David Cameron wants to bring hunting/culling back/What you can do.

So everyone in the UK is (hopefully) aware the elections have just happened, and again the Conservatives have won. I personally voted for the Green party but due to our unfair voting system and people who did not use their right to vote, they only came out with 1 seat in Parliament.

One of the first things that David Cameron decided upon was to bring back the cruel fox hunt. Disgusting. You can learn more about the Fox hunt here.

If, like me you do not want this to happen here are a few things you can do:

• Write to your local MP, let them know about how cruel and unnecessary the hunt is.
• Sign these petitions: Petition 1 Petition 2 Petition 3 (I'll try to update this with others)
• SHARE these petitions and your views with friends via social media! 
• Go to protests.

Please don't let Foxes suffer and be ripped apart just because a pompous man on his high horse thinks that it is acceptable. I personally can not stand behind somebody who believes in such barbaric methods of dealing with our native wildlife. 

Rachel X

Kim Kardashian supporting the grim fur industry

Long time no post, and I promise I'm going to be blogging more and about a wider range of things regarding veganism.
I saw the video of brave protesters speaking up for animals at Kim's book signing today and I had to share this reaction from Freelee, as she puts it exactly right.
What is wrong with the world?
She is aware of the cruelty involved and can easily afford good looking faux fur.
Why does she still continue to support cruelty?

Above: Kim supporting a coat made from the fur/skin of dozens of dead animals.


Rachel X

VOTE FOR SEAWORLD AS WORST COMPANY IN THE USA!

http://consumerist.com/ <<< vote!! Give them the only prize they deserve.
Keep checking back if they move onto the next round!!

Rachel X

Alpro Soy = love!

Hi,

I think living here in the UK we are pretty lucky and have a huge range of vegan food readily avaliable to us in local supermarkets! One thing that's pretty important for somebody getting into a vegan/cruelty free lifestyle are dairy free milks and yoghurts. Alpro has a pretty large range of things ALL of which are vegan and kind to the enviroment! Avaliable milks include coconut milk, rice milk, soy milk, oat milk and almond milk! Each of these also come in a 'light' version for those trying to diet.
Here are a few of the things I have stocked in my fridge right now:

 For somebody who has recently given up milk I'd reccommend they try either soya or rice milk. They both taste amazing! They are both pretty sweet, however so the 'lighter' options might go down better with other people. Also rice milk is pretty watery (much better than pus filled cow milk though imo!)

Soya yoghurts taste amazing and go down well as a snack or breakfast sometimes. Unless you're going raw vegan, it's important to get supplements in for your diet and to make sure it's balanced.

The milks I think cost a decent price, in tesco they are £1 a carton. The smaller milkshakes are just over £1 for 3 in a packet. The yoghurts are around £2 too.








Rachel X

5 reasons to STOP eating eggs!

Another quick post from me, but I watched this video earlier and it summed up a load of pretty great facts and because I care about the health and wellbeing of any lurkers reading this, please watch the video! Be reminded I'm not trying to force my point of view onto anybody and it's your choice to watch the video or any videos that I will post on here. Freelee is awesome and you should watch her other videos if you enjoy this one! I'll do my own post on eggs eventually and why I stopped eating them and how I feel morally wrong to consume them or support their industry. Also I love chickens!
Enjoy..  :)

Rachel X

Sooo its been a while!

Hi!

Ive been pretty absent recently and I apologize! There are a few reasons why, first ive caught a few bugs this month and I cant cope well when im ill. Also it was my birthday at the start of the month and as a late present to myself I got a new samsung galaxy s4 which I am blogging from right now! Im sooo happy with it as my last phone was ancient and didnt even have the internet on it! 

 Last weekend me and my boyfriend decided to go to york, stay over and have a whole day shopping! It was awesome and I went out of my way to eat at Goji vegetarian cafe there... tasty isnt the word! They have so much vegan food including amazing vegan chocolate cake which I may have bought a slice of ;). I also got a vegan hot dog which was huge but so tasty! My boyfriend got sweet potato wedges which he seemed to enjoy. Unfortunatly it started raining and 20% of my hotdog ended up soggy buttt I ate it anyway! 

vegan hot dog!

vegan cake!

