Things I’m Excited About EGX

Image taken from EGX Twitter @EGX

EGX is currently halfway through and I am so excited to say I’ll be there on Sunday for the first time ever! I’m pretty damn stoked to finally be attending EGX.

It was my best friends idea for us all to go (us two and our boyfriends) together for one day and we settled on Sunday.

For those of you who may not know what EGX is, it’s the UK’s biggest games event and it’s running from Thursday 20th until Sunday 23rd September at the NEC Birmingham.

It’s only the UK’s biggest video games event! Come along and you’ll find the most anticipated console and PC games, all playable weeks or months before they’re released. We also have presentations by game designers from world renowned studios, areas dedicated to esports, the opportunity to meet and chat with game creators and loads more.

I’ve heard about it on and off over the years but never really been bothered about going and instead would book and go to Hyper Japan or Comic Con. After my friend suggested the idea though, I was down for that!

Since booking the tickets about a month ago now I’ve been checking up on their social media and website every other day for updates on what games are going to be there and each time I look there’s a better announcement! I honestly cannot wait for Sunday now.

So, I thought I would write a blog post about what I’m excited for at EGX and why! I might also get Dane to talk about some games he’s excited about too, because why not! 😛

I’m just going to jump straight into it and I’ll also include trailers for games too. This is going to be a long lists, so I apologise in advance for all the waffling I’ll be doing. 😛

• Kingdom Hearts III – Out 29/01/2019 on PlayStation 4

Although I’ve on and off played the first Kingdom Hearts game, I have always been intrigued by the game series and would love to finally get into it now the third one is finally coming out! My best friend Gabriella loves this series so even if I’m not all arsed about going to play it, I know she’ll want to play it! Even if I don’t give it a go, I’d love to watch her try the demo.

• LEGO DC Super-Villains – Out 19/20/2018 on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch

I’ve actually already preordered this game as I just fancied getting it for me and Dane to play together on lazy evenings and weekends in. I can’t wait to be honest with you as I remember back to one of the first LEGO games, Batman where they allowed you to be the good guys AND the bad guys. I LOVED being the baddies so damn much and since then they haven’t seemed to do that again as well. So when this was announced I knew I had to get it. I’m unsure if I’ll play the demo for the game as before I know it I’ll have it, BUT if I find we’re bored and want something to do, I’d definitely go and give the demo a play!

• Life is Strange 2 – Out 27/09/2018 on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Steam

If there was a game I adored it was Life is Strange. It wasn’t particularly unique but it was definitely something different at the time and no one else was really doing it and if they were clearly not as well. The graphics and mouth work of the game is pretty poor, but the story really does make it worth it! Although this will be out less than a week after we attend EGX, I still wouldn’t mind giving the demo a go to see what the game play it like before I buy the game. The story seems to be completely different to the first game, but I hope that they include Max into this story somehow. I can’t wait for this come out, I’ll be buying it when it comes out.

• Mario Tennis Aces – Out now on Nintendo Switch

This game is out now and has been for a while but EGX are giving people the chance to play it, which is pretty cool. I really want this game but 1. I don’t know if it’s worth the price and 2. I don’t know if I’ll actually enjoy it! I’d definitely like to give this a play whenever I get the chance to and if I enjoy it I’ll definitely want it more than ever! I wanted it to play alone, as well as with Dane but he isn’t as arsed about getting it as I am.

• Persona 3: Dancing In Moonlight and Persona 5: Dancing In Starlight – Out 04/12/2018 on PlayStation 4

If there is a game series I fast fell in love with almost 2 years ago, it’s Persona and it’s all thanks to Persona 5. So when they announced the dance game for the fifth game I was so damn happy! I’ve finished Persona 5, and about halfway through (and severely fucking stuck!) on Persona 4: Golden. I also own the Persona 4 dance game and really enjoy it. I love the Phantom Thieves so I’m so excited to see more of them before they’re gone completely. Although I haven’t yet played Persona 3, I would still love to give the demo a play to see what it’s like. I’ll definitely be playing the Persona 5: Dancing In Starlight demo, no matter what. This is actually a game I haven’t preordered yet and it’s pretty much because Dane wants it as a possibly Christmas present idea. The cutie. 😛

• Pokemon Let’s Go! Eevee and Pokemon Let’s Go! Pikachu – Out 16/11/2018 on Nintendo Switch

Oh man as soon as this game was announced and released for preorder I was on that ASAP! There were rumours that this game was going to be coming out on the Switch when leaks popped up all over the internet. I won’t lie, I thought it was bullshit and would just become another 3DS game or nothing at all. Alas, I was wrong and it was announced a mere few days later for the Switch. I’m stoked for this to be honest with you and I’ve ordered the Eevee version, of course with the PokeBall! I’m unsure if I want to try the demo of this or not. I really want to, especially if you can play with the PokeBall but at the same time I really want a surprise… I’m more than sure I’ll end up going to play it… Got to get my Pokemon fix a few months in advance. 😛

• Spyro Reignited Trilogy – Out 13/11/2018 on Xbox One and PlayStation 4

Oh man I have been so excited for this game since it was announced months ago! Of course I was gutted when it got pushed back, especially as I’d have been playing it right now! I’m not bothered loads about playing this at EGX BUT if I find I’m bored and want something to do, I’d definitely go and give this a play if I had the chance to.

