Five Earth Saving Tips

In celebration of Earth Day, I thought I’d do a quick post on my top five earth saving tips. It’s so easy to make little changes in our life, little changes that make a huge difference!

1. Go vegan! Animal agriculture is the most destructive industry affecting the planet today. It’s responsible for 91% of the Amazon rainforest destruction and 51% of global greenhouse emissions. We’re also looking at facing fishless oceans by 2048 due to over fishing and pollution! Basically, you can do an incredible amount of good for the planet by simply cutting out meat, fish, eggs and dairy and switching to a lovely vegan diet.
2. Refuse to use plastic bags – take your own bags to carry things, preferably fairtrade organic cotton ones! This ones reallyyyy easy, just make a habit of carrying around folded up bags in your bag, car or pocket.
3. Avoid plastic and also excessive packaging as much as you can. Think about what you would do if you had to keep every piece of packaging you ever used, every plastic container from the food you buy. It’s ridiculous when you think about it! Recycle or reuse plastic when you can’t really avoid buying it. Plastic takes hundreds of years to degrade and the landfills and ocean are filling up with it.
4. Minimise food waste – don’t over buy, save your leftovers, and compost your waste if possible. There are also food recycle points in certain cities! A quick google search will let you know your local points.
5. Be aware of your water usage. Replace baths with showers where you can. Place a brick in the cistern of your toilet to minimise the water each time you flush. Collect clean water from your shower and get creative; use it to water the plants or something!

We’re all responsible for this planet we live on and we need to start making up for the damage we’ve already done. Watch this space for more tips on eco and environmentally friendly living, I’m learning new things every day and as soon as my uni deadlines are over I’ll hopefully be posting a lot more 😊

Peace and love to you all xoxo

Female Body Hair

I’ve been meaning to post about female body hair for some time now, but somehow it fell to the back of my to-do list. However, when I recently seen some of the awful comments on a (beautiful) picture posted of baby Leonardo DiCaprio with his parents, I was reminded that it was time to talk about it.

This is a lovely family picture; they look so happy and proud of their lil baby boy. But that wasn’t what people were seeing…there was a huge amount of people disgusted by Leo’s mama’s armpit hair. BLOODY PEOPLE. I love her hair! It’s beautiful, just like her, just like her family.

Just incase anybody was unaware…women have body hair too. It is not just a male thing. It’s very natural and normal! If a woman chooses to keep and display her body hair, it doesn’t take away any of her femininity. If she removes her body hair, that doesn’t take away any of her femininity either. Everyone has a right to decide how their body looks, and nobody should be pressured to look a certain way just because society says they should. Nobody should be pressured to get rid of something that naturally grows on their body!

As a little hairy celebration, here’s some of my fave hair rocking feminist ladies!

Frida Kahlo, known for her self acceptance, fluidity and individuality, embracing all of her beautiful hair.Sophia Loren; reppin’ the hair for the 50’s ladies.
Julia Roberts; showing off her beautiful armpits at the Notting Hill premiere in 1999.Jemima and Lola Kirke. Jemima has tweeted that she keeps her armpit hair because it’s just her “own personal preference” – and damn right! Nobody has the right to tell her to do any different! Her body, her choice 🙂Miley Cyrus, who regularly keeps our instagram feeds fresh with lovely armpit hair appreciation.Amber Amour, looking wonderfully natural and beautiful in the garden. You can take part in her female hair appreciation using the hashtags #FlowersOfChange and #FlowersAndArmpitHair.Destiny Moreno, a fabulous, passionate and very inspiring blogger who influenced me to a) dye my pits and b) go vegan. I have a lot to thank of this lady!

The last time I shaved my arms and legs was just before I went to Latitude festival in July 2014. After a very lovely weekend of dancing and singing and chilling and twirling about, I questioned why I bothered shaving when I felt totally free and lovely without it and it was nothing but a drain on my time. Since then, I’ve had fluffy arms and legs and it’s AMAZING. I love it. Not long after I started growing it out I came across Destiny (above), and after seeing her beautiful turquoise armpits, I decided I wanted purple armpits. Sadly my dye didn’t stick (I think I was supposed to bleach it before dying it) but hey ho, maybe it’s destined to be ginger.

The only problem I have with my hair is that there isn’t enough of it!! Also, I have odd amounts of hair! One side is so much less hairy than the other! But I love it all the same. Here’s a little webcam journey of my dying attempt last year (lol at Dom’s cameo in the second pic)…

So, to round up…all I’m trying to say is if you wanna dye your armpits, go for it! If you wanna grow out your hair, but not dye it, do it! If you wanna continue to shave and remove the hair, embrace it and enjoy that silky smoothness! Just make sure that if you do shave, you do it because YOU want to, not because you feel like you have to. Do whatever feels right for you, whatever makes you feel beautiful. And that goes for any other hair on your body! This isn’t just about pit hair. Don’t ever feel pressured to get rid of any hair, be it on your forearms, your tummy, your back, your legs, your upper lip, your lady garden (haha)…anything!

