The Baby Box | Review

As a midwife, I'm often sent interesting press releases about products that can help new parents or parents to be and I don't usually talk about them here or on my social media (it's not what my blog is about, in spite of the name!), unless I feel they're really innovative or something you would all like to read about. 

Step forward, The Baby Box!
This is an Irish company you can only find online (HERE) that provides complete new-born baby gift packages, full of essential and luxury items for babies for their first 9 months, and an ideal gift for new parents to get them off to a great start. 

You can choose from a variety of sizes and prices with a full 10 versions of the Baby Box available, ranging from €25 to €250 and all with free delivery.

So far, so great, right? Well, I've even better news because for every box sold, 10 children have been vaccinated from measles, polio and tetanus. The Baby Box is celebrating their first year in business and simultaneously are celebrating the milestone of vaccinating 10, 000 children from the developing world in partnership with UNICEF. That's pretty amazing and when I heard that, I had to share that with everyone- I personally spend a fair amount on baby presents for friends of ours and if I could be doing some good for families in need at the same time, I would have been all over this, long before now! Such a great idea!

The concept of The Baby Box originates from Finland, where they have drastically reduced their infant mortality rates through providing "maternity packages"- essential items for the first 9 months of a child's life, otherwise known as The Baby Box! 

Business aside, you probably want to know what's in it!

Quite a staggering amount actually:

Milton Antibacterial Hand Gel (great to pop in your changing bag for when you're on the go), a cuddly elephant toy (squee!), 2 100% Cotton Extra Large Muslin Swaddles (underneath the elephant! These always come in handy and you can never have enough of them).

Burt's Bees Getting Started Kit, including Baby Shampoo, Baby Lotion, Nourishing Baby Oil, Diaper ointment and Buttermilk Soap (I love everything Burt's Bees related- the Mummy Bee set is lovely too), Tommee Tippee Complete Care Baby Health & Grooming Kit and a packet of Water Wipes.

Tommee Tippee soothers, BabyKing 100% Pure Cotton Giant Pads (great for cleaning bums!), Sudocrem (the original and best.. Is there any house in Ireland without a pot of this I wonder?!), a 100% Cotton Hooded Towel and 100% Cotton Luxury Bath Robe (imagine how snug the baba wearing this will be after his or her bath!)

A pack of Pampers New Baby Nappies and a bag of Irish Breeze Extra Large Cotton Balls.

I love this, it's so unbelievably soft. 100% Cotton Luxury Blanket.

A box full of gorgeously soft baby clothes in beautiful gender neutral prints (no pink or blue here so you can give them without worry!), including 3 vests, 2 sleep suits, 2 hats and 2 bibs, all 100% cotton. 

You'll also be interested to know that you can use this particular box itself as baby's first crib, as it contains a mattress that conforms with top international safety standards for crib and cradle safety. If you already have a crib you can use this as a second one for staying in grandparents/siblings houses, or to have somewhere else in your own house, like downstairs. 

The box is strong and sturdy and easy to move. It's recommended you place it on a flat, horizontal surface and once baby is able to sit up, kneel or pull itself up, you shouldn't use it anymore. So handy!

It also comes with its own 100% cotton fitted sheet and the mattress cover is machine washable. 

This fella is €250 but as you can see, everything you need is in there. If you think how mach baby grows alone cost, it's good value! 

I feel this would be a really lovely gift for first time parents, especially if it's a family member or a close friend that you want to treat and help out with the cost for their upcoming transition to being parents, which let's face it, can be incredibly expensive. If I had to choose another option from the site to give as a gift, it'd be the Baby Bath Kit, which has everything you need to bath your little one. 

Very cute!

The Baby Box haven't paid me to talk about this, they sent me the box to see what I thought and I really love both the concept of the gift and the charitable message behind this company. 

If you want to read more about the ethos behind the company, you can have a look HERE.

What do you think of The Baby Box?

Is this something you'd buy for a loved one?

To the comments!