• Untitled Goose Game – Release date TBC but sometime in 2019 on Nintendo Switch and Steam

If there is a game I definitely want to have a go on, it’s this goose game! The release date hasn’t been announced yet but I’m hoping it’ll be sooner rather than later. This is such a fun looking game and I wish it was 2 player so you could be evil geese together. You play as an annoying goose who is terrorising and trolling people in a village. It appears that you do each part of the village in levels/stages and have to do certain tasks before you can move on. Overall it just looks like a really fun game and is definitely one I’ll be getting on the Switch in the future.

Now onto the indie games! I would do what I did previously with the other games and post videos and talk a little about them but there are so many games I’m interested in that sadly I won’t be able to do that as there are just too many. I will of course list them all down below! Whether or not I end up playing them all or not is another thing, but they’re definitely games I’ll be trying out! Anything that is bold are games I’m more interested in than others.

Alchemist Cutie

Bee Kind

Beyond Blue

Billie Bust Up

Catastronaughts

Doggo

Figment

Flashing Lights

Flotsam

Heaven’s Vault

Honey, I Joined A Cult

How To Kill Monsters

Inmost

Kingdom: Two Crowns

Meridian Line

Mice On Venus

Misfolded

My Time At Portia

Nippon Marathon

Obviously Inappropriate Content

Phoenix Point

Phogs

Primetime Detective

Soundfall

Stay

Those Who Remain

Tony Slopes

War Groove

We Were Here Together

What The Golf?

Wrong World

Of course as well as playing games there will be plenty of opportunities to take photos at special stands and from what I’ve seen so far these include Kingdom Hearts, Fallout 76 and many more!

They also have merchandise stands and I know that Insert Coin Clothing will be there who I’m sure I’ve mentioned on my blog in the past. There will be more merchandise stands there who I’ll be checking out whenever I get the chance to.

Overall I think it’s going to be a super busy day and I don’t honestly know what to expect at this moment in time… After viewing Twitter the past couple of days the event seems super busy with nothing but queues, mostly at the bigger games such as Kingdom Hearts III and Pokemon Let’s Go!

I am to check out all the indie games first and then focus on the bigger games, as I can only imagine everyone will run to the bigger stuff first! Most of the games I’d want to play I’ve preordered and are out soon anyways. Indie games are always worth supporting and trying before buying.

Either way, I know I’ll have an amazing time and quite honestly I can’t wait!

I’ll pop all of the EGX links down below for anyone who may want to follow on social media, or even book tickets so you can come to the event yourselves!

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

YouTube

Are you attending/attended EGX at all? If so what are you looking forward to the most/what did you enjoy the most? Make sure to let me know in the comments down below or over at my Twitter – @maybeecoffee

Until next time, take care all and I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Lush Santa’s Postbox Soap – Review*

Woohoo it is the first Lush Christmas review of the year! I don’t think I reviewed any Christmas goodies last year which is a real shame to be honest. I just never ended up buying anything until the Boxing Day sales… Hey if I can grab loads of bargains then hell why not?!

A couple of weeks ago I attended a Lush bloggers event in their Coventry store (you can read about it here!) and when the event was over they gave us all goody bags which was amazing! I got four items altogether, one being a bubble bar I got to make during the event, as well as the soap I am about to review.

Santa’s Postbox is a new edition to Lush’s Christmas products this year and one I really like. I’ve never been a big fan of the Lush soaps for various reasons, the main one being that I’m allergic to a lot of Lush’s soaps. However I haven’t yet had a negative experience with this soap.

Lush describe Santa’s Postbox as:

Attention please! Attention please!
Last call for post! No time to freeze!
Rush to the postbox. Lick the stamp.
Ignore the painful writer’s cramp.
Ha ha, you’ll say, new gifts for me!
Ho ho, he’ll answer, wait and see!

The colourful envelopes and presents inside every chunk of this soap were posted before yours, so there’s no time to waste! When you’re ready to seek out the nearest pillar box, simply follow your nose. Fresh satsumas are squeezed to give this an energising, citrusy scent. Orange flower absolute, bergamot and Sicilian mandarin oils evoke the inimitable excitement of peeling the satsuma at the bottom of your stocking.

The soap before it is cut up looks amazing and just like a red British postbox and shares it’s scent with Satsuma bath bomb. The bath bomb was originally called Dashing Santa but Lush have changed it this year and also made it an Oxford Street Exclusive. It smells as you can guess just like juicy satsumas and like oranges and lemons which I love! It’s really nice to use in the evenings as a pick me up and in the mornings before work to wake me up. Depending how the big postbox soap is cut depends on the colour of your chunk of soap. Mine is mostly red with one dark orange patch. I love the colour of it.

