An Award-Winning Refill and Recycling Initiative from PureLakes

Posted on March 24, 2021 by Catherine Balavage

One of the most annoying things about finding good skincare is sustainability. The search for good, environmentally-friendly, products can seem endless. Well, it is time to call it off: Pure Lakes has won a National Recycling Award, and rightly so. They have a revolutionary refill initiative which also gives customers 30% off the price when they return the packaging and reorder.

The products are natural and made in the beautiful Lake District. The packaging itself it biopolymer which is made with sugarcane. I have tried their products and they are fantastic and they smell amazing. I cannot recommend this brand enough. They are truly amazing.

“Why should loyal customers be out of pocket for doing the right thing…”

Natural skincare brand Pure Lakes has won a National Recycling Award for its revolutionary refill initiative. Their pioneering progress towards ‘closing the loop’ has been recognised in the Circular Economy category at the National Recycling Awards.

Owners Claire and Gareth McKeever ask customers to return their original, sugar-based biopolymer bottles to be refilled, rather than being sent refills in additional pouches as is available with many brands.

“Having researched the options,” Gareth said, “we realised that despite using less plastic than new bottles, pouches are not easily or widely recyclable. We have made Reduce, Reuse, Recycle a big part of our business but have gone two steps further and given the entire Refill process a Rethink.”

Pure Lakes Skincare are pioneering this new return and refill process and are the first brand to offer such a comprehensive service. Unlike other brands, the refills are available across the entire Pure Lakes range, with 30% off the cost price to help cover the return postage.

Gareth continued: “From a manufacturing business perspective it is not the most efficient process as all batches are handmade, perhaps one of the reasons other brands don’t offer it. However, we don’t want our loyal customers to be out of pocket for doing the right thing, they should be rewarded for refilling and reusing, and the more people that do it the easier it becomes for us to carry it out.”

Having consciously sourced all their packaging, a refill service that went one step further seemed like the obvious next step for Pure Lakes, which already has a strong reputation for being ethical and sustainable.

On receiving the empties, they are washed and refilled from small batches the team handmakes themselves in Staveley, adding a new date and batch number before returning them to the customer as good as new.

Since launching in 2006, the brand has been using 100% traceable, natural and biodegradable raw ingredients to make their products and all the formulas are free from synthetics, parabens and SLS.

This initiative is just one of many choices they’ve made towards carbon neutrality. They’re in the process of raising finance to build a new workshop which if successful will be powered by air source heat pumps and solar panels, where they’ll be able to grow their own ingredients.

www.purelakes.co.uk

www.instagram.com/purelakes

Fantastic Haircare: Natural, nurturing shampoo & conditioner bars

Posted on March 23, 2021 by Catherine Balavage

Pure Anada’s new Shampoo and Conditioner Bars are formulated to be kind to your hair and kinder to the environment. I love these shampoo and conditioner bars. They do the job wonderfully, all while smelling gorgeous and being good for the environment.

Packed with the powerful cleansing and nurturing properties of plants these small puck-shaped bars deliver high-performance, eco-friendly haircare.

Pure Anada is handcrafted in the Canadian prairies from fresh, wholesome ingredients where they incorporate the goodness of nature into each of their products. Using ingredients derived from nature, luxurious plant oils, nourishing butters and ethically mined minerals are combined to create a comprehensive range of nurturing bodycare, skincare and haircare products with clean, natural formulations that are free from common allergens and not tested on animals.

Pure Anada is available in the UK exclusively from

Live in the Light – the online natural and organic lifestyle store www.liveinthelight.co.uk

Pure Anada Shampoo Bars – £9.95
Shampoo Bars from Live in the Light
NEW: These pH-balanced shampoo bars are made with Ecocert approved, biodegradable, non-toxic surfactants. Infused with conditioning cocoa butter to cleanse and nourish scalp and locks – they work beautifully for all hair types!

Small but perfectly formed – at just 7.5cm round and weighing in at only 115g they will provide shampooing for up to 100 washes – the equivalent to 2-3 bottles of liquid shampoo (16oz).

Easy to use: Wet the shampoo bar in the shower stream, lather in the hands, and then apply shampoo to hair or rub the bar directly onto the scalp and throughout hair. Create a foaming lather while massaging the scalp and working the shampoo all throughout the hair. Rinse thoroughly.

