Review: LookFantastic Scent Edit Autumn 2021 box

Getting perfume samplers in the post were one of the little treats that served as a fantastic pick me up during the seemingly never-ending period that was lockdown. As I have now exhausted all the perfume samples that are available on the FeelUnique website, I had to look elsewhere, and was alerted to this very tempting offer from LookFantastic.

It's a box with five fragrances in, luxury-sized (so larger than the usual 1.2ml sample-sizes I reviewed from FeelUnique), with two other non-fragrance samples thrown in. The box costs £55, which may seem pricey… until you consider that the box comes with a voucher code, that gives you £55 off the price of a full-sized bottle of any of the five perfumes it trials (and I made use of this voucher!)

Here are my thoughts on the seven items in the box:

Review of five perfume samples from eBay pot luck – part 3

You know what this is about by now! I was missing the FeelUnique '5 samples for £3.95' deal (which in itself was a response to missing being able to test perfumes in department stores pre-Covid-19). So I bought a sample of 50 perfume samples for £23.50 off eBay. The only issue was that I didn't have any say in the perfumes, and alas, some of them weren't to my tastes (see previous reviews of the eBay pot luck, here and here).

Intrusion by Oscar de la Renta

Review of five perfume samples from eBay pot luck – part 2

This blog is part 2 of my testing out the assortment of perfume samples I got for £23.50 from eBay. My thoughts on the first few are here!

Review of five perfume samples from eBay pot luck – part 1

The perfume samples deal on the FeelUnique website that I've gotten a bit used to for the past few months is currently on hold. For the uninitiated, that's 5 samples for just £3.95, making it a very cost-efficient way of exploring whether a perfume is for you in this new world order, where department stores no longer put on testers.

These FeelUnique samplers had been a marvel for me, and four batches of five samples each, meant they'd kept me busy for the last four months.

Feeling I needed my kick of a few new fragrances to test out and review, I looked elsewhere. On eBay, quite a few sellers offer bundle deals, where you get a range of perfume samples. The price per sample works out to be cheaper than if you'd ordered them on FeelUnique, which is only fair as in these cases, you can't pick and choose which brands you get; you get what you're given (and the samples available on FeelUnique are more up-to-date and thus for perfumes that currently retail at higher price points).

Review of five perfume samplers from FeelUnique – part 4

You know the drill by now! I order 5 perfume samples on FeelUnique, pay the £3.95 Postage and Packaging, and report back on what I thought of the samples, particularly, whether I'd ever buy a full-size bottle of it! November's opinings.

Sol de Janeiro Cheirosa '62 Eau de Parfum

As the name suggests, the Sol de Janeiro seeks to emulate the rhythms of Brazil in a perfume, in particular, capturing the essence of Brazil in the summer.

Thoughts on five items ordered from the FeelUnique luxury samples

Unlike the other three sample reviews I did (most recent one here), the five items I ordered in this review weren't part of the pick and mix for £3.95 deal. Instead, these samplers were part of the 'deluxe samples', where it is £16.90 for five samples and postage and packaging.

Product review: two Japanese snack boxes

One of the things that a lot of people have struggled with during enforced lockdown was that, without social events to attend in the evenings or at weekends, it was difficult to pass the time without something to look forward to.

I completely sympathise with this, and as an act of self-care, during the quarantine period, I have been ordering myself little treats on the internet every few days. It doesn’t quite substitute the endorphin rush of hanging out with friends in a packed, boozy bar, but I find that if you have mail deliveries to look forward to, it helps delineate the days, and prevent them from blurring into one.

If you have the means to do so, I recommend you do the same!

Two things I ordered near the beginning of the lockdown were two Japanese snack boxes. Below are my brief thoughts on them:

52 Japanese Candy and Snack Okashi Set (£20)

Review: RICH AND SWEET TOMATO CHUTNEY (Asda)

Review of two concealers: MAC SELECT COVER UP SHADE 25 and BOBBI BROWN SHADE 6 BEIGE

I recently had to replenish my concealer supply, due to me using up the MAC tube pictured above, and me wishing to avoid looking like this chap below due to the bags under my eyes:

Get (that misplaced full stop) Out.