As this contains extra virgin coconut oil it means it’s lovely and moisturising for the skin, which I love as when the weather gets colder my eczema really does hit strongly, so I need something that will calm it down during the week when it’s flaring.

I mostly use this soap in the bath after a long day at work as well as for using to shave with both in the shower and in the bath. That’s what I mostly do with Lush soaps as I find they work great for shaving due to the creamy lather they produce. However due to the gel like consistency of this soap it doesn’t lather up as creamy as (for example) Rock Star soap would.

I have noticed the past couple of days a little bit of a drying on my legs and I’m unsure if this is from the soap or from something else. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was from the soap sadly but I’ll make sure to keep my eye on it of course!

Sadly I don’t know what size chunk Lush gave me, but I can only assume that it was their standard 100g size. The soap is available to buy in a small 100g size for £3.25, a medium 250g size for £8.10 or a large 500g size for £16.25.

Personally I probably wouldn’t pick Santa’s Postbox up again, not because I don’t like it because I love it, but because I want to try other soaps instead.

I know this isn’t a very long Lush review but I’m not going to lie… What can I really say about a soap? 😛

Have you tried Santa’s Postbox? If so what do you think of it? Or if you haven’t tried it yet would you like to pick it up? Also!!! Make sure to let me know what your favourite Lush Christmas product is this year.

Until next time, take care all and have a lovely weekend!

* This item has been donated to me either for review purposes or for free after an event.

The Bloggers Parlour Summer Scoop Party!

A couple of Thursday’s ago I attended one of The Bloggers Parlour events, which I had been excited for for agggges! I had made sure to book a day off work so I could attend the event, and it really was worth booking off, as I had such a lovely time.

For anyone who doesn’t know about The Bloggers Parlour, I thought I would let you know a little bit about it. They’re a Birmingham based company that has been created by Abbigayle, who was previously organising Birmingham events for bloggers. So she decided to come up with The Bloggers Parlour, which is designed purely for bloggers, and bringing them together to meet, and work with one another, as well as companies. It’s a great blogging company, and Abbigayle is such a lovely person!

This was their Summer Scoop Party, and from the invitation it was going to be all fun and games, whilst networking with fellow bloggers! I couldn’t wait.

The event lasted two hours, even though it felt longer than that. I’m going to say it now, and it is the only negative I had about the whole event, and that was how damn rude people seemed to me who had told Abbigayle that they would turn up, and never did. Reasons or not, it seemed disrespectful to me. Abbigayle organised an amazing event, and I just want to thank her now to allowing me to attend. I really do hope to attend more of her events in the future. ^_^

BUT onto how awesome the event was! Abbigayle had loads planned for us, including some games, as well as some food.

There was a spread put on for us, even though we only seemed to eat the Oreo’s and the doughnuts, both were really yummy!

As well as yummy food, there were of course some sponsors at the event, and they were all lovely to talk to.

Duccio Knightsbridge is a fashion store that specialises in leather, and the one thing everyone at the event loved was these cute little chihuahua keyrings, and we all received one in our goody bags! I wish I could have got the dark purple shake skin one, but I got a gold one. I wasn’t a huge fan of the goods on offer, as it’s not really my sort of thing, but the keyrings were adorable!

Become Maya is owned by a lovely lady who has designed hair products to help with curly locks stop become more manageable! Although I don’t have curly hair, the product interested me, and she gave me a pot to take home to try. As of yet I haven’t had time to give it a go, but I really hope to soon!

FYFO was one of the two stalls I was interested the most, purely because of shoes, and they had some gorgeous ones on display! A couple of their pieces stood out to me the most, first of all the bag in the image above is by a brand called Lemon Jelly, and all their pieces smell of lemons! I want one of their pieces based off of that alone. 😛 As well as that they had a pair of Irregular Choice shoes, and of course they are known for their unique and quirky designs, these flamingo ones being very quirky!

Finally I get to talk about my favourite stall at the event, which was Ross & Ross, a fine food company that specifies in meat! They sell kits where you can create your own bacon, and smoked salmon, which I thought sounded great! As well as that they sell spices, and jams that you can use on all sorts of meats to make them taste better! Me and Dane love to cook and I really wanted to buy some there and then, but sadly I wasn’t able to. These all tasted amazing, and I could have eaten more. 😉

SO onto the activities and games we got to take part in during the event! We got to make some ice creams, have some of the yummy food, take part in competitions to try and win prizes, and my favourite, playing chubby bunny! I had always wanted to play it and I managed to get to 9! OMG! AMAZING!

I did of course leave the event with a goody bag, but I have decided to leave going through that for another post!

Overall, I loved this event, and I wish it could have lasted longer, and more people come to it so I could have networked with more people. I did however FINALLY get to meet Kirsty, as well as meeting the lovely Layla, whose blog I have fallen in love with.