Pure Anada Solid Shampoo Bar – £9.95

What is it that makes a solid shampoo bar different from a homemade bar of soap?

Soap is made from oil or butter and lye, in a process called saponification. This process results in a finished product that is great for cleansing the body, but has much too high a pH for the hair. Pure Anada’s solid shampoo bars, on the other hand, have a lower pH and also contain surfactants, breaking up the trapped dirt and oils on the hair and scalp gently, so they can be washed away with water.

Why is pH important for a shampoo bar formulation?

Our skin has mechanisms that regulate its pH, but hair does not. The surface of healthy skin will eventually return to its natural, slightly acidic pH after washing with soap—even with a higher-pH soap (many of them are between an 8 and a 10.)

Hair on the other hand can’t; it doesn’t heal and balance on its own. For this reason, it’s important to understand that one of the major sources of hair damage is using products with the wrong pH on the hair. Depending on an individual’s hair type and health, washing once or twice with soap might not immediately be a problem, but it can cause damage over time.

Pure Anada’s shampoo bar formulation is pH balanced, making it safe to use on a regular basis. It is not the same as a bar of soap which contains saponified oils which are a higher pH.

Pure Anada Conditioner Bars – £9.95
Conditioner Bars from Live in the Light
Follow with Pure Anada’s Conditioner Bar…
Detangle, smooth and hydrate hair with this concentrated, eco-friendly conditioner. Shea Butter nourishes each strand without weighing it down.

Presented in the same cost-effective 7.5cm puck these solid Conditioner Bars also offer the equivalent of 2-3 bottles of liquid conditioner (16oz)

Wet the Conditioner Bar in the shower stream, lather in the hands, and then apply the conditioner to the hair or rub the bar directly onto the scalp and throughout hair. Those with oily hair may prefer to only apply conditioner to the bottom half or to the ends of their hair. Work the conditioner throughout the hair and rinse thoroughly.

Pure Anada Solid Conditioner Bar – £9.95

Pure Anada’s Shampoo & Conditioner Bars are available in six fabulous, natural fragrances…

Ladurée – The Easter Collection 2021

Posted on March 16, 2021 by Catherine Balavage

Ladurée is delighted to partner with French artisan chocolatier Patric Chapon for its upcoming Easter collection. Alongside the delicious chocolate eggs, the classically delicate Ladurée Easter egg box design draws new inspiration from the Mayan chocolate god “Ek Chuah” and incorporates a seasonal pastel colour scheme.

Ladurée by Chapon has created 3 special gift sets:

The individual dark chocolate egg is created with 75% Chuao chocolate encrusted with toasted almonds (185 g – £28)
The individual milk chocolate egg is 48% Chuao chocolate and Saint Malo milk encrusted with toasted almonds (185 g – £28)
The beautifully designed gift box holds 20 Sicilian almond and Piedmont hazelnut praline chocolate eggs which are carefully decorated with white chocolate designs (265 g- £32)
All three are available in-stores and online from the 15th of March.
Visit www.laduree.co.uk for more details.

A Wedding in the Country By Katie Fforde Review

Posted on March 12, 2021 by Catherine Balavage

Katie Fforde is a writer who needs no introduction, such is the weight of her talent and accomplishments. She is a national institution. Each one of her books is eagerly awaited and I cannot pretend I was not excited to receive this one. A Wedding in the Country is the perfect novel for these times. It is set in the 1960s which is a decade I have always loved (despite being born a few decades later). It is the perfect book to get lost in. The book has so much depth and I felt like I had been transported to another time. I loved the character of Lizzie and I could not wait to follow her journey. Get your hands on a copy of this dazzling book now. It is like a hot bath at the end of a tough day, perfect up-lifting escapism.

This book is the most autobiographical for Katie Fforde. The book follows Lizzie who has arrived in London to do a cooking course, which Katie herself did, and Lizzie meets two other girls who become her best friends and moves into a run-down house in Belgravia. Her mother is determined she should have a nice wedding in the country to a Suitable Man chosen by her. But Lizzie wants to have some fun first.

‘Thank goodness for Katie Fforde. The perfect author to bring comfort in difficult times. She really is the queen of uplifting, feel good romance.’ A.J. Pearce

Katie Fforde lives in the beautiful Cotswold countryside with her family, and is a true country girl at heart. Each of her books explores a different profession or background and her research has helped her bring these to life. She’s been a porter in an auction house, tried her hand at pottery, refurbished furniture, delved behind the scenes of a dating website, and she’s even been on a Ray Mears survival course. She particularly enjoys writing love stories. She believes falling in love is the best thing in the world, and she wants all her characters to experience it, and her readers to share their stories.