I watched Get Out this evening. Partly because critics and my friends alike have been raving about it,  but mainly because I'm a massive BBFC nerd and I was curious if this typo (a full stop where there should be a comma) would show up on the big screen, before the movie.

Spoiler alert: it did.

Tut tut, BBFC! Not been doing too well recently with all those typos, are we?!

Good movie was good, by the way. Brit Daniel Kaluuya was an ace leading man and Jordan Peele, the comedian, had a surprisingly tight control of the story and plot. Get Out was a horror movie that did not go places I expected it to go.  8/10.

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In case you hadn't realised, I nerd out over the BBFC in a major way. The rest of my studious investigation of them here.

Product reviews: BLUEBERRY BODY BUTTER AND PEACH BODY SCRUB (The Body Shop)

Post-Christmas sales, I treatment myself to two Body Shop items to make my daily showering routine a teensy bit more exciting. They were the blueberry butter and the peach body scrub, pictured below, both 200ml in quantity.

One aspect of both products that I can't fault is the design of the containers. I love the colours and the simplistic use of just one fruit on the front. After I've finished the products, I'mma keep the containers to store my jewellery!

Review: FAST FOOD CORNER and DIXIE CHICKEN (Mile End)

Fast Food Corner

Situated very handily next to Mile End tube station, FFC kindly offers a 10% discount for students, meaning I got the meal pictured above for £3.40 rather than £3.80 (another nice touch is that they rounded down rather than being awkward and charging £3.42, haha).

I had the spicy chicken burger (a little boldly, given my sinuses don't take to hot food too well), and it was absolutely delicious! The best thing about it was the unique flavour; it tasted wildly different from any other chicken burger I've ever had, but in a good way.

The chicken, which must have been cooked in some kind of secret sauce, was trembling with flavour, and put its far more expensive, but not at all comparable in quality counterparts, such as Prime and Tommi's Burger Joint, to complete shame. I will definitely be popping back here next time I'm in Mile End. A.

... which means I will be avoiding Dixie Chicken like the plague.

The chicken burger here tasted as undercooked as the ones in Prime Burger and Tommi's Burger Joint, yet this burger didn't feature the vegetables employed to try to give the impression of being a salubrious option, as those pricier places boasted. Chips were stale and tasteless, too.

The only redeeming feature of eating here is that it's cheap (this meal was £2.70), but for £1.99 with a voucher from Metro, you can get a McChicken burger and fries (and buy your drink somewhere else, e.g. a Tesco, beforehand), which is much more price-conscious. And at McDonald's, they at least make sure the chicken in the burger is cooked before serving it to you. D.

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All my other fast food reviews are listed here.

Review: Starbucks Gingerbread Latte

Continuing with sampling the products Starbucks have ‘specially confected’ (read: haphazardly adapted from existing drinks in order to cynically swindle more money out of gullible customers such as myself) for Christmas, I next sampled the Starbucks gingerbread latte.

On the positive side, it was much better than the fudge hot chocolate (although that was hardly difficult). The gingerbread-infused latte definitely tasted pleasant, and once you got used to the slightly unusual flecks of gingerbread inside your latte, that, too, gave the drink some character, elevating it above the bog-standard hit of caffeine. A calorie content of 330cals render this drink more waistline-friendly than other, more gluttonous drinks.

The negatives were that one of the ingredients they really plugged – the ground nutmeg – seemed to be suspiciously missing from my beverage, as well as the fact that I found the temperature of my latte a little on the cool side. And, for the money that you’re spending, it is still horrifically overpriced.

Still, if you’re going to waste money on the mega-corporation that is Starbucks with any festive drink, make it this, rather than the fudge hot chocolate (which I still have nightmares about).

Grade: B-

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All my product reviews are listed here.

