During my annual tradition of a Lush trip as soon as the Christmas and Halloween collections are out, I thought it was time to invest in a new natural and organic shampoo and since I’m such a fan of Lush and their products and love to try out new things from their line, I thought instead of giving Jason And The Argan Oil another go, I’d try a new shampoo bar, and I couldn’t be happier of the choise, which was totally random if you ask since there was no description near the product, no price, and the Lush girls were too busy that day…

Jumping Juniper turned out to be such a good pick. As you probably already know from my previous hair updates, I have oily hair and scalp and am always on the hunt for an astrictive shampoo that can help at keeping the oiliness at bay while giving my hair a nice texture and a healthy look. Also I’ve totally been into natural and organic products for my hair for a year now, and it’s strange I only tried one Lush shampoo bar before and not all of them! Jumping Juniper ticks all the boxes, featuring juniper berries and antibacterical rosemary to tone the scalp and slow down the sebum production, lime and lemon oils to purify and give shine, and lavender to relax and soothe. I’m such a fan of the scent, so full of hues, fruity, citrus and yet floral and relaxing.

If you aren’t familiar with Lush shampoo bars, to use them you need to wet them and then rub them into your wet hair to allow them to create a good foam. And believe it or not, most of them release a lot of foam which is what I like. Jumping Juniper leaves my hair feeling so clean, super soft, shiny and healthy. When you have oily hair, there’s no better feeling of having lightweight and flowy locks, which I partially achieved with chopping my hair recently, but this shampoo totally and visibly helps in giving life, texture, volume and softness to my hair! Not to mention it will last a lot, around 80 washes! I can’t really suggest it enough to any oily hair girl/boy/lady/gentleman out there, especially who is into natural and organic hair care – this is one of the best deep clean organic shampoo I’ve ever tried so far!

What’s your favourite Lush shampoo?

I was planning a very different and creative recipe for this Halloween and was very excited about it, but for a lot of reasons I wasn’t able to shoot it until now and probably won’t be before Halloween, so I thought I’d shoot something a little bit different instead, which turned out to be as delicious and as halloween-y as my other recipe (which will probably share in the future!). The original idea and recipe can be found at Beth’s YouTube channel, but since I didn’t had to throw a party, I went for different measurements and changed things up a bit, so here is my recipe…

Ingredients || For 9/10 Brownie Bites:
100g dark chocolate
50g milk chocolate
50g unsalted butter
2 medium eggs
80g brown sugar
40g white flour
A pinch of salt
Almonds, walnuts and white chocolate as toppings

1 :: Preheat the oven to 180°C.

2 :: Start melting the butter and all the milk and dark chocolate together in the same saucepan on a very low heat to avoid that the mixture burns.

3 :: Once everything is completely melted remove the saucepan from heat and set aside to cool for a few minutes.

4 :: Whisk the eggs and the sugar together in a large bowl, then add the melted chocolate mixture and stir well until incorporated.

5 :: Add the flour and salt and stir again,

6 :: Butter a muffin tin and spread your brownies batter in it using a pair of spoons per brownie bite.

7 :: Chop the white chocolate and play around with the toppings on each brownie bite.

8 :: Place in the oven and bake for 10/12 minutes. Then leave them to cool for 15 minutes before removing from the tin. Then serve on a rustic wooden cutting board and enjoy them on Halloween!

They were rather delicious and definitely better the day after so if you’re thinking of serving them at a Halloween party, you should definitely try and make them the day before! This is such an ingenious idea for a dessert for the day and hopefully it inspired some of you for your parties!

You all might already be familiar with my day trips around, especially to Milan which have happily become more frequent recently – being that wandering around a big city for a day means you totally have to carry a few essentials in your bag (you know, just in case…), I decided to invest in a new satchel bag recently that would fit everything quite nicely and yet would be comfortable and not too bulky to carry around. I opted for this beautiful ASOS Tan Satchel which is slightly bigger than my usual satchels which resulted to help fitting more things in it, and yet it’s quite discrete, neutral and slim. You might have seen me wearing it here, however this lovely satchel quickly became my go-to bag for any occasions.

So here I have a list of essentials I’ve found I need on a basic day trip in a big city other than the obvious like a wallet, your phone and your trusted sunglasses…

A packable shopper bag :: you might think you don’t need it, but when you’ll have a foldable shopper bag in your handbag you’ll notice all the difference; whether you’re going for a shopping trip or you find out you need to carry a few more things than planned, you’ll have a backup bag that will fit it all!

Hand sanitizer ::  or hand wipes especially if you’re such an hygiene freak like I am; I feel so lost when I forget it at home especially when you have to deal with the underground!

A face spray :: like the Avene Thermal Spring Water Spray is such a staple of mine in summertime to refresh my face (and body) and my makeup, but it’s pretty handy in every season really, you just never know… A travel size fits in every bag and it will prove to be pretty useful!

Camera + Lens :: I don’t know about you, but I love to take pictures, maybe because everything I do can be a good font of inspiration for future blog posts, but I actually also like to have all my memories captured in pictures. I like to bring only one lens to avoid bringing some extra weight, so I pick the one I want to carry right before going out according to my needs that day.

A book ::  or better an eReader, which is a lot more compact and that will keep you entertained on the longer underground or train trips.

A lint roller :: never wore a fluffy sweater with black jeans and found out your legs look a fluffy mess? No? Well, lucky you. Since when I discovered the existence of the Travel Size Lint Rollers my life has changed as well as my black jeans which don’t look fluffy and hairy anymore!

A water bottle :: because it’s important to stay hydrated during the day, and believe it or not I found a travel size of this too.

You should not forget an umbrella, because you can’t ever know if it’s going to rain, as well as a lip balm, a backup lipstick (for retouching your lips after lunch and dinner – and the mid-afternoon slice of cake, of course!), a few hair elastics (life saviors when it’s hot or windy out there) and of course a few backup memory cards for your camera, just in case you get to snap more than planned.

WHAT’S IN MY BAG:
WALLET – TOPSHOP ;  POCKET SHOPPER – HARRODS ; FACE SPRAY – AVENE ; PHONE CASE ;
UMBRELLA – IKEA ; KINDLE ; LIP BALM – SWEET CECILY’S* ; HEADPHONES WINDER ;
LINT ROLLER – FOREVER 21 ; LIPSTICK – URBAN DECAY.