Trying Itsu For The First Time

Hey everyone! 

How are you? Hows the week going?

Welcome to a brand new post! Today, I thought that I would talk about one of my favourite topics, food!

Itsu is a Asian based restaurant chain that sells, a mixture of, sushi, wraps and hot food and drinks. Created by Pret A Manger founder Julian Metcalfe, the original Chelsea store of Itsu was unique and contemporary for it's time. Five years later, we opened our first takeaway shop in vogue house, headquarters of Conde Nast’s publishing empire. This little itsu boutique still thrives today.

I walked into the restaurant for the first time and saw all of the bright lights and vibrant coloured packaging of the fresh products in the fridges, and, realised that I would need a few moments to choose on what I wanted to eat. (Most of my close friends know that it takes a few minutes, or twenty, to choose on wht I want because I normally want everything!)

Itsu do a mixture of hot and cold items within their stores, from, soups, to sushi, to curries, to rice dishes and everything in between. I decided to grab something cold. As it was the night after a friends Birthday party, I decdied to grab something and take it back to my flat so I could watch Netflx.

I finally decided on the Veggie Sushi Collection. I think that it's best to try and include Veggie items into your diet especially when it comes to food that has already been made. This dish came with a mixture of smaller Carrot and Cucumber Sushi, bigger Sushi which I think contained Lemongrass, Veggie Dumplings, and, Edamame Beans.

Small Sushi:

The Sushi that I first tried, was small but powerful. It contained a mix of Onions, Cucumbers and Coriander. I love Coriander and I love Sushi, so I already knew that I was going to love these. They were the right size to grab onto a Chopstick, and, dunk into an assortment of superb sauces, such as, Soy, Teriyaki or Hoi Sin

Big Sushi:

These Sushi were amazing too. The only problem, that, I had with these is that, they fell apart really easily. I don't know if it was because the Rolls weren't rolled u[ tight enough. The main flavour, that, I got with these was Lemongrass. I love Lemongrass!  They were bright and just went perfectly with the Soy that was included in the pack.

Dumplings

I love dumplings! Big, small, veggie, meat, spicy, cool, savoury, sweet. I love them! My main problem with the dumplings within the Itsu box, is that, the amount that came in the box needed to be multiplied by ten! They were fresh but slightly spicy at the same time. I loved to slightly dip them in the Soy-Wasabi mix that I made, as it meant that some of the food was crunchy and other parts were saturated with spicy goodness!

Edamame Benas

I normally don't enjoy Edamame Beans that much, mainly, because within Bento/Sushi boxes, they are normally within their pods. This means that you normally have to unpod and them deshell them a tiny bit, which isn't the reason why I buy or enjoy Sushi Boxes. I normally enjoy them so I don't have to cook or do much when it comes to eating. These came in a sort of Spicy mix. I loved the spicy aspect but I wasn't sure on how you would be able to enjoy them with a chopstick. I did also fiud them a tad dry, so I decided to, pour the rest of my sauce mix on top of them. I think that these would be good on their own via a sort of Pan Asian inspired Salad of some sort.

Have you tried anything from Itsu before? Have you tried any of their Sushi before? Is there any other great Asian food establishments that I should try out? Let me know down below!

Check out Itsu.

Thanks for reading! 
Jamie x 

Lush Goddess Perfume Range | First Impressions

Hey everyone!

How are you? Are you happy that March is nearly upon us?

Welcome to a brand new blog post! Lush decided to drop a new range of products under the Goddess scent family, and, I thought that today. If you like Lush and Ariana Grande, then keep on reading. If you don't, then, thank you next.

Goddess is one of Lush's up and coming Bath Bombs that has hopped it's way throughout the Beauty world within the last year. Goddess, as it's name suggests, was created in honour of Ariana Grande, and her song, 'god is a woman'. As, Ariana decided to drop her new album, 'thank u, next', Lush decided to drop many more items with the same deep floral scent that Goddess is synonymous of.

This is a first impressions, via trying the below products out, within my local Lush store. The below opinions are only from trying them out there and then. 