Product Review(s): TASTE THE DIFFERENCE BREADED CHUNKY COD & LIME CORDIAL (Sainsbury’s)

Brief thoughts on two impulse food buys from Sainsbury’s yesterday! With photos just to prove I'm not making it up ;)

Taste the Difference Breaded Chunky Cod

The contrast between the crispy bread crumbs on the outside and the moist, meaty cod inside worked a treat. The white fish on the inside was more moist and succulent than I’m used to, but definitely tasted better quality for it. The fish flakes are incredible tasted better than most stuff restaurants serve. 

One fish, served with chips, (slightly more than the amount photographed above; I'd left the rest in the pan as the plate is small), nourishes me plenty. Due to it being Taste the Difference, the fish has higher protein content than the usual, so in addition to tasting delicious, it’s also good for you. A

(Cooking recommendation: the fish takes 20 minutes to cook in a fan-heated oven. I would recommend turning it half-way through, else the bottom gets a bit soggy, as the first one I cooked, did).

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Lime Cordial

Pretty standard cordial, really. I bought this because whenever I was trying to go a month dry at University, lime cordial would be my alcohol substitute of choice, and I had a random bout of nostalgia for the drink in question. 

If you pour this and dilute it four parts water for the cordial, the end product tastes the same as what you get in pubs. Nice-tasting, doesn’t do anything wrong, but at the same time, didn’t jump out at me. B+/A-

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More product reviews here!

Pub review: THE WOOLPACK (Bermondsey)

Hi Tealicia.

Brief thoughts on two new teas I’ve sampled recently.

Cheesy like Sunday Morning.

Brief thoughts on four cheeses I got from my trip to Paris last week:

Bleu des Causses AOP - sensational blue cheese. Has a very pungent smell, but I dig the strong flavour. 10/10

Cousteron -  Bland, flavourless, and difficult to chew. 3/10

Carrefour Coulommiers de caractère - pleasant tasting with a curious sticky texture. Of the four cheeses, the hardest to clean from the knife due to its stubborn stickiness. 7/10

Port salut - curious, but perfectly edible cow's milk. Strong smell (which intensifies the longer the cheese is kept after opening) but milder taste. 7/10

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Don't forget to check out my other product reviews here!

Review of five instant noodles

For me, one of the most memorable parts of Amy Dunne’s mordant ‘Cool Girl’ diatribe in Gone Girl was when she declared ‘because Cool Girls are above all, hot." This comment is delivered in relation to how she kills herself in order to stay a lithe, desirable size 2 (UK 6/8), to little appreciation from her perfidious husband, Nick.

Given that Amy is generally perceived to be a murderous psychopath, I probably shouldn’t pay this line too much heed, but for some reason, it’s really resonated with me, and as such, I’m trying hard to watch my weight. 

The first step towards losing weight and eating healthier was to stop having so many lunches at McDonald’s. A substitute I explored was easy cook noodles, and thus, here are my thoughts on five different types I’ve sampled recently.

Morrisons BBQ Beef noodles 85g, 25p

There was nothing barbequey or beefy about the taste of this, I’m afraid. The noodles came out stale and tasteless, and even the liquid it was boiled in didn’t have any particular flavour. The very cheap price signals to me that this is predominantly marketed at students, although if students eat this before a night out, the lack of nutritional content means their stomachs will be insufficiently lined pre-heavy drinking, and it could well result in them chundering out their dinner. Considering how it purports to be one of the more filling of the four (total calories: 466, apparently), it doesn’t do what it says on the packaging. 2/10.

Morrisons Mild Curry flavour noodles, 85g, 25p

Gar. Another ghastly Morrisons creation. As with its predecessor, it has thin noodles that tasted of nothing and a sauce which didn’t taste remotely of curry (at least they spoke truth about the ‘mild’ part, mind). The mild curry flavour noodles purports to have 458 calories in the entire bag and it did make more of a dent on my hunger levels than the ‘meal’ from the day before, so I’ll give it +1 mark for that. 3/10.