It’s your body, your hair and your choice 🙂

Cruelty Free Guide

I think we can all agree that it’s not cool to test on animals, especially for something as silly as make up. It’s cruel, inhumane and actually quite pointless (how do we know that what doesn’t affect a rabbit or a rat won’t affect a human?). I began to make the switch to cruelty free cosmetics before I was vegan, but now that I am vegan I have even more fire in my belly to spread the word about cruelty free living.

The best thing is, it’s soooo easy to make the switch to cruelty free when you know what you’re looking for. The hard part is finding out which companies do and don’t test, because the ones that do test are very shady about it and cleverly word their FAQs to sound like they’re the good guys.

The testing of cosmetics and toiletries on animals has been banned in the UK and the EU. Unfortunately, some countries like China require any company that sells cosmetics to pay for the products to be tested on animals. It’s so frustrating!

The good news is that there are looooads of resources and lists out there to help you find out if your fave cosmetic companies test or not. I’ve put together this little guide in the hope that it’s easy to save and skim through when you need to.

Feel free to save it, share it, repost it, whatever you fancy! We need to spread the word about cruelty free and vegan companies, because when you know what you’re shopping for, it’s easy to boycott the companies that do test, and when their sales begin to drop, they’ll realise that cruelty free is the way forward and stop hurting the animals. Woohoo!

On a last note, I’d highly recommend only buying from the entirely vegan companies. The ‘cruelty free’ companies that aren’t fully vegan still use animal products in some of the things that they sell. This could be beeswax, honey, carmine, or something similar. Even if the company aren’t testing on animals in labs, using these things is pretty cruel on the creature that they came from. The bees matter too, save the bees! However, saying that, it’s much better to buy from the cruelty free companies over the companies that do test on animals. Just make sure you check the ingredients and go for the vegan products (they’ll hopefully be labelled).

I hope that this was helpful, do let me know if you see any mistakes on my guide or know of anymore vegan companies.

Emily xx

 

Some handy links:

http://www.cutecosmetics.co.uk/

https://www.crueltyfreeinternational.org/LeapingBunny

The Easy Way to Go Cruelty-Free

Fleetwood Mac and Fab Vegan Food

Hellooooo blog. It has been a long SEVEN months and I have missed you. Now that I’m free from uni for the summer, I have time to indulge in delights such as this, and not feel bad for doing it instead of uni related stuff! WOOO.

Anyways, I thought I’d start with a quick little post on a LOVELY DAY that I had this week. I tweeted about it then realised it wasn’t enough, I needed to share it in more detail! My last post told you that back in November I got Fleetwood Mac tickets, and I was over la lune. Since the concert was in London, we stayed there for a few days with friends. But the day I want to tell you all about is Wednesday. We woke up relatively early and had a nice morning before setting off into central London.

We got the tube to Piccadilly Circus, said a quick hello to Robert Wadlow (the tall guy outside Ripley’s) and made our way to Soho, to find Mildred’s.

Having recently becoming a vegan, one of the only struggles with the new lifestyle is finding places to eat, ESPECIALLY in Carlisle, where I live. There are no vegetarian restaurants let alone vegan ones, so most of the time you just have to make do with the one vegetarian option and ask for it without any dairy that it might include. So, coming to London again was pretty exciting because I knew it’d be easy to find lovely places to eat, that catered for vegetarians and vegans! Sue (who we were staying with) had been recommended Mildred’s, so that is where we went. (Here’s Dom and I (and some random guy) outside).

It is soooo lovely! It’s been there since 1988, cooking delicious veggie food. It was so refreshing to look at a menu and actually have a proper option of what to eat! I eventually went with the soup, because I have a bit of a thing for soup recently, and courgette, fennel and chickpea soup is not one that I’ve tried, so I wanted to give it a go.

It was fabulous, just the right consistency…and the chickpeas (hidden in the bottom) were SOOO beautiful, they tasted like the tiny little lovechildren of beans and potatoes. Dom got the vegan burger, complete with Violife cheese, which was rather exciting because we’ve been wanting to try it for ages and haven’t been able to find it anywhere.

His was yummy too (he says), so we were very content and happy with our lunch. (Side note, since returning to Carlisle, we found that our local Tesco has just started stocking it! YAYYYY praise the vegan cheese gods.)

I think we will definitely be returning to Mildred’s soon. After lunch, we wandered around Soho then got the tube to Shoreditch, to explore Boxpark, a “pop up” mall with lots of shops and eateries.

I wasn’t even expecting a veggie place here but was pleasantly surprised when there were plenty of options for vegetarians! AND…there was even a completely vegan place! It’s called ‘Cook Daily’ and it’s great, it’s like fast food but it’s all fresh and vegan! I got the rainbow stir fry (with just veggies, but you could also have tofu or meatless chicken!), and Dom got the vegan English breakfast, in a bowl. Both were amazing. I got a banana and carob smoothie with mine (£10 for the meal and the smoothie) and Dom got a ‘cuppa’ herbal tea with his (also £10 for both). They even had fresh coconuts to buy that you could just drink instantly! It was lovely.

