Autumn Is Coming - Bath And Body Works And Yankee Candles

September is one of my favourite months of the year! Although it is not technically autumn until 22nd September this year I am pretending it is autumn and have already started burning an apple cinnamon candle.

I'm still desperate to get my hands on Bath and Body Works's Caramel Pumpkin Swirl candle.

Bath And Body Works have so many different pumpkin scented candles in their range, but unfortunately they are not available here in the UK.

I'd like to try all of these scents.

Yankee's UK website do not have any pumpkin scented candles which is really disappointing and they only have five different scents in their 'autumn favourites' section of the website including Home Sweet Home, Mandarin Cranberry and Spiced Orange all of which sound lovely.

I tend to burn the majority of my candles in the autumn and winter and rarely bother through the spring and summer. I started burning a wax tart in February and I still haven't got through it. It's a shame that Yankee aren't making a bigger deal of autumn!

What I Got For Christmas 2014 And A Little Bit Of Sales Shopping!

I was totally spoilt this Christmas and I love every gift that I received.

My husband bought me the new Tom Ford fragrance, Velvet Orchid, a gorgeous green floral dress from New Look, a Lord and Berry lip crayon, McBusted's DVD (I was a huge Busted fan) and a beautiful sapphire necklace.

As you may know I am a huge fan of fragrances and I got a few for Christmas.
As well as Tom Ford's Velvet Orchid from my husband I got a FCUK gift set, which has a lovely, fresh scent.

Lovely is a fragrance by Dainty and Heaps, a UK based company that I hadn't previously heard of. The fragrance has notes including star anise and liquorice and the scent reminds me of Diesel's Fuel For Life Unlimited. It's warm and spicy.

Avon's new fragrance, Christian Lacroix Ambre is one that I wanted as I have the other three Christian Lacroix fragrances by Avon; Rouge, Absynthe and Nuit.
Ambre is a lovely scent and the fragrance came with a Christian Lacroix make-up bag and a lipstick and eye shadow. 

I also received a mini fragrance gift set with miniatures of Moschino Pink Bouquet, Ghost Deep Night, Lipsy London and Ted Baker Sweet Treat Polly, which I thought was a lovely gift set as it allows me to try out lots of new fragrances and they are great for carrying around in your handbag. I already have Ghost Deep Night, but I adore it so I'm pleased to have a mini bottle of it now as well.

I received so many gift sets.

I hadn't tried Soap and Glory's new sweet lime scented products until I received the gift set on Christmas day and I love it.

The Baylis and Harding gift set I received is sweet mandarin and grapefruit scented, which I love.

Baylis and Harding also make the Beauticology gift sets and I received a Beauticology gift set (to the
left of the Nivea gift set) with vanilla frosting foot lotion and strawberry frosting foot soak crystals with some red and white fluffy socks, which I took out of the box as I have already worn them.

I received another Beauticology gift set (bottom right) with a cranberry body wash, which smells lovely and a gingerbread sparkle body wash, which has glitter in it and smells lovely. There is also a strawberry frosting scented soap in the set.

There are two gift sets from Next. One is a set of 4 lip glosses and the other is from the Gold range, which includes a small rollerball of the Gold eau de parfum, a scented hand cream, a shimmery nail polish and a pot of nail gems.

I also got plenty of candles. The Glade warm spice candle is really strong, but I love it!
The set of three candles with the silver floral patterned holders are very pretty and they are vanilla and roasted chestnut scented. They smell really nice, but I think the scent will be a lot more obvious when I start to burn them.
The set of three purple tealight holders shown at the bottom of the photo are a lovely design as well. They look very festive. 

As well as my green floral dress I got a few bits and pieces of clothing including a gorgeous grey bird print scarf, some white slippers, some black and pink gloves, which will be great for the rest of winter as I intend to take up running, some big thick Lipsy socks and two pairs of pyjamas.
I love both pairs of pyjamas. One pair are Disney with Winnie The Pooh on them and the other pair have patterned bottoms and a lovely fox on the top, which I think is such a cute design.
I was not disappointed in the slightest to receive two pairs of pyjamas.

I got lots of other bits and pieces shown in the first photo including a clock, a calendar, a purse, some floral note cards, bubble bath, a Tangle Teezer, sweets, a bottle of wine, a wine bottle holder, some ageing cream, a glass Christmas tree decoration, hand cream and a memo block.