A Wedding in the Country is available here.

Our Top Pick is Perfect For Easter: Delicario Sweet Easter Hamper

Posted on March 10, 2021 by Catherine Balavage

There was much excitement when the Delicario Sweet Easter Hamper arrived at our home. ‘What is that?’ the children endlessly enquired. The husband asked when we would break into it. Well, it was not that long after it arrived, no one has that amount of willpower.

The hamper includes hand-crafted mini eggs (which are the best I have ever tasted) and a Madagascar dark chocolate egg for connoisseurs from Italian artisan chocolatier Autore (which is out of this world). Delicious melt-in-the-mouth sourdough Pear and Chocolate Bauletto cake (one of the best cakes I have ever tasted, just glorious), fragrant lemon biscuit and crunchy rich dark chocolate and hazelnut Goloso biscuits (both gone quickly). It sells for £79.50 and is worth every penny.

I love Easter and this hamper gives instant joy. I cannot recommend it enough.

There is a greeting card and personal message included. The hamper itself and the greetings card are elegant and beautiful.

It is available here: https://www.delicario.com/hampers-gifts/p/delicario-sweet-easter-hamper Treat yourself, or someone else, now.

My Writing Process KL SLATER

Posted on March 4, 2021 by Catherine Balavage

After years of unsuccessfully trying to get my stories noticed from the slush pile, I went back to university to study for an MA in Creative Writing at the age of 40. Before graduation I’d secured both a literary agent and a book deal. I’m now a full-time writer and live in Nottingham. Sounds quick but it took a long time, if you count the ten long years of prior rejections.

What you have written, past and present.
I wrote four Young Adult books between 2014-2018, published by Macmillan Children’s Books. Then in 2016 I moved back to writing my first love: adult psychological crime fiction and that’s what I write exclusively today for Hachette’s Bookouture, a digital-first publisher. Audible publish my audiobooks and I’ve also written two Audible Originals exclusively for them. I’ve just written my fifteenth adult thriller.

What you are promoting now.
THE EVIDENCE, a psychological thriller I’ve written exclusively for Audible published 11th February 2021.

A bit about your process of writing.
I work best during the morning. This discipline is a throwback to working a full-time day job and writing between 6-8 am before I went out to work. Sometimes I write in bed immediately after waking and, on a good day, I can get a couple of thousand words down before I get up. But usually, after reading and surfing online for a while, I go downstairs to my office and start work between 8 and 9 am. In pre-lockdown days we’d go out somewhere in the afternoons. Remember that?

Do you plan or just write?
I used to just write a short blurb and that was the extent of my natural urge to plan. But writing commercial thrillers and a few a year, means I now have to plan the book more thoroughly … thoroughly for me, anyway. I’ll do a long outline which I agree with my editor and then add to it as I start writing. I don’t know a lot about the story at the beginning of the process, I just have my initial idea and a sense of how I want it to feel. It doesn’t mean the plot can’t differ from the outline – it nearly always does – but in order to provide the twists and turns the modern reader expects, there has to be some element of planning.

What about word count?
I write a few books a year so it’s essential I’m disciplined about achieving minimum daily word counts when I begin a first draft. I try and get a basic draft down in no more than a couple of months so I’m looking at 1-2k a day. I often add substantial word count during structural and line edits. Sometimes I like to use an app on my phone called Focus Keeper. The ticking timer drives some people crazy but it keeps me … well, focused.

How do you do your structure?
I tend to draft out my initial outline in the form of five acts to start writing to a recognisable shape. But I’m not a slave to a turning point at 10%, another at 25%, that kind of thing. I just find it a useful template to get me started.

What do you find hard about writing?
Stopping. I find it so hard to break off or have a whole day off so I have to force myself as there’s a real world out there and real people I care about and want to spend time with. I’ve found getting out of the house is key to breaking the spell. I’m constantly striving to achieve that illusive but tempting cliché: work-life balance.

What do you love about writing?
I love how the world and characters I’m writing seem so real. I love that I’m earning a great living doing something I would do – and for many years did do – for free. And I love writing digital-first; it’s incredible that 6-8 months after having a new idea, the book can be out there.