The atmosphere was great too, very relaxed, yet busy and vibrant.

On the way back to get the tube, we passed Okobay, a dairy free, vegan ice cream stall! Made with coconut milk, they had a few flavours on offer. I hadn’t had ice cream since becoming a vegan so I was very excited by this. Dom and I got the chocolate, which was v nice. My mamma got a free taster of the coconut one too, which was beautifully refreshing, more like a sorbet. Mmmmm. Only £2 a bowl too, which is quite a good price for dairy free ice cream!

Then, finally it was time to go to the O2! The place was alive and buzzing, everyone excited for Fleetwood Mac. I was also very happy when the guy who took my ticket told me I looked like a young Stevie Nicks in my floaty outfit. Is there any greater compliment?!

We were up in the balcony, but the view was great and everything was wonderful! The whole band were brilliant, and I might’ve had a lil cry a couple of times because it all got a bit too much. Fleetwood Mac, there in front of me! Stevie, twirling and whirling in the same room as me! They all had their own solos too, and it was just GREAT.

So all in all, a really lovely day, full of lovely food and lovely music.

Hope you’re all having a lovely day xo

Rock on Gold Dust Woman

I got Fleetwood Mac tickets and I’M SO BLOODY HAPPY

After trying all day with no luck, I suddenly found three tickets for one of the London dates, and my mamma kindly loaned me the funds until I can pay her back at Christmas! (it’s no fun being a poor student.)

I feel so incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to go and see them, they’ve been one of my favourite bands all my life; I have vivid memories of spinning around my living room to Dreams when I was a little ‘un. You know when you love a band but you sort of accept that you’d never really see it live…and then all of a sudden you have tickets to go and see them?! Yeah. It’s surreal. I’m so very excited! Here’s some of my favourite pictures of the guys (Stevie is my fave but I love them all and I can’t wait to see them all YAY).

Are you going to see Fleetwood Mac? Who’s your favourite band? xo

photos (top to bottom, L to R): one, two, three, four

 

Hello Miss Dolly Moon

Hello again lovely ones.

I’m back after another one of my unannounced departures from Moonstone Mountain. University and life in general took over  a little bit, but I am back and hoping to be a bit more active on here again.

One of the big distractions recently has been the new addition to our little family…Miss Dolly Moon. It’s a long story, but when she was around three weeks old, she came into our care, without a home, a mother, or any siblings. We couldn’t bear the thought of just taking her to the animal shelter, so took it upon ourselves to look after her. Unfortunately we’re not allowed her at our student house, so my mamma is currently being her surrogate mother at my house back home. Here’s a couple of pictures of her in the few weeks that we had her. (I hope you like kitten pictures)

 

We are in love with her, when she first arrived she was very timid and scared, she wasn’t litter trained, and she couldn’t drink apart from with a bottle. We litter trained her within days (well done us) and she was soon strong enough to lap the milk herself and chew the food properly. She’s very active and developing quite a cheeky personality, but she is still the loveliest cat in the world when she’s tired. She’ll play until she’s exhausted then come and fall asleep on your lap. She is utterly lovely.

I’ll be back tomorrow (hopefully) so I shall see you then. Have a fabulous day xo

 

Twenty

On the ninth of August, I finally left behind the teenage years and turned twenty! I had decided I wanted to do something outdoorsy, as there’s nothing better than getting your best friends together and having a little adventure. In Carlisle, we are right on the doorstep of the Lake District, and I don’t think we make enough use of it, so originally, my birthday plan was to rent a barn for two nights, one that had been converted into a sort of basic living/sleeping space. This idea fell through when I realised I was pretty broke around my birthday and plan B fell into place!

Plan B was to simply drive to Allonby (the closest beach to us, around half an hour away) and chill there for the night, then sleep in the little converted rail carriage that Dom’s family own. We didn’t actually set off ’til quite late on, as I was doing stuff with Dom and my family during the day, but we got to the beach around eight, just in time for the sunset; and it was beautiful! When it got dark we went back to the cosy carriage and drank tea. We couldn’t watch the TV since the aerial was broken – but this made it even better, it forced us to be sociable without the technology! We also had a little late night adventure to the park for some moonlit see-sawing and swinging, and THEN got a takeaway. I got BBQ chicken pizza. It was v yummy.

I won’t ramble on like I normally do but here’s some of the photos from the night. Thank you Jess, Sarah, Anton, Darren and Dom (and Stevie even though you couldn’t actually make it haha, I know you’d have been there if you could!) for a lovely birthday evening, it was chilled out and peaceful and just generally v nice. I LOVE U GUYS.

               

 

p.s. Is anybody else ADDICTED to Sweet n Salted popcorn?! Because I am.

Peace out, lovely ones xox