I really hope to attend more The Blogger Parlour events in the future! It isn’t just a Birmingham thing by the way, so please make sure to check them out, where ever you are from!

Have you attended any good blog events recently? If so, make sure to tell me about them in the comments!

Until next time, take care all and I hope you had a great weekend.

The Chocolate Quarter – Blog Event*

Last week for me was pretty intense, stressful, and busy. It was mentally draining, and I hadn’t felt that way since my last couple of weeks studying my masters last year. However last Wednesday I attended a blog event organised by the amazing Suzie over at Suzie 81 Speaks (link to her blog here) and hosted by the lovely bunch over at The Chocolate Quarter.

I’m not going to lie when I say that this event was the highlight of my week, and I had more fun than I thought I was going to have. The invite said how it was going to be on for an hour and a half, it lasted nearly three hours! Not going to complain about that mind, as I had so much fun and met some awesome people!

The Chocolate Quarter has only been open since February this year, and is located in the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham. It isn’t rocket science when I say what kind of shop it is… It’s obviously a chocolate shop, but I found that it was a lot different than your usual Thorntons, or Hotel Chocolat. This is an independent company and their chocolate is just different from anywhere else, they have some interesting, and unusual flavours that you won’t be able to find in chain stores.

I was invited to the event by Suzie nearly a month prior to it happening, so I had a good look on their website to have a nose at what yummy chocolate goodness I was in for! I was in heaven, let me tell you, so can you imagine how I was when I entered the actual shop last week?!

I just want to quickly add, that I was in a bit of a rush to get to this event as I had finished work, had to get home and quickly get ready, and then get through traffic in the city centre to haul my booty to the event. Due to this I wasn’t able to take my digital SLR with me and get the best pictures I could. This being said, my iPhone does produce some pretty good pictures. Oh and by the way, this post is going to be hella picture heavy!

The first thing I noticed when I walked into the shop (apart from all the lovely people attending the event :P) was the amazing display of chocolates which was in front of me. I literally died and went to unique chocolate heaven! As I had already eyed up what goodies were on offer to buy I already had an idea of what I wanted, so I got to have a proper look at them in the flesh. Which by the way, I bought! But I’m going to save that for a separate post. 😛

The store itself wasn’t the biggest, but it was the perfect size, and due to the decor was light and airy. Definitely nice to venture into and was very welcoming. The store itself was decorated lightly in products they sell, and I was salivating at the thought of some of them. They had hampers you could buy, biscuits, chocolates, sweets, as well as the chocolates they make and sell. So there is various options for everyone!

To kick start the event we all got to have some of the Aztec drinking chocolate that they had prepared for us. From working in a coffee shop, I’ve made some kick ass hot chocolate in my time, but this stuff was beautiful! It wasn’t made with milk, which usually a lot of coffee shops do, but instead just water, hot of course. They owners were telling us how milk doesn’t really help give the true taste of chocolate, but instead masks it and hides the taste, whereas hot water doesn’t do this and you get the full flavour of the chocolate. It was delicious, and we got to add various spices to it such as ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and even chilli! For my first cup of hot chocolate I decided to add nutmeg. It was pretty subtle, but tasted amazing!

After trying the hot chocolate it was onto finding out a few in depth details about chocolate, and how it is made, as well as how The Chocolate Quarter make their amazing chocolates! It was really interesting to listen to, and Jay who was telling us all about it was very thorough, but not like school teacher boring thorough. We got to try three different types of chocolate to try and find the key notes to each. If you don’t like dark chocolate, you would have hated this. I love dark chocolate so this was fun for me to do. You placed a couple of little buttons onto your tongue, let it melt, and then swirled the chocolate around your mouth to get a taste for it. It reminded me of tasting coffee after testing it at my old job (as well as my current one) and it was nice. I love doing things like this!

Through talking about chocolate Jay went on to show us one of their newest chocolate inventions, the cappuccino chocolate! I ended up buying one of these, but I’ve yet to try it! I mean look at it, it looks like a cute little cappuccino drink, even has chocolate sprinkles! I think out of all the chocolates I saw and bought, this one was the most impressive out of them all. It’s just so unique, and such an awesome idea for people who love coffee flavoured chocolate, like myself.

He then went on to tell us we would be having a go at making four chocolates ourselves and went on to show us the five stages that it takes to make a truffle. Technically it should be six, but they did the first part for us by creating our little dark chocolate shells.

The first stage was to inject a gooey caramel into our truffles. It reminded me of piping buttercream on a cake, especially as we used piping bags! But this caramel was pretty damn hard, and it took a bit of time to get the hang of it. I like to think I didn’t do too badly though… It could have gone worse. It would have gone everywhere! Thank God it didn’t mind.

