a sweet as honey bath. 

Benefit Cosmetics BADgal BANG! Volumising Mascara

Benefit Cosmetics just launched a brand new mascara BADgal BANG! Volumising Mascara*, so naturally I went straight out and picked one up! After seeing some of the Benefit team I follow on Instagram results of them wearing it I was sold (@lisapotterdixon @laurrettapower and @laurenspearman). I really liked both the RollerLash and They're Real so I had high hopes for this one.



I got the mini size because often I don't finish mascaras before they start to dry up because I change mascaras almost daily depending on what I want from my lashes. With mini sizes they still have the full-size brush just on a shorter wand so its a good way to try new mascara's and often at half the price of the full-size if you aren't sure how you'll get on.



Claiming to have 36-hour* massive volume without weighing down lashes, the gravity-defying formula contains aero-particles, one of the lightest known materials, derived from space technology. This innovative intense pitch-black mascara layers easily for bigger & bigger impact. Its custom big Slimpact! brush is streamlined to reach root-to-tip, corner-to-corner, upper & lower lashes for big volume with 360° reach! The wand has over 300 bristles on it to reach all those lashes little or long, as well as a good built in wiper which stops the wand having excess product on it! 



Here is a quick before and after of my lashes with one coat of the mascara on. After using it a few times I have to say its super comfortable to wear and doesn't transfer or flake. It is quite hard to remove with just a micellar water so I would suggest using an oil based makeup remover.

Have you tried BADgal Bang!, let me know what you think!x

Valentines Baking - Red Velvet Chocolate Chip Cookies and Red Velvet Cookies

Whether your all loved up with your boo or having a Galantines day these biscuits are a really easy gift or just a seasonal snack. I made two batches of biscuits; on batch was Red Velvet Chocolate Chip cookies and the second batch was Red Velvet cookies. As you will see from the pictures mine didn't turn out as red as I had hoped but they still taste great!

Red Velvet Chocolate Chip Cookies:

190g plain flour
30g cocoa powder

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

115g butter, softened

115g brown sugar

50g caster sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 tablespoons milk

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 tablespoons red food colouring

170g dark chocolate chips

1. Whisk flour, cocoa powder, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and salt together in a bowl.
2. Beat butter with an electric mixer until fluffy, about 2 minutes; beat in brown sugar and caster sugar until smooth, about 1 minute. Beat egg, milk and vanilla extract into butter mixture; beat in food colouring until uniformly coloured.
3. Stir flour mixture into butter mixture gradually with electric mixer on low speed until combined; stir in chocolate chips. Cover bowl with cling film; place in the fridge for 1 hour or up to overnight.
4. Preheat oven to 180 C /Gas 4. Line baking trays with baking paper.
5. Roll dough into 5cm balls. Place on prepared baking trays, leaving some space for them to spread out as they cook; flatten slightly.

6. Bake in the preheated oven until edges are lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Sprinkle cookies with a few additional chocolate chips; allow to cool completely.

Red Velvet Cookies:

100g butter, softened

100g caster sugar

Red paste food colouring

1 medium egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

200g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

1. Place the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl and beat with a wooden spoon until creamy in texture. Beat in enough food colouring to give a good red colour.
2. Beat in the egg and vanilla extract, then stir in the flour, baking powder and salt, beating until it forms a firm dough. Bring the mixture together into a ball with your hands, then wrap in cling film and chill for about an hour.

3. Preheat the oven to 170 C/ 150 C Fan/Gas Mark 5. Roll the dough out on a lightly floured work surface until it’s the thickness of a pound coin. Using a heart shaped cutter, cut out the biscuits and place on baking sheets lined with baking parchment. Re-roll the trimmings to make more biscuits.

4. Bake the biscuits for 8 – 12 minutes until just firm to the touch. Allow to cool for 10 mins before placing on a wire rack to cool completely.

I finished them off with half dipping them in chocolate and some little pink sugar crystals.




 

Let me know if you try any of these recipes out! Tweet me pics at @lucyrickerby if you do! Hope you have a lovely Valentines! XOXO

Valentines Day S'mores ❤️

With Valentines day coming up I thought I would show you a quick recipe from Waitrose. Whether your celebrating Valentines day or Galentines day these are a perfect little gift for the food lover in your life. With the addition of the popping candy they're just as fun to eat as they were to make.



Ingredients

150g Plain flour
25g Cocoa powder
60g Unsalted butter
60g Waitrose Fairtrade Light Brown Muscovado Sugar
70g Golden syrup
6 Waitrose Pink & White Marshmallows, cut in half (I used heart shaped marshmallows)
50g Waitrose Dark or  Milk Chocolate
1 tbsp Cooks’ Homebaking Freeze Dried Strawberries
1 tbsp Heston from Waitrose Popping Candy

1. Preheat the oven to 180ªC, gas mark 5. Place the flour, cocoa, butter and sugar in a food processor (I used a kitchen aid mixer) and whizz until well blended. Add the syrup and whizz again to make a smooth dough. (it did still look quite dry but when you put your hands in the mixture it comes together better to create the dough)

2. Roll the dough out between 2 sheets of baking parchment then, using a 5cm heart-shaped cutter, stamp out 24 shapes. Transfer to a large parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. ( I used two baking trays so I could just put one tray back in the oven without transferring them all onto a cooling rack)

3. Carefully lift 12 of the biscuits onto a wire rack and reserve. Place a marshmallow half onto each of the remaining biscuits and return to the oven for 1–2 minutes until melted. Sandwich the reserved biscuits on top of each marshmallow and leave to cool – they may need nudging back into position if they start to slip.

4. Meanwhile, gently melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Spread a teaspoonful of melted chocolate on top of each sandwich and sprinkle with the dried strawberries and popping candy. Leave to set completely.



These were really simple to make but look fancy with the dried strawberry and popping candy decoration. They also suggest that you use a piping bag with white chocolate to pipe messages onto the biscuits which could make them more personal. You could get some decorative cellophane wrapping or little paper bags with some ribbon to gift them in.  <3