Solid

I love the Solid fragrances, mainly, because you can put them into your bag on the night out and it wont take up too much room. This means that you can top up your scent when you feel like it's fading a bit to ensure that you're smelling amazing all night long. The Solid has more of a grassy sort of element to it which lingers on the skin for quite a long amount of time. I think this is due to the Osmanthus that is in the fragrance. When comparing it to the Soap

Liquid

I love the Goddess scent, but, sadly as a student, I just can't rationalise the amount that the Liquid costs, even though, I know that I would use it so often! A mix of the deepness from the Jasmine comes across a little bit more in this version, compared with the Solid. I also think that the Lemon comes out a tiny bit more in this one. I do love this scent and I think that it reminds me of those sort of nights where the nights are getting longer but its still a bit nippy sometimes?

Soap:

One of the new products that Lush released, is a, Goddess Soap. I'm not fully sure on what the shape of the product is meant to be. The shape mainly reminds me of a tear drop, which might be a wink to the song, No Tears Left To Cry', who knows? Lush have decided to slightly change the scent between all of the new products to make them a little bit different. The Soap has a sort of a more, Lemon/Lemongrass scent to it. If you like the scent of the Avobath Bath Bomb, then you will definitely love the scent of the Goddess Soap.

Stone:

This is a weird one to include, but, I couldn't find the Fragrance Oil, or, the Washcard so I thought that it would be a bit interesting to include the stone that Lush include in their stands for people to sniff in case they don't want to spray it. The stone has more of the Jasmine coming through. I also got more of a powdery note from the stone. The Lemon wasn't that present in the stone either. If you want to find the stones and smell trhem all, then, pop into your local Lush. They should all be on a little table in front of the fragrances.

Have you tried any of the Goddess products from Lush? Have you listened to Ariana's new album? Let me know down below!

Thanks for reading! 
Jamie x 

Lush Soya Bran Exfoliator Body Scrub

Hey everyone!

How are you? Happy that January is finally over? Sad that the rest of the year is going to fly by?

Welcome to a brand new blog post! I thought that today, I would talk to you all about, a new naked product from Lush, that I got to try by going to the new Naked store in Manchester.

I heard about Lush Manchester Market Street being turned into a new Naked shop, and well, the Lushie in my head, told me that I had to go ASAP. The weekend after the launch of the newly refurbished Lush store, I decided to go into Manchester to meet up with a couple of friends, so, I thought that I would check out the new shop as I might as well as kill two birds with one stone.

If you haven't heard of a Lush Naked Shop, then imagine your favourite/local Lush store, now imagine all of the products having no packaging where possible. Obviously the items at a Lush store that need pakaging aren't sold at the Naked store, but to make up for that, the store contains exclusive products that you can't find anywhere else!

I had a look around the spacious shop (if you would like me to do a post on the shop itself, then let me know via the comments or social media), and decided that I wanted to get a new product to try out. After uhmming and ahhing with a friend between the, shower oils, body masks, and, body scrubs, I finally decided on a product. Soya Bran Exfoliator

List Of Ingredients & Scent: 

Granulated Sugar Fine Ground Oatmeal Soya Bran Fair Trade Organic Cocoa Butter Glycerine Lauryl Betaine Sodium Laureth Sulfate Lemon Peel Powder Bergamot Oil Neroli Oil Brazilian Orange Oil Sicilian Red Mandarin Oil Tangerine Oil Dried Blue Larkspur Gardenia Extract *Limonene *Linalool Perfume

The Sugar ensures that the product has a coarse scrub to ensure that all the dead skin on your body disappears, but, the Oatmeal within this product ensures that it's not too coarse. Oatmeal is very well known for soothing sensitive/irritated skin. The Cocoa Butter ensures that the skin stays soft and smooth which is needed in the British cold weather. The Red Mandarin and Lemon Peel Powder, give this Scrub a very citrus scent, but, the Gardenia gives it a bit of a floral (which reminded me a bit of the old Dorothy Bubble Bar mixed with Lemon Cheesecake.)