The second stage was to start temping the chocolate ready to use for our truffles. We got to find out how they temp their chocolate, as well as be given some hints and tips as to how we can do it ourselves at home. We of course got to have a go at doing this stage ourselves, which was pretty fun to do in teams. I worked with Laura from Fill to the Brum who was lovely! We both took it in turns to stir the chocolate and make sure it was ready to use to seal our chocolates, and cover them in gooey chocolate goodness!

That’s where the third stage comes in! Time to cover and seal our chocolates! This was a pretty simple stage where you got a little bit of the chocolate and covered the whole where you had just injected all the gooey caramel so it stays there for the next couple of stages. We left this to set for a couple of minutes and then moved onto covering the truffles in creamy chocolate.

The fourth stage was pretty straight forward… Although a tad on the messy side! We could either dunk our truffle into the chocolate, move it around a little and be done, or we could do the same process and then remove with a special dipping tool. Where it is swirly you hold the chocolate covered truffle onto this and use it to remove any leftover chocolate so it gives the finished truffle a nice smooth finish and texture. I kept dropping the first one I did this to, and I felt a tad silly due to it.

Finally we got to cover our truffles in either powdered chocolate, coconut shavings, or powdered sugar. As I’m not a fan of coconut shavings I went for the powdered chocolate and sugar! I made such a mess, which you can tell by my glove on the picture above. I felt like a little kid all over again in my cooking classes… Oh dear! I’m never usually this mucky, I promise.

So here are my finished chocolates! I did two with a smooth chocolate look to them, and two where I covered them in yummy powdered chocolate and sugar. The sugar one didn’t work out too great to be honest, but oh well. It’s trying that counts, isn’t it?

After this we popped our names on our chocolates, had another hot chocolate (this time I had cinnamon and it was BEAUTIFUL!!!), and had everything cleared away so that we could move onto the next part of the event, tasting the new Father’s Day chocolates. Man, I can’t believe Father’s Day is just a month away. SRSLY 2016 can you stop going by so quickly???

There were three chocolates we were given to try, jewellery porter, smoked bacon, and “the renaissance” single malt. That was also the order we got to try them in too. One thing about this chocolate’s were is that they all had alcohol in them. They were yummy let me tell you, and would make a great gift for someone’s father or grandfather who has a sweet tooth and loves a strong drink every now and then.

So the first one was jewellery porter, and it was the nicest one of the bunch! It’s described as, “A collaboration of two locals! Two Towers brewery provided their famous Jewellery Porter Stout and we provided the chocolate. A rich and chocolatey caramel in a thick dark shell with a sustained happy end note.” This was my favourite as it just ticked all the boxes. It looked lovely as it wasn’t too in your face, and it tasted amazing. The caramel was really gooey, which I love with chocolates like this, and the alcohol wasn’t really strong. I know some people prefer this, but personally I’m never fussed. This was more of a chocolate I would imagine a woman to enjoy though, due to both the taste, as well as how it looked.

The second was smoked bacon and whilst this wasn’t horrible, it was really weird and I’m not sure if I liked it or not… I wouldn’t chose it myself, but if someone gave it to me I would eat it. If that makes sense? Out of the three I found it was a the prettiest to look at. The description for this one was, “Bacon in a chocolate?! – You can’t do that! O’ yes we can. This caramel truffle contains actual salty bacon and a dash of laphroig single malt to give it a smokey kick start.” This was a strange chocolate… The gooey caramel was amazing, of course it was! But to then bite into and taste bacon was strange, in a somewhat nice way. I didn’t dislike it but I didn’t love it either. I can’t say I didn’t like it when I’ve eaten Marmite chocolate… 😛

The third and final one was “the renaissance” single malt which wasn’t my favourite out of the three. It’s described as, “Recommended by the experts at Hard To Find Whisky this chocolate is made with pure Glen Garioch single malt whisky. Notes of butterscotch, ginger and orange interlaced with caramel and barley are balanced with a Belgian milk chocolate shell.” This wasn’t a horrible chocolate, but it really wasn’t my cup of tea. It was really strong due to the whisky which was off putting for myself, and to look at it, it wasn’t anything special. I don’t expect mind blowing chocolate, my reason for putting this is due to how they wanted us to rate them. I’m not THAT mean!

After the chocolate tasting was over, it was time to begin the final part of the event which was a chocolate fondue, with lots of yummy food to dunk in, as well as some prosecco to wash it down! There was lots to choose from with various fruits like banana, strawberries, and satsuma, and some naughtier choices with gingerbread men, turkish delight, doughnuts, and honeycomb. As I’m either allergic or not a fan I didn’t eat any of the fruit, so I mostly ate the naughty treats. My favourite was the doughnuts! I didn’t try the turkish delight, sadly. The honeycomb was really yummy, but it stuck to my teeth, haha!

I already had an idea what chocolates I wanted to buy, and as we were given 10% off any purchases, I decided to grab some goodies to take home with me for me and Dane to share. I’ll be doing a full review on these the weekend to be honest, but I’ll definitely show off what I picked up here.