Nissin Demae Ramen Spicy Noodles 100g, 45p

Unlike the two Morrisons travesties, the Nissin Demae Ramen noodles were deliciously thick and unrepentantly eggy. The sauce the pack yielded had flavour too! Whilst it wasn’t the burn-your-tongue-off levels of spiciness that the bright red packaging might lead you to think/dread, it was sufficiently hot to satiate my need for spiciness. What’s more, this bag came with a sachet of the sauce as well as sesame oil, which gave the meal a welcome kick. Plus, you’ve seen my cooking – you know how much I dig my oil. 8/10.

Newgate instant snack shot noodles sweet and spicy 67g

This Lidl product weighs less than the three easy cook noodles I’ve appraised so far, and as such, is lower on calorific content. On the bright side, the dried flavouring that came in a sachet for those other three, which could lead to a slight mess, was embedded in the noodle here, meaning you could avoid any pouring mishaps. The noodles here came in a strange angular shape, and were even thinner than Morrisons ones, but had more noodle length to atone for it. After you’ve finished with the noodles, I’d recommend re-filling the bowl/mug with boiling hot water, because the solid flavouring is concentrated enough to make a nice brew out of it. Not that filling, but tastes good whilst it lasts. 7/10.

Ko-Lee Taste Sensation Classic Chicken flavour 85g, 28p

For just 3p more than the two disappointing Morrisons own brand noodles, you can get this in the same store, and it’s much more filling and appetising. As with the other Chinese-style noodles, the Nissin Demae, this also comes with a small sachet of sesame oil, as well as a pack of dried flavouring that far exceeds the quantity in any of the other four noodles assessed. The resulting liquid brew is a nice concoction for you to savour, which redeems the (once again, common to Morrisons) thin, bland-tasting noodles. 7/10.

Common to all of these five products was a real ease to use, as the names suggested. You're supposed to boil them over the hob, but I found putting half the amount in my Chelsea mug and applying hot water to it, as pictured below, was just as effective, and saved considerably on the washing up!

Two Short Book Reviews: CELL (Stephen King) and HICKORY DICKORY DOCK (Agatha Christie)

Cell (Stephen King)

A chillingly crafted novel channelling the dystopian world that unravels after mobile phones have the ability to send people into crazy killers, and how those who weren’t affected by “The Pulse” try to survive as the initially mindless “phone crazies” begin to get smarter. 

The protagonist Clay, is a likeable, resourceful guy who we can root for, and his sidekicks Tom and Alice, are good foils for him, interesting enough in their own right without detracting from Clay's voyage - to get to Maine to find his son. 

The story sometimes moves a little slowly, with Stephen King being particularly languid with Clay’s voyage, but there are shocks galore throughout the book, as well as dark laughs. Well-written with descriptions so vivid you could actually imagine this happening, this is a science fiction novel that even I could enjoy. Grade: A-

Hickory Dickory Dock (Agatha Christie)

Hercule Poirot gets up to another one of his adventures, this time, introduced to him by his assistant, Mrs Lemon. Mrs Lemon’s sister works at a youth housing centre, where things have inexplicably gone missing or been sabotaged. These petty thefts, however, are soon owned up to, but the perpetrator then appears to have committed suicide… or did she? 

As with most Agatha Christie, the joy isn’t in so much as the whodunit (though I never would have guessed, I was foiled again!), but in getting to know the characters, this time, the boarders in the hostel. Each have their idiosyncrasies and quirks, and it is to Christie’s merit that she pulled the wool over my eyes once again, and got me suspecting completely the wrong people. 

Grade: A-

For more of my book reviews, click here.

Fragrance review: CK IN2U HER (Calvin Klein)

Eau de toilette is, by definition, a diluted form of perfume. Considering I live my life very much by the mantra “go hard or go home”, then, it would appear that the very essence of Eau de Toilette would imply it wasn’t for me.