XX

Surviving The January Blues

I'm not normally one for the S.A.D (seasonal affective disorder) but over the weekend it hit me hard, pretty much out of nowhere. I had slept poorly the night before and wasn't feeling physically great plus we had watched the very last ever episode of The West Wing the night before and to say I was bereft was an understatement. But the weather. I was out and about and literally everything my eyes fell upon made me feel a bit down. 

A recent walk along the canal

Everything was dark and gloomy and had an overall look of misery to it. And then, I realised. January, you bastard. This is classic January. Yes, everything is Wintery and dark in December too but in December you have Christmas; lots of lights and presents and nights out and basically, things to look forward to. Not so for January. So I decided to compile a list of things that usually helps me through the gloomier months in the hopes that they may help you too and may even kickstart my own return to Pollyanna-ness. 

1) Surround Yourself With Comfort

This means; electric blankets, snuggly jumpers, lots of coffee, fluffy slippers and in my case; new pillows for a better night's sleep. We got these on sale in Kildare Village- they're medium support so you can sink into them but still feel like you're being held in a loving, hypoallergenic embrace. I'd also recommend picking up the 100% brushed cotton bed sheets from Penneys, which are comfort personified. I suggest all of these because the time you won't spend at work or with your beloved human companions should really be spent in bed, toasty as a cinnamon bun, á lá Homer Simpson. 

2) Watch Pleasant TV/Films

I'm struggling a bit with this one myself so hit me up with tv suggestions that aren't intolerably grim, if you know of any. I started Crazy Ex Girlfriend and am enjoying it, in spite of the cringe and we went to see La La Land last week, which was glorious. I had a smile on my face for the entire film and even if musicals aren't your thing, I'd suggest you try it out anyway, you may well be pleasantly surprised. If nothing else the colours, music and dance scenes are an absolute antidote to the cold, dark Winter. 

3) Read Good Books

Well, you'll want to be reading something when you're snuggled up in your 100% brushed cotton sheets, that is when you're not watching something on Netflix. These are my two book club reads for January. So far, I'm liking both.

4) Wear/Buy The Good Make Up

I've written about this before and how as a make up fiend, I tend to "save things for best", meaning, the particularly beautiful make up gets kept for a later use that might never happen, for fear of destroying it. 

Well, last month I ordered some of the Too Faced Peach collection, and instead of saving them to take blog photos and then maybe covet them for a bit longer, I've just gone ahead and used them. That and the Anastasia Beverly Hills contour palette and a brand new bottle of my favourite foundation, YSL Le Teint Touch Eclat. Here are my super happy snapchat photos of them on my face and my delighted mug.

I will have reviews of the Peach palette, blush and lip oil and the ABH Contour Palette soon, hopefully! 

I'd also add to this; paint your toe nails something bright and cheerful, always puts me in a good mood when I look down!

5) Book Things to Look Forward To

I'll talk holidays in a minute but what I'm thinking here is filing up your weekends and days off with things that are fun- days off to do nothing are great too though, don't get me wrong. I enjoy time spent flying through books, drinking endless cups of tea and browsing twitter in the comfort of my centrally heated home but I also quite like to plan ahead for things like afternoon tea, nights out with great people and gigs, plays etc. We have the David Bowie musical, Lazarus this month, Cirque du Soleil in February and hopefully The Wedding Singer (the musical and also one of my favourite films- I have no shame, cause it's hilarious. Plus so much 80's) in March. I'm also planning a 20k charity walk in April, which I'll need to start walking to prepare for- so exercise and fresh air will also no doubt help!

6) Holidays!

I'll be blogging about some of the great places we went to last year soon, to give yis some ideas, which we're also doing ourselves by checking out cheap flights on Ryanair to various European destinations. Greece is winning so far!

7) Treat Yo'self.
Treat yourself to good food (eat the damn chocolate), the luxurious bubble bath, body butter and face mask. I'll be using my Shiseido sheet masks this week, which I've been saving and I'm currently using a Rituals body lotion that smells so good, it makes me feel better every time I lash it on. I don't want to get you in debt either but...buy the dress/shoes/bag. 