As well as my own four chocolates I made, I also picked up cappuccino, lemon and lime, Irish cream, and sea salt caramels. As well as that due to the event being on the 4th of May, which is known as Star Wars day they made Star Wars themed chocolates! I went for a Stormtrooper, because why not?

Overall what did I think about the event and The Chocolate Quarter? I LOVED it! I had a really crap week and this was the highlight of my week. Making chocolate, and getting to find out some more in depth details and information about how chocolate is made etc is really interesting and it was so much fun. It was also great to network and talk to some lovely fellow bloggers, especially food related ones.

If you love the sound of the chocolate making then you can book a chocolate experience to have a go yourselves with a minimum of 3 people but from memory the price was £50. This would be great for team building for work, maybe if you study a food related subject at college or university then it’d be great to learn about something new! My friends want to have a go, so it might be something I look into around Christmas time, or for birthday’s.

I’ll be visited The Chocolate Quarter again as there is so much more I want to try!

A massive thanks to Suzie for once again being a total beaut for inviting me, and always being so lovely and welcoming. If you haven’t heard of her, make sure to go and check out her blog. I’ve popped the link near the start of this post.

I also want to say a huge thank you to the guys at The Chocolate Quarter for being so welcoming and friendly to all of us! You were great hosts for your event and your hot chocolate is very yummy!

I’ve had three of my friends already ask me if we can go to The Chocolate Quarter soon to go and buy some goodies, so I already know I’ll be going again very soon.

If you aren’t local to the store like I am and really want to try some of their chocolate, then don’t fret! You can go to their website and look at what they have on offer, as well as make orders. I’m going to pop all the links for The Chocolate Quarter down below for you, so don’t worry.

The Chocolate Quarter website

The Chocolate Quarter Facebook

The Chocolate Quarter Twitter

The Chocolate Quarter Instagram

Will you be paying The Chocolate Quarter a visit anytime soon? Or have you already? Make sure to let me know in the comments down below!

Until next time, take care all and I hope you’re having a great week!

Organique Birmingham – Blog Event*

Woop I have a really exciting post for you all today. I’m sorry I have been so quiet the past week, I’ve just been a tad busy with work… Again…

Last week I was invited to a blog event by the lovely Suzie over at Suzie Speaks (link to her blog here) at Organique in Birmingham, which I attended on Thursday, alongside a couple of handfuls of bloggers like myself, and they were all lovely!

The store has been open since August 2015, and although it might sound like an unrecognisable name, it’s actually a well known one in other countries in Europe, such as the Netherlands, Canada, Kuwait, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, and Poland where there are 50! So it’s a well known name, which has now joined the UK.

I hadn’t even realised where it was until I rocked up outside it half an hour before the event started! It really is a hidden gem, and is located in the North Western Arcade right next door to House of Fraser.

I did a little research into the brand before popping along to the event, and was delighted to discover that they have been around for over 14 years, and produce natural cosmetics for body, hair, and face. So, me being into all things pampering and cosmeticesque, I knew I would love the place straight away, and boy did I fall hard!

Even though the store has been open for six months it still looks brand new, and was laid out beautifully. It isn’t a huge store, but to me it was the perfect size to walk around to have a look, and take everything in without getting lost, or anything like that.

The first thing I noticed when I walked into the store was how beautiful it smelt, not anything heavy or in your face either like Lush, just gentle, natural scent. I loved it. Then wondering what the smell was coming from, I soon saw that it was from the bath bombs, powder, and salts in the middle of the store. They were probably my favourite part of the event as they were just so colourful and gorgeous. I just love giving things like that a good ol’ sniff too, which I made sure to do throughout the event.

Another thing that was really lovely to see was all the novelty soaps on display to the right of the entrance. It reminded me of the soaps my mom used to buy me when I was a kid. There were some really beautiful smelling ones, and I wish I had picked one up at the time, but alas I shall wait until next time.

The two I liked the most were chocolate and coconut, pictured above.

Image taken from suzie81speaks.com

We had Justyna the manager of the store demonstrate some of the products for us, which was lovely. I was hoping she would show us face masks, as I was after something new. She showed us two of the algae masks, a clay one which you apply and wash off with warm water, and a peeling one, which was so satisfying to peel off the back of my hand!

Image taken from suzie81speaks.com

We were allowed to walk around the store to look at the various products on offer, as well as drink some orange juice, eat some yummy Polish doughnuts, and of course talk with fellow bloggers who were there! I had a good natter with just about everyone, and it was just nice to talk about some common interests! None of my friends are bloggers (well two were but they don’t do it anymore… *insert sad face here*) so it’s nice to be able to talk about it with someone new, who can relate.

I’m pretty skint at the moment, and I so would have bought more if I’d have had the money, but alas I only had a little bit of spending money so I decided to treat myself to a few little things whilst I was there.