How To Use:

So, with naked products, there are many ways to use the product due to its solid form. I wet it lightly via the sink or shower, then, i massage it into the skin in circular motions to ensure the sugary scrub works it's magic. I then leave it on for an extra 30 seconds, and then rinse.

Results:

I loved it. For someone with sensitive skin, its a sensational scrub. The Sugar, Oatmeal and Soya Bran, are soft exfoliants therefore they don't irritate the skin that much. The Scrub as a whole, gets rid of dead skin and makes you feel super smooth.

Overall Thoughts:

I loved it. it had a fresh scent to it. I love how Lush are creating new and creative ideas to help the environment and cut down on waste upon plastic. However, my main problem with the Scrub, was that the Oatmeal and Soya Bran made the product dusty, so if it wasn't in a form of tub or anything, it would make it a bit hard to handle. It only becomes a problem for myself when travelling, but, I loved the product and can't wait to try some of the other naked products that are now available at the Lush Manchester Market Street store.

Have you been to the new Lush Naked Store? Have you tried the new products from the Naked Store in Manchester? Let me know down below on or Social M edia.

Thanks for reading!
Jamie x

Why I Stopped Blogging For A Month

Hey everyone?

How are you? Good? Bad? Forever tired?

Welcome to a brand new blog post! Today, I'm talking all about why I haven't blogged since the 30th of December 2018.

Work

I got myself a 'proper' job for the Christmas period at somewhere that I absolutely adore. Having a job meant that I was spending most of my time, well, working. If I wasn't spending my time working, I was probably travelling back to my flat from work, or, sleeping. If I got any spare time, then, I ended up relazing/trying to do other things. This all meant that I would write down blog post ideas and then, end up never actually getting around to finishing them off. I'm actually considering creating a blog post about my time working for said job, so if you would like me to create that post, then comment down below.

Uni

Carrying on from the above paragraph, I also was juggling uni at the same time as working. Now, doing University can't really be used an a excuse to not blogging as I've been doing Uni and blogging for over a year. Even though this is true, trying to juggle working, being a human and rushing to get deadlines done, means that well, you get sick of looking at a laptop screen really quickly, thus not wanting to do the latter to create blog posts.

Mental Health

This is a major reason as to why I kind of stopped blogging for a while. My mental health ended up in such a bad state, that, i just didn't want to do anything. I just didn't see the point in doing anything, including writing a post for the blog. I just felt like, at the time, everything that I was doing was utter crap, but at the same time, the longer that I left stuff, the more anxious I felt about, if I did write a new post then nobody would notice due to being away for such a long while. Everything just got on top of me. I wrote and deleted posts, I didn't sleep for days, I was an irritable and depressive shit to everyone. When I should've pushed myself into my blog, I just crumbled and sighed every time I loaded the blog up.

Blogging Community/Comparing

This one kind of relates back to my mental health. I love the blogging community with all of my heart. I can't thank enough for when I was first creating 'Jamie Sowden', but the community can be competitive and problematic at times. I know that a fair few blogger friends may read this, so by problematic, I mean that, as bloggers, a lot of us including myself from time to time try to trump each other instead of being an actual community. I just ended up finding myself comparing myself to a lot of other bloggers that I know quite a lot. By doing this, it just reinforced the idea that my blog was, well, garbage. I know that it's not, and trust me, this post isn't a pity party, but when it comes to views and seeing blogger friends get achievements and opportunities that you could only dream of, it makes you wonder, why can't I get that? It also felt worse when you'd see bloggers that create posts with a few lines of content do so well, whereas I was putting my heart and soul into posts with content, accessible pictures, the works. I don't know. I've stopped comparing myself to others, and, I'm slowly getting back to the point where I want to create posts for my own happiness and not for views etc.

The last reason, as to why I stopped blogging for a while, is a simple reason.... I stopped blogging for a while, because, frankly I am a lazy bitch.

So, without further ado, halleloo, I'm back! I won't be sticking to a schedule, as I'm still working out on when I can blog with Uni kicking back in and such.

I hope that you have enjoyed this post. I hope that you come back next time for another blog post.

If you missed my last post then don't forget to read it.

Thanks for reading! 
Jamie x