8) Fresh Air

Lookit, I know it's manky out there but once you get out it's not actually that bad. I always feel better once I've been near the sea- the air leaves my head a bit clearer and bonus point for how scenic it is.

And that's my lot for the moment.

Bearing in mind I'm not a mental health care professional so these are really just suggestions for when you're struggling a bit with the blues, nothing more serious. 

Do you have anything to add that can brighten up January a bit more?

To the comments!

XX

Obeo- Tick One Thing Off Your Resolution List Right Now!!

I don't know about you but top of my New Years resolution list every year is "sort your life out". This usually entails a massive Spring clean. This year for instance, I've bought those vacuum pack storage yokes with the intention of sorting out the clothes in the spare room. I also do several charity drops to Enable Ireland throughout the year and last January, I bought Marie Kondo's The Joy Of Tidying Up, of which I read one chapter, that suggested I give away most of my books. Obviously that was the end of Marie. 

Once I've the Christmas tree put away though, I get really into overhauling the house. The kitchen and bathroom are transformed, the laundry basket gets noticeably less full and I hoover the bejaysus out of the place. If you're anything like me, you'll be in a similar revolutionise-the-house mode right now and so, I bring you Irish brand, Obeo that'll sort out your food waste while leaving your kitchen prettier, smelling better and overall, a bit tidier.

I'm all about making life easier but unfortunately, we don't have a brown bin in the part of Dublin where we live (the brown bin is the one specifically for food waste) and nor do we make compost out of our rubbish as we also don't have a back garden (the joys of post Celtic Tiger Ireland, am I right?)  so for the purposes of trying out Obeo, I turned to my sister who has both a brown bin and a penchant for spending less time sorting out her bins, as I guess, we all do. 

Obeo is a non-leakable, sturdy brown box that you can keep on your kitchen counter and add all of your vegetable peels, plate-scrapings and general food leftovers into without having to go to and from your brown bin outside the house. Why not just use a plastic bin bag as you normally would and then put it out before bin day you may ask? Well, this fella is biodegradable- it's 100% compostable so if you care about the environment as much as you do not having a manky, open plastic bag of rotting food in your kitchen, then this is a win-win. 

The Obeo box closes over, hiding away any smells, while it stays completely strong and sturdy- no leaks, so no rotten bin juices (truly, there is no combination of words worse than "bin juices") and when you're ready for bin days, out it goes; no muss, no fuss.

Back to my sister though. When I asked her to review the Obeo box for me, she said "I've heard of them but I think they're too pricey". In fairness, household waste is probably not something any of us want to spend our hard-earned shekels on but after that one free use, she's now hooked and has been buying her own for almost a year.  Bottom line here- this is a good product that works well, makes your life a bit easier and helps the environment at the same time. I'm giving this two enthusiastic thumbs up (my sisters thumbs, but thumbs nonetheless).
If you have a brown bin, you need to try Obeo.

This'll give you a better idea of how it works, in case my flu-addled head has failed to explain it properly:

I've seen these in most Irish supermarkets (Dunnes and Super Valu included) but you can look for your nearest stockists HERE or get a subscription online HERE. My sister buys a subscription of 30 Obeo boxes every 3 months for €22 (free p&p), which sounds good to me considering how much I spend (a lot) on the recycling bags for our part of Dublin. Each box is designed to last about 2-3 days, longer depending on your amount of waste. I wasn't paid to write this but I like to support Irish brands that have something new and innovative to offer and anything that can help the environment is a major plus in my eyes. Especially now Donald "the Chinese invented Climate Change" Trump is president of America. 

Have you tried Obeo?

Is there a worse combination of words than "bin juices"?* 

To the comments!

XX

*Moist crevice is worse, maybe.

Christmas in Bruges!