Advice for other writers.
Write. Sounds obvious but most writers I know, myself included, have a precarious state of mind that is prone to self-sabotage and procrastination. So many new writers – I used to be one of them – spend too much time striving for perfection instead of getting the book down and then using editing as a powerful tool to refine the story. It’s really hard to get something good the first time around. I like to think of the writing process as a kind of sculpting: starting with a lump of clay and through many stages and revisions, finally ending up with something good.

The Evidence by K.L. Slater is available exclusively on Audible now.

Can I access my pension savings before I retire?

Posted on March 4, 2021 by Catherine Balavage

If you are over 55 and have the right pension – yes you can! This is great news for people in the UK at the moment, as the official retirement date seems to be getting further and further away. But why would you want to use hard earned cash which has been saved for your later years? Isn’t this a bit risky?

Use the guidance of a regulated financial advisor

Clearly money put aside for your retirement years was put there for a reason. To diminish those funds could be putting your retirement in danger. For this reason, you should never mess with your pension pot alone and get the guidance of a regulated financial advisor if you are thinking of releasing money. These professionals are accountable to the FCA. Many offer a no-obligation pension check and can help you understand the options available to you. They can let you know if releasing money is right for you or not, based on your individual circumstances. It could leave you worse off in retirement.

In other words, as you approach your final working years you can double check that your pension pot is strong enough to fund a long retirement and also consider how you can use your savings to help you with debts, treats or big buys in the here and now.

So how do you access your pension?

In 2015 the government in the UK introduced pension freedoms. They allow people to take lump sums from their pension or a regular income, from the age of 55. You can only do this with work pensions or private pensions. You cannot access your state pension or unfunded pensions. If you have a final salary pension you can transfer monies to a fund which offers access. However, be careful as you could be giving up valuable guarantees. Before you do this get guidance as to whether having access to your pension will be detrimental to your long term benefits.

What are your options?

Here are three fundamental ways in which you can access your pension savings:

One lump sum
Taking out lump sums whenever you need them
Income drawdown. In other words, you draw down your pension as a regular income.

The first 25% of any money you take from your pension will be tax free. Any money left in your pot will continue to be invested by your pension provider. As seen above, you can take as many lump sums – if and when you need them. With drawdown you can create an extra income for yourself which could act as a sole or complimentary income.

Why do people access their pensions?

Throughout our working lives our hard earned cash tends to go on five specific things:

Sustenance. i.e., paying for those things we need just to allow us to live comfortably
Those treats we give ourselves on a weekly/monthly basis
Short-term savings (i.e., that holiday to America next summer; that new sofa you have been promising the family; rainy day money)
Emergency funding (that unforeseen urgent bill etc.)
Long-term savings (i.e., a savings pot for retirement)

There is always going to be the time when you need that extra bit of cash urgently. It seems people access their pot for reasons 3 and 4 above. Statistics from 2018 show people tend to access their part for the following reasons:

32% to tackle a debt
21% to make house improvements
10% to buy a new car

See here how people are using pension freedoms in the year 2019/2020.

Whatever you do – don’t go it alone. Seek out the guidance of a regulated financial advisor to ensure your pension pay-out will be maximised after any access or indeed if it is a good idea at all. Check out the FCA website to get ideas as to where to find an advisor.

If you are considering your pension, consider using a regulated pensions specialist like Portafina or, view the information guides at The Pensions Advisory Service.

Collaborative post with our brand partner.

Bookshop.org Generates £1 Million for Independent Bookshops in Just Four Months

Posted on March 1, 2021 by Catherine Balavage

Chener Books (London)

200,000 customers flock to ethical ecommerce platform, as book buyers vote with their wallets to support the high street while shopping online

Independent booksellers report that Bookshop.org has helped them avoid putting staff on furlough, attract new customers, build an online presence, feel connected to their customer community and even open new stores

Bookshop, the book buying site that empowers socially conscious shoppers to financially support independent bookshops when shopping online, has generated over £1million in profit for indie booksellers in just over four months of trading, with over 200k customers embracing the new platform to date.

The East Gate Bookshop (Totnes);

At a time when the majority of the UK’s bookshops have been forced to close their physical stores due to lockdown restrictions, by choosing Bookshop.org book-buyers have generated over £1million in profit for the 410 independent bookshops using the platform.

