Chocolate Orange Mince Pies

I'm huge fan of baking and I love having Christmas as an excuse to cook up plenty of treats. Mince pies are definitely festive favourites of mine, so when I received a recipe book as a present and found the 'chocolate mince pie' recipe inside I couldn't help but try it out.

I've tried a few different recipes since then and the BBC Food one has to be my favourite.

I added a couple of handfuls of cranberries to the mincemeat and cut out small circles rather than covering the top with pastry but other than that I've kept the same recipe.

I'd love to try out adding orange zest to the pastry to add an extra orangey kick.

What's your favourite Christmas recipe?

(apologies for the rubbish photo, I didn't have my camera with me - bad blogger!)

Where have I been?!

So I've been away from my poor blog for nearly three months now and my goodness have I missed it!

I think it's fair to say I didn't really appreciate quite how full on the final year of a law degree would be, but here I am, I survived the first term! The last three months have seen me turn 21, start a placement as a Family Law paralegal, take fifteen of my Brownies away for the weekend and open twenty doors of my Boots Beauty Advent Calendar.

my 21st birthday//owl at Harry Potter themed Brownie Holiday//Carnage

I can't wait to start blogging again and review some of the products I've been using recently (including the famous Effaclar Duo!) and share some more of my money saving tips.

What's been your most recent beauty find?

Jade Rebecca
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What's in My beauty Products #2 - AHAs

I've been away from blogging for what seems like ages, I've been really busy and finding time for writing blog posts and taking photos has just been impossible. I'm now back from a short break in Ireland (sadly no haul post, everything was so expensive!) and here's my second 'What's in my Beauty Products' post.

The first I heard of AHAs, or alpha hydroxy acids, was in a product review that said something along the lines of 'this product contains AHAs - beware'. Needless to say I mentally put AHAs in the skincare ingredient sinbin and didn't touch anything containing them for quite a while. Whilst on my 'I don't like AHAs rampage' I kept seeing products advertising AHAs as a key ingredient and realised I didn't actually know what was wrong with them and afterall, why would a product be screaming and shouting about an ingredient that does no good?

AHAs are naturally found in fruits and milk but can also be synthetically produced, their benefits mostly stem from their ability to aid the natural shedding of dead skin cells. The exfoliating properties of AHAs are great for achieving extra soft skin and helping to unclog pores, they are even thought to decrease the appearance of fine lines.

So where's the catch? The only downside to AHAs is that they cause the skin to be more sensitive to the sun, I don't really see that as much of a problem because you should already be using SPF on your face (at least) every day and that will protect against the heightened sun sensitivity.

A lot of skincare products contain a small amount of AHAs and chemical peels contain a much more concentrated amount, high levels of AHAs can cause irritation which is why such levels are left for professionals to handle.

Like the sound of some AHAs for a good old exfoliate? It is unlikely that you'll actually find 'AHA' on the ingredients of any skincare products, they actually come in the form of many acids, including glycolic acid, lactic acid and citric acid.

Here's a couple of products containing AHAs:

Soap & Glory The Daily Smooth Body Lotion
£10.00

Nip + Fab Glycolic Fix Cleanser
£7.99

Don't forget to enter my Smashbox Giveaway before midnight tonight!

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