At the start of December, we jetted off to Brussels for a weekend of festive fun. We stayed there from a Thursday night to a Sunday morning and did every possible touristy thing we could, including their very large Christmas market. While we enjoyed that, we both felt the day we spent in Medieval Bruges (only an hour by train from Brussels) was, although smaller, more special and more atmospheric. 

The Christmas market by night

The town is only a short stroll from the train station and although you can hire a horse and cart, it's an absolutely beautiful place to walk around. In fact, I think the word picturesque may well have been coined with Bruges in mind. 

Pretty idyllic, eh? The streets themselves are suitably old-school and a joy to walk through. All of the chocolate shops in Belgium seem to be located right here and yes, we did buy much chocolate-y treats. 

By the time we'd walked through the streets of Bruges and got to the main square where the market was on, the sun was about to set and it looked even more Disney-esque than before:

There was also a relatively small ice-skating rink, which we didn't partake in cause I'm clumsy AF and manage to injure myself in my sleep, so instead we got alcoholic hot beverages and watched others enjoy the winter wonderland-ness of it all:

And of course, it's beautiful by nighttime:

Above is the tower featured in the Colin Farrell movie, In Bruges, that (SPOILER-the film is really old so it's your own fault if you haven't seen it and this spoils it for you) Brendan Gleeson falls to his death from. Again, SPOILER. 

You can pay to go to the top but it involves many steep and windy stairs, so we gave it a miss.

There's lots of arts and crafts, gifts, knitted hats and scarves, Christmas tree decorations etc to buy but personally I'm all about the gluhwein, hotdogs, frites and churros and they were there in abundance. 

The Bruges Christmas market is running until the 1st of January this year, if you've any days free between now and then and are super keen to go travelling!

Have you been to Bruges? 

Is it on your travel hit-list?

To the comments!

XX

Bath & Body Works Candles

It had been high on my list to get to a Bath & Body Works while we were in the States. Mostly I wanted some of their famed Hand Hygiene gels (once a nurse, always a nurse) and of course, their Autumnal candles. As it turned out, I wasn't overawed by Sweater Weather or Autumn Leaves, the two I had planned on getting and instead I let my overriding love of sugar draw me to these:

(shout-out to the advent calendar in the background)

Warm Apple Pie 100% smells like I am actively baking an apple pie. I'm not really sure what wizardry went into this but it makes my mouth water every time I sniff it (which is on the regular). If you can imagine a delightfully buttery crust with the sweet scent of caramelised apples, this is what you get. Plus, it's calorie-free! 

I'm a bit obsessed with cinnamon of late and have found myself adding it to everything- coffee, porridge, my usually cinnamon-free Banana Bread recipe. So it was probably unsurprising that Cinnamon Sugared Doughnut would be coming home with me too. Yes, it does indeed smell like a warm doughnut with that sugary, cinnamon-y hit. 

Anyone else absolutely STARVING right now??

*drools*

And, three wicks each for a more even burn!

I got these (and my all important hand gels) in an outlet version of B&BW so they were a lot cheaper than usual but I think they're normally around the $22 mark each. I was lucky that we also had enough of a weight allowance on the way home that these weren't a problem in their glass jars and I was even luckier still that Himself masterfully rolled these up carefully in his jeans, so no breakages!

I think these can be shipped from the states but probably at an extortionate price.

These are definitely one to add to your shopping list if you're planning a trip stateside any time soon!

Have you tried any of the Bath & Body Works candles?

Any favourites?

XX

Marks & Spencer Beauty Advent Calendar 2016!

It has become tradition now for me to get a beauty advent calendar for the run up to Christmas. Usually Himself gets me one (see HERE for last years L'ancome/YSL/Kiehls one) but this year I spotted this fella from Marks with a special offer I could not pass up. 

I had been at a fashion show where I fell in love with a pair of shoes from M&S, which I promptly bought the following day for €42. Handily, when you spend €40, you can then buy the calendar for another €40. Let me tell you how good a deal this is; unlike some calendars, you get the full 25 days. 

