Gifts for Mum

I was pretty excited when a little invitation popped through my letterbox this week from Harvey Nichols inviting me to their Edinburgh Christmas Shopping Party.  The event was on Tuesday 22nd November 6.30pm - 10pm and entitled the invitation holder to a night of discounts, complimentary drinks and food tasting and there was also some live music too. The discounts were offered on a lucky dip basis at the cash point when a purchase was made with prizes of 15% discount up to 50% off. All beauty and perfumery had a discount of 15% and let me tell you Harvey Nichols last night was mobbed! I have no idea how many people were there but I spoke to lots of lovely people and had a brilliant time. There was even a red carpet outside adding to that VIP event feeling though there was nothing very important about me at all.

 



I snapped up a few lovely Christmas gifts making most of the discounts, starting at the perfume counter. The helpful perfumery lady suggested a few lovely scents for me to try for my Mum suggesting sweeter scents to suit her tastes. After much deliberating and sniffing I opted for the gorgeous 'Incanto Bloom' by Salvatore Ferragamo. The bottle is packaged up now so I can't exactly describe its smell but it is a medium strength fruity and sweet smell that is not as sickly as a lot of the younger vanilla overloaded smells out there that make me feel sick when I smell them. The bottle is gorgeous, which in my opinion is almost as important as the smell with perfume, with a cute bow at the top and a solid base with pretty flower prints on the bottle to enhance the floral name of the perfume.  At £49 for the 50ml and £64 for the 100ml and the 15% discount I opted for the 100ml as ultimately its better value not to mention I really want to splash out on my mum this year.




My second, third and forth purchases happened at the Laura Mercier counter where I suddenly remembered the lovely body souffle's they had and thought with a discount now might be a good time to try one. However I spied these beautiful sets and suddenly myself and 2 other woman were discussing the smells and how amazing they were. Then the woman I was talking to literally snapped up about 6 sets and I thought okay, I need to get involved.  I had smelled the Creme Brule once before and  thought it was just amazing and smelling it again brought back all those happy feelings I felt the first time round.  However they had a limited edition Tarte au citron duo too which smells as you would imagine more fruity, Citrussy even - shock! 

In the duo sets you get 2 products, obviously, the first being the amazing souffle body creme and the second is a honey bath which froths up apparently like bubble bath but is very moisturisng and smells as good as a bath oil. You use the little honey stick to dip it in the jar and then let it run off into the bath which apparently gives you the perfect amount. I would imagine the instructions for the souffle are slather the creme all over your body until every bit of it smells delicious.



 


The Creme Brule scent is right up my Mum's street so I purchased this for a Christmas gift for her. Priced at £31 for the duo I received 15% off and therefore got both for £53.

The Tarte au Citron, I bought because it was still such an amazing smell and limited edition so how could I possibly miss out! I haven't decided whether I will give this as a gift or keep it for myself at the moment. I guess it depends how the rest of my Christmas shopping goes.  





The duo's come in lovely metallic snake skin boxes and therefore make beautiful gifts although if you wanted you could nip to the pound store or a card shop buy nice little boxes and split up the sets making your money go even further.

The last thing I purchased was for the house and if you read my previous blog post on Christmassy scented candles you will know that I though I had found the perfect one ... I was wrong! This is now my favourite Christmas candle, even when I asked my boyfriend to smell it he thought it smelt exactly like mince pies. I think it smells more gingery myself but never the less don't let the name put you off as it certainly smells like much more than warm roasted chestnuts. More like warm roasted chestnuts, nutmeg, ginger, berries, clove and sugar. Again it comes in the snake-skin print box and would also make a lovely gift even though I cannot bare to part with it myself.


I don't know how long they are supposed to burn for as it doesn't say on the box but they are pretty big, larger than my 45 hour one from Sainsbury's so fingers crossed I get 50-60 hours out of it. It has already sold out on the John Lewis website so it must be a popular choice.

They also had the candles in other scents including the Tarte au citron which I may pick up at a later date for the Spring as its limited edition but at £35 per candle these beauty's do not come cheap. I absolutely could not walk away from this candle. It was like finding my houses soul mate for a few wintry months.



Laura Mercier also have other lovely Christmas sets which I would recommend you check out even if it's just so you can smell the Creme Brule body souffle and appreciate how yummy it really does smell. They have a gift set which includes the body souffle, the honey bath and a sugar scrub for £50 which I would not mind finding in my stocking put it that way.

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