On top of all this I got lots of Christmas money, which I bought an emerald and diamond cluster ring with from the Ernest Jones website. I mentioned the ring on my blog over a year ago as I have wanted it for so long, but unfortunately I had to take it back because I found the emerald's imperfections distracting. It looked like there was a crack running through it and I didn't want to pay so much money for something that I was a bit disappointed with.
To me this ring is the perfect design so I am not too pleased that I remain emeraldless after lusting after this ring for so long and even after finally making the big purchase.
I have thought about buying it again and hoping for a better emerald, but it was on sale when I bought it the first time and now it has gone back up to full price so the idea isn't too tempting.    

Finally on to what I got in the sales. I haven't been to the shops, but I have had dozens of emails from online retailers, whose websites I have used in the past and I ended up resisting spending on most websites, but I did make a few purchases from boots.com.

One of my favourite ever perfumes is Marc Jacobs Daisy Sunshine, which was released in Boots in early 2013, but as it was a limited edition fragrance it is no longer available.
I loved the Sunshine range from Marc Jacobs and managed to get a second bottle of Oh Lola! Sunsheer and a second bottle of Daisy Eau So Fresh Sunshine, but Boots were selling Daisy Sunshine again on their website on Boxing Day so they have maybe listed old stock they have found and it was only £22.50 (originally £45.00)!
I already have the fragrance, but I never ever wear it because I'm too scared of my bottle running out and it was the same with the other two scents from the range, but now I will be able to rest knowing I have a spare bottle if my first bottle runs out.

Boots.com has actually sold out of Daisy Sunshine already, but hopefully they will still be able to fulfil my order.

I also ordered a mini Smashbox gift set with a mini mascara, a mini under eye primer and a mini foundation primer, which was £12.50 reduced from £30.00. 

I had asked for the Lord and Berry lip crayon that my husband bought me and I really like it. I found a set on the Boots website with two Lord and Berry lip crayons. It is actually called the lip library gift set. You can get different colours, but I ordered the a red and a pink. The colours are called Fire and Fucsia (a foreign spelling of Fuchsia!?)
I'm hoping the pink isn't too bright as I think pinks can sometimes look really tacky, but the gift set was £13.33 reduced from £20.00 so I'm happy with that.

I also bought a few fragrances from allbeauty.com on Boxing Day to put away for my sisters for their birthdays because they had a deal on where if you spent £85.00 you could have £10.00 off.

I always say this, but I am going to try not to buy much in the sales because I've been spoilt so much this Christmas and there is nothing that I really need so hopefully I'll be able to resist the temptation to look online or in the shops.
It is the most difficult time of year to give up shopping, but I'll do my best.

What to buy a woman for Christmas

Most women are easy to buy for, but if you are a fairly clueless man left to your own devices, shopping for the woman in your life could be quite a daunting task.

I have put together a few ideas based on a budget of £100.


If you have not received any hints, I think it would be difficult to go wrong with a bottle of Chanel Chance which can be purchased from Boots (or boots.com) for £85.95 for the 100ml eau de parfum. It is a beautiful scent, which I think would appeal to almost everyone.
To reach (and go over by 95p) your £100 budget this grey loose knit snood looks super cosy and will cost you £15 from River Island or riverisland.com.

Another gift that you may want to consider is this set of 3 limited edition Diptyque candles. It is a great gift for a woman who loves her candles and it will set you back £78.00 and is available from Harrods or online at harrods.com.
To make up the gift to £100 most women would love this Urban Decay Naked Basics palette full of neutral every day colours, which is available from Debenhams or debenhams.com for £22.00.

This silver cubic zirconia and synthetic sapphire necklace is gorgeous if you want to blow the majority of the budget all in one. This costs £95 from Beaverbrooks or beaverbrooks.co.uk.
Coming in just under budget this cute pack of two pairs of cosy slipper socks are available at New Look for £3.99.

New Look have some lovely socks out for Christmas. I saw these adorable gingerbread man and candy cane design socks in New Look today. They are only £1.99.

Anyway my final gift idea is this lovely Viktor and Rolf Flowerbomb gift set, which comes with a 50ml bottle of the eau de parfum, a body cream and a shower gel.
It currently costs £73.00 from Boots so I have paired it with these festive Me To You design pyjamas with, 'Feeling Snug' written on the front. They are available from Next for £25.00. There are lots of nice pyjamas on their website. Last year I struggled to find nice pyjamas anywhere and ended up eventually finding a Disney pair in Asda.