Benefit is 12 days for €46, while Charlotte Tilbury is 12 days for €195 and Asos, €66.67 for 24 days. So, you're getting a bargain, is what I'm saying. This post will be up on the 1st of December so it'll be worth checking M&S to see if they have any left as they may well reduce them in price after the 1st!

So what's in this then you ask? Well, *SPOILER*, obviously but these are what I'm most excited by:

• Alpha H Liquid Gold
• Eyeko liquid liner
• Rodial Super Acids X-Treme Acid Rush Peel (although the word 'acid' used twice there is a little worrying)
• Nails Inc Nail Polish in Picadilly Court
• Burts Bees lip balm with Peppermint & Vitamin E
• Pür Correcting Primer Prep & Perfect
• Emma Hardie Moringa Cleansing Balm
• Skyn Iceland Icelandic Relief Eye Cream
• Nuxe Huile Prodigieuse
• Ren Evercalm Global Protection Day Cream

That's only 10 out of 25 and there's so much more in there that I'm really eager to try.

Sure lookit, I know these are frivolous and no doubt plenty of people think they're a terrible waste of money but I'm still using the excellent skincare and perfume that were in last years one and it means I've been able to try products that would ordinarily be out of my price range in their full size. 

I'll be doing daily reveals over on my snapchat, @ Chloe M (nursefancypants) except for days 2 & 3 where I'll be showing you the Christmas markets of Bruges and Brussels instead (there will be a catch up on day 4 though!).

Have you bought a beauty advent calendar this year? Are you planning to get one at the last minute?!

To the comments!

XX

New England Road Trip: Salem.

I am at last getting around to blogging about this part of our New England road trip (read more of that HERE). It's been a year now as we were there in September and October of 2015 but sure better late than never. I mostly wanted to keep Salem til now as it's coming up to Halloween and is the perfect time to reflect on our experience there. You should know in advance that I am a major lover of all things Autumn and Halloween so this was basically Chloe heaven. America is big on Halloween at the best of times and Salem was like that but on speed. And we were there two weeks before the actual event itself so that should tell you something. 

Where To Stay

Really, you can stay wherever you like as there's plenty of options but we stayed in a fab B&B that I felt was worth sharing. The owners of The Stepping Stone Inn were so friendly and really helpful when it came to advising us on where to eat and what tour to go on etc. Plus we loved the historical house and the decor was very cool. 

It was also really close to the centre of town so we were able to walk everywhere, which was super handy.

Where To Eat

We found a great deli that do the best sandwiches. We stopped into Scratch Kitchen on our last day for lunch and were served bacon dusted popcorn (amazing) while we waited for our Reuben's. Well worth a stop in!

Where To Shop

Salem is a beautiful place to walk around and window shop. There's lots of great book stores, tourist gift shops and witch/Hocus Pocus related stops plus, street stalls! 

I particularly loved a vintage style shop, Modern Millie, where I fell hard for the Dickens book clutch (below), that I sadly had no room for in my suitcase. There were also lots of cool 50's style dresses. Swoon. 

Bewitched In Salem is a good shop to go to for all things spooky; horror books, t-shirts, post cards, collectibles, figurines etc. Our tour also left from this spot, see more of that below. 

What Tour To Go On (cause you NEED to do a tour. Salem is history central).

Right. So there's loads of tours you can do but the Bewitched In Salem tour is widely considered to be the best and most historically accurate. Our tour guide started by saying that there would be no amateur dramatics because the real history of the town and the Salem witch trials were scarier than anything you could make up and he was so right. 

He took us through exactly what happened and brought us to all of the places where these horrific events took place. The tour was at night which added to the atmosphere but was chilly, so wear layers and wrap up! It's also worth booking in advance for this because it tends to get full up fast. 

We went back the following day to see the graveyard as it's illegal to go in there at night.

Our guide had told us which gravestones to look out for, including the worst judge of all that ordered the most amount of executions. Scary stuff. A lot of it was quite sad too so be prepared to feel a bit shaken after it.