I picked up the lip balm in Cherry Candies (link) and although I don’t neeeed anymore lip balms, I am really glad I picked this up as it’s such a lovely balm. It reminds me of Cherry Drops, which I loved as a kid. I’ll be keeping it by my bed to use on days off, and I’ll probably end up throwing it in my handbag for when I’m over at my boyfriends the weekend.

Being a bath freak, I KNEW I would end up picking up one of the bath bombs, and whilst I liked the scent of all of them, Greek stood out most to me (link) as it reminded me of something I just couldn’t put my finger on, until I was talking to one of Justyna’s friends who was helping her during the event (I’m sorry that I can’t remember your name *sad face inserted here*) and she told me it was white grapes. Then I realised exactly what it reminded me of, Yankee Candle’s Vineyard scent! It smells just like this, and is a candle I have loved for years. I cannot wait to try this out, I really do want an alternative to Lush bath bombs and these sound divine. You only need to use half to get a good bath, which is what I use with Lush bath bombs anyway! I’ll make sure to review this bad boy.

Finally I picked up a face mask, which for the life of me I can’t find on the Organique website, so sadly I can’t link you guys to it. As I mentioned before, we were demonstrated two types of face masks, and me being me, I fell in love with the cool peel off one. I also sighted that they sold a blueberry face mask, which I KNEW I had to have. I love anything with blueberries in, whether I can eat them or not. A good example of this being at work. I found out this morning that we sell a blueberry chutney! BLUEBERRY CHUTNEY! I’ll have to buy it at some point. 😛 Anyway back to Organique! I can’t wait to try this face mask out tomorrow on my day off work. I’ll be reviewing this too I’m sure. Justyna gave me a serum sample to use after the face mask, but I’m not sure which one it was… I have a feeling it was the Green & White Tea Immuno-Serum (link) but don’t quote me!

Image taken from suzie81speaks.com

Image taken from suzie81speaks.com

Sadly a few hours after the event started, it was time to head home. We were all given goodie bags by Justyna, which was so lovely of her! She was an amazing host, and I hope she does another event like this in the future. All the bloggers who were there were all so friendly, chatty, and just plain awesome! I have previously been to blog events where most of the bloggers there were a bit snobby, didn’t want to talk to me, and put me off going to anymore. I’m glad that I attended this event though as I had such a lovely time chatting to the girls, trying some new products, and discovering an amazing new cosmetics company!

So you’re probably wondering what I got in my goodie bag? I was given four lovely things to try out, one of them being something I wanted to buy myself!

I was given the a sample of the Anti-Age Hair Shampoo (link), a sample of the Ghassoul Clay Powder (link), a full size of the Africa Bath Powder (well bath bomb but it isn’t in the shape of a bath bomb!) (link), and a sample of Chocolate Sugar Peeling (link), which is the product I really wanted to try!

I honestly cannot wait to give all these a go over the next week or so, and hopefully be able to pick up some goodies soon. I have my eye on the Sensitive Bath Nectar (link), Caffeine Slimming Serum (link), and pretty much ALL the bath bombs!

What do you think of Organique Cosmetics? If you’re in Birmingham City Centre, will you pop in and have a look?

If you aren’t local to Birmingham, don’t worry because Organique do indeed have a website! I’ll link their website down below, as well as all their social media too.

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

Until next time all, take care and I hope you had a lovely weekend!

Hyper Japan 2015 Part 1

I have struggled to start this post because I just didn’t know how to start it, and due to that it’s actually a day late… Oops! I’m literally just going to throw myself into it and ramble on about things in the order they occurred on the day, which I’ll warn you was long and also picture heavy! I also bought quite a few things at Hyper Japan or was given plenty of freebies, which you can see above, but I’ll go into more detail about those throughout the post.

This post is actually going to be split into two parts, because as I’ve been writing it, it’s just appeared to be WAY too long! So I’ll have part one up today, and part one up tomorrow!

Although we were shattered, we were ready for Hyper Japan and made sure we got up bright an early to get a big breakfast and then head over to the O2 where the event was happening. I’ve never been to the O2 in London before so I was in shock when I saw how big it actually is. But to get there we took the cable cart over which was pretty cool, although I was really anxious when we went over the first time, damn anxiety!

We arrived and the queue was ridiculous… However we had paid a little extra to get fast registration tickets, so we were lucky and didn’t need to wait in that queue. I later read online that it took people an hour to just over it to get into the arena. Not good! We had a bit of trouble waiting in the queue but for once my anxiety didn’t hold me back from voicing my concerns and I spoke to a member of staff about what was happening. Basically, people were pushing in and then laughing at us all who they had pushed past. Me raising these issues got us to the front of the queue, which we couldn’t complain about.

When we finally got inside we were even more excited! The O2 wasn’t that busy but it was sure heaving with restaurants. It just meant if we didn’t wish to eat at Hyper Japan, we had some choices around us.

There were various places you could visit at Hyper Japan including, Eat Japan, Hyper Fringe Market, J-Culture, Hyper Kawaii, Hyper Live, and the first place we visited, Hyper Game & Anime Park. This was probably one of the funnest places for us so it being the first place we went into was pretty awesome.