As of 4 February 2021, 82 per cent of sales on Bookshop were generated by titles selling four or less copies each, and 54 per cent from titles selling a single copy, demonstrating how the platform helps draw attention to books beyond bestseller lists and celebrates diversity within the publishing ecosystem.

Booksellers using the platform have reported the many ways in which Bookshop.org has been a financial lifeline in a particularly challenging time, with the additional income allowing many to avoid furloughing staff, pay out Christmas bonuses, strengthen their online presence to better compete online, and even open new stores.

Miranda Peake from Chener Books, London, who likewise hasn’t previously had the resource for online bookselling, reported new customers discovering her shop online: “I had no expectations when we joined Bookshop.org in November, but it was very successful for us right from the word go. I haven’t had the time or resources to set up an online shop, so having a well-managed, efficient and lovely looking website to direct customers to has been absolutely brilliant. It’s been so gratifying to see so many of our regular customers using the website, as well as lots of new customers, friends and contacts from further afield who are not able to visit the bookshop but want to support us. We are enormously grateful to be part of this initiative.”

Nigel and Claire Jones were able to open The East Gate Bookshop in Totnes in December. The co-founders said: “The positive impact of customers being able to buy from our shop has been immense. And it’s not just the revenue that Bookshop.org creates – which of course is essential. Having an online presence confirms to our customers that we are a ‘proper’ professional retailer; it’s what’s expected, but we’d never have the skills, time or the deep pockets to operate online at all without Bookshop.org. Bookshop.org arrived in the nick of time for us, I honestly don’t think we could have managed financially and emotionally without it.”

Bookshop.org offers an ethical online marketplace that ensures independent bookshops receive 30 per cent of the cover price from each sale they generate on the platform. Moreover, 10 per cent from any sale not attributed to a specific bookshop goes into the shared profit pool. In addition, a number of publishers – including Canongate, Atlantic, Murdoch, Profile, Serpent’s Tail, Faber, Pushkin Press, Scribe, Nosy Crow, Simon & Schuster, Pan Macmillan, PRH, Hachette, Usborne and Europa Editions – have chosen to forego their 10 per cent affiliate commission and opted for it to go into the shared profit pool, to be split equally by independent bookshops using the site.

A recent survey conducted by the Booksellers Association found that 80 per cent of booksellers had a “good” or “very good” experience of using Bookshop.org to date.

Meryl Halls, MD at the Booksellers Association, commented: “The £1m milestone for Bookshop.org is a remarkable moment for indie bookselling, and in the fight against Amazon’s dominance in the book market over the last 10 months. For those booksellers using the platform, Bookshop.org has provided a lifeline, often, and an additional sales channel, to indie booksellers forced to close and otherwise struggling to provide an ecommerce offer to their loyal customers. The team at Bookshop.org deserve huge credit for the speed of the launch, the empathy and openness they’ve shown to booksellers and the supportive community they’ve created for their users. In our newly hybrid world, the need for online bookselling is not going to abate, and we are delighted that indies are now able to join the other high street booksellers, Waterstones, WHS, Foyles and Blackwells, in reaching book-buyers online – and we urge publishers and authors to link to specialist high street booksellers online, rather than lazily linking to Amazon, who certainly don’t need the money.”

With over 6,000 affiliates – spanning publishers, authors, book bloggers and beyond – using the site to support bookshops, the early success of Bookshop.org has been welcomed by many publishers:

Stephen Page, Chief Executive at Faber, said: “A clear truth that has been emphasised this past year is that independent booksellers play a key role for readers in their discovery of a wide range of interesting books. The arrival of Bookshop.org ensures that independents now have a great partner whose service allows them to offer both a brilliant online and physical service to their customers.”

Bookshop was founded with the belief that independent bookshops are vital to our culture. As consumers are increasingly realising that where they spend their money matters, Bookshop.org offers an entirely new approach to online shopping, giving customers the power to support the local high street when they buy books online.

Highlighting recommendations from real booksellers, authors, publishers and beyond, Bookshop.org takes a human approach to book curation that avoids relying on algorithms, reflecting the unique browsing experience of a physical bookshop. Authors who have supported the platform by curating reading lists have often increased sales of the books featured, including: Elena Ferrante, Malorie Blackman, Marian Keyes, Nikesh Shukla, Julia Quinn, Edmund de Waal, and more.

Frost Magazine

Books and Lifestyle

Author Archives: Catherine Balavage