This is the Salem monument to the victims of the witch trials; all of the stones around the green represent a victim and how they were killed. 

If you're wondering what "pressed to death" involves, just know that it's extremely grim. 

On a much lighter note, there's different Halloween events on every year with lots of delicious food stalls and fun things to do, like making a show of ourselves:

Then there's the specific witch related popular culture things to do, like visiting shoot locations from Hocus Pocus (the town hall where they filmed the enchanted all-night Halloween party for example, below) and the Samantha from Bewitched statue. It's illegal to not stand beside it and pose like a fool. No, really. Start practising your nose twitch now.

Salem was one of my favourite stops on our trip. We were only there for one night but we made the most of it and did as much as we could and cause of that, we got a really good feel for the place. I'd go back in a heartbeat. It was a really atmospheric place and that aside, it's also a very aesthetically pleasing town with lots to see and do. It's one hell of a history lesson to get too! 

Have you been to Salem? 

Where's next on your travel lust list?!

XX

Bloom In The Park 2016

Although I've never been to Bloom before, we both had a day off work today and as the weather is SO glorious, we headed for the Phoenix Park for the 10th year of Bloom; a large outdoor and indoor event organised by Bord Bia with designer gardens, a lot of Irish food produce to sample and/or buy for later use, plants and garden decorations and equipment to buy, live cooking demonstrations, live music, a hammock and bean bag area for resting (yes, really) and a sculpture garden! Phew! I'm probably leaving something out there so if you are interested, you can have a look at their website HERE. 

For now though, here's some of our photos from the day:

I haven't shown any photos of the many food stalls, our refreshing drinks etc because they were on my phone which is now not cooperating (bar giving me the one photo of my sweating, below). Gah! However, if you want to see more of our day I'm on Snapchat @ Chloe M (Nursefancypants) and on Instagram @Nursefancypants.

If you are thinking of going, I'd highly recommend it, we really enjoyed it even though neither of us are gardeners! There's a real festival vibe to the day with people chilling out everywhere having a pint (or in my case a Dingle Gin cocktail), kids playing, lots of delicious food being eaten and overall, people just relaxing and having a good time. The garden exhibitions are just that; they're more like installation pieces in an open air gallery. Beautiful to walk through and appreciate.

On the less fun side of things; there's a free shuttle bus going from just over the bridge before Heuston station. It is free but expect queues- expect them coming back too! We had thought about walking but actually it's quite far in to the park so you might be better off just bussing it and saving your legs for walking around in there.

Prepare for the heat- bring sunscreen and a bottle of water and maybe a hat (especially for the young'uns). There's stations about the place with taps of fresh water to refill your bottles with, which is great for this weather. 

If you have one, bring one of those freezer bags you get in supermarkets to keep your chilled groceries cold. We bought butter and cheese and the butter had already started to melt, even though we bought it just before leaving, wrapped it well and thought it was protected from the heat. 

And just a plain old sturdy shopping bag, in case you do decide to do some shopping.

There are plenty of toilets, but as always, there's the same amount of men's to women's, which makes no damn sense at all. 

There were queues for the ladies toilets all day, I never once saw one for men*

Money wise, you could easily end up spending a small fortune, so set a limit and/or decide what you're interested in buying before you go in. 

You could also just eat all the samples and bring in your own sandwiches to further save some shekels but for us, getting lunch there was part of the experience. We had a big salad from The Happy Pear and some BBQ tandoori chicken and naan. Very nice. There may have also been a 99**

If you suffer from hay fever, take your antihistamines before you go in and bring them with you too!

It's €20 each for adults, open from June 2nd- June 6th, 9am to 6pm.

Have you been to Bloom? Are you going this year?

To the comments!

XX

*mutters about the patriarchy
**There was of course. It was a bloody heatwave, ice-cream all the way tbh.
*** I wasn't sponsored to write this post- we paid for our tickets in and all our own food and drinks. And it was worth EVERY PENNY! Hic.