As the name suggests the Game & Anime Park was of course full of those. Nintendo was of course the main gaming event in there with loads of different demo areas for various different games, as well as a huge stage where members of Nintendo were talking people through new and upcoming games, as well as some cool events happening. We went there to watch about the latest game from Animal Crossing, Happy Home Designer (I’ve already pre ordered it!). I’m a huge Animal Crossing fan so I was super excited when we were told that event was happening on the stage. We watched the whole thing and due to being such awesome people, we were given a free Mario Kart 8 keyring, which I gave my boyfriend.

As well as that there was also a Playstation 4 console where people could demo the new Sword Art Online game, which is coming out in autumn this year! Exciting news for Sword Art Online fans like me and my boyfriend. We both had a go on the demo which latest about ten minutes and it was a pretty straight forward game. There was a huge queue when we first went into the Game & Anime Park so when we went in for a second time, that’s when we got to have a go.

Of course due to Nintendo being there, they also had some of their Amiibo items on display for people to look at, which of course we did. The ones I got most excited for were the yarn Yoshi ones, which have come out to accompany the Wii U game Yoshi’s Woolly World. They come in three colours, my favourite of course being the original green Yoshi. These are made out of real wool so not only do they look like little woolen figures, but they actually are!

Going back to Animal Crossing and the new game Happy Home Designer, these are coming out alongside it so it was nice to have a look at the cards that will be coming out for it. You use these cards to call different villagers and people in the town then and there instead of waiting ages for them. It was also nice to discover that Nintendo are bringing out an add on for old 3DS, and 2DS ‘s where you can use the cards, instead of needing to but the new 3DS.

Not long after the event where the people of Nintendo were talking about the new Animal Crossing game, a Pikachu suddenly waddled past us and over to the main Nintendo section. We followed it to discover that you could have pictures with it, so we got in the queue and got our pictures taken! It was so adorable and I wish we could have gone back and had some more pictures of it. But alas, we had things to do.

Before we left the Game & Anime Park I had a quick picture (or two!) with a massive Colossal Titan head that had been blown up with air for people to take pictures with. It’s from Attack On Titan, one of mine and my boyfriends favourite manga/anime. My boyfriend didn’t bother having any pictures with it, but I made sure to take advantage of it, as it was pretty awesome and the picture I got of me with it is definitely one of my favourites from the day.

We picked up a few bits and pieces from the Game & Anime Park and my boyfriend was lovely enough to buy me a handbag. I had my eye on it since the seller announced they would be selling them at Hyper Japan over on their Facebook page. When I told them I wanted to buy one they were lovely enough to let me look over the bag I got to make sure it was okay and such, which of course it was. It also came in a dust bag which I love! I keep it in there when I’m not using it to keep it nice and fresh looking. It’s a dupe of the Samantha Vega handbag which I’m fine with, as it’s a nice dupe and when I’ve used this bag since me getting it, it’s amazing quality and is really sturdy and great! I’m super pleased with it, and for £35 it was well worth the money. My boyfriend also bought me some green tea matcha Kit Kat’s, which were only 80p each! By far the cheapest ones in the whole of Hyper Japan.

We moved over to the other areas of Hyper Japan and probably spent most of our time there looking around all the various stalls and stands.

This is the Tofu Cute Candy Festival and something we visited twice because we loved it so much! For just £6 we got all these treats to eat and try, so we got two of these. There were various things we got from Pocky, Kit Kat’s, chocolate, sweets, and as you can see on this picture, a green tea matcha mochi, where was delicious. It was a great way to sample things before buying them in the shop next door. The shop was so busy too, it was probably one of the busiest stalls of the day.

As the Saturday Hyper Japan day is split into two separate events people are told they need to leave for half an hour whilst the event is swapped around so before we headed off we ordered a picture to be drawn of us together, as well as picked up a picture of me that someone had drawn in the Fringe Market.

We also decided to grab some food from the Eat Japan section. We bought some tuna onigiri, and to the Japanese onigiri is like a sandwich to us, which I LOVED! They were two for £6, which wasn’t cheap for but for how filling it was, it was really nice. I think we’re going to try and make these ourselves in the future.

Then we headed back to the hotel as we were pretty shattered and wanted to drop off some of the stuff we had bought, as things were beginning to be quiet heavy. The queue for the cable cart was long! But luckily we were alright and soon got into a cart with some people. I felt a lot more relaxed the second time we rode it and I would love to go on it again in the future.

And whilst I was going to continue talking about Hyper Japan, I’m going to stop for today and call this part one out of two. This post is just turning out to be way too long to fit into one post without it not beginning to be boring.

So tomorrow I shall talk about the second half of Hyper Japan in part two!

What do you think of my first Hyper Japan experience so far? Did you go to Hyper Japan? Let me know in the comments.

Until tomorrow, take care all.