Another place that we went to in york was the milkshack, I found their website and discovered they offer vegan milkshakes and ice creams. We obviously went here and I got an amazing peanut butter shake yum! You couldnt tell at all that it was dairy free. 

So anyway im hoping now that ive got a new decent phone and the cold weather is being left behind I should be doing my posts more often again. I have still been petitioning, tweeting and keeping up to date with animal news via reddit and Facebook! Got a few ideas on upcoming posts so please visit again! :)

Rachel X

Post birthday Superdrug mini haul

Hi!
My boyfriend got me a new camera for my birthday yay!! <3 <3

me + Rob

Because I've got birthday blues after just having turned 21,
I decided I needed to cheer myself up by buying some stuff from Superdrug...
I actually did need some of these things so it's okay! I ordered them off the website and it all came to a little over £10, making me eligable for the free delivery! :)

What I got:

Whitening toothpaste 59p, Floss £1.79 & Mouthwash £1.23

I love love the whitening range from Superdrug (I don't really like the colour of my teeth...) and they all smell great, the floss is especially minty which is ideal for after food. Very happy with these! And at 59p the toothpaste is a steal! Of course everything is also vegan/vegetarian friendly and against animal testing yay! Superdrug, I love you.

I also got:

Vegan/veggie/cruelty free face wipes 99p each, B. energised eye cream £4.47

I had to get the wipes when I saw them, I was running low anyway but 15% of the money goes toward cancer care! Also, the eye cream is due to the fact that I get really bad dark circles underneath my eyes, I hate them! I couldn't pass up the chance to buy cruelty free treatment cream when I saw it. I'm gonna do a blog post about how/if it helped after I've been using it a while.

Superdrug is awesome, their own brand smells great, works great and is cruelty free. I reccommend everyone to at least try it!

Rachel X

Quick post: Hand Sanitizer!

Hi!
I woke up this morning and I couldn't breathe out of my nose, I have caught a cold. :(
I work in a school so it's not really a surprise... anyway that got me thinking about doing a post on what hand sanitizer I use at work since I'm always touching things that are covered in bacteria.
I use Enliven hand sanitizer as my go to...

100ml bottle, tends to last me a couple of months using it a few times a day :) It smells really fresh and like cucumber. Only costs £1 at most shops!

Another great hand sanitizer that I use occasionally is Body Shops, which is a little more expensive than Enlivens but comes in a larger range of smells including strawberry, mango and my personal favorite satsuma.

These smell amazing and I found these 60ml bottles do run out a lot faster than Enliven's. I still prefer to use Enliven at work as the smell is not strong for in my office and I find that it lasts a lot longer! I'm sure there are more cruelty free hand sanitizers on the UK market but these two I have found to be the most available especially nearby to me. Let me know what works best for you, happy shopping!

Rachel X

Cruelty free office snacks

I work in an office, and I also get very peckish throughout the day, it's important not to snack on things like crisps or chocolate everyday and also try to avoid caving and eating your lunch really early. Here are some of my favourite snacks to have at my desk, enjoy!! :)

100% vegan Nakd bars and packets of flavoured raisins, avaliable in most supermarkets and also at: http://www.naturalbalancefoods.co.uk/

Small snack sized bags or berries & cherries, nuts and prunes are avaliable and pretty cheap at supermarkets!

Sunflower and Pumpkin seeds are great snacks, pretty filling too considering how small they are.

Of course I also enjoy fruits such as bananas, grapes and apples. :-)

Snacking at work is normally due to boredom for some people, especially a job in an office where you're not moving around a lot it's easy to bring unhealthy snacks to help pass time easier, plus when you're bored you will start to think about food more and how you're feeling hungry (even if you're not starving). By snacking on healthy things you'll definatly feel better about yourself and by snacking on cruelty free food, you don't have any guilt! ;)

Rachel X

What to look out for regarding Make-up

What to look out for

First, as a rule of thumb I assume that any make-up product does test on animals if their label does not explicitly say so, however it it useful to do online research too :-) Below is a list of brands that I use which are against animal testing and some are vegan:

• Superdrugs B. collection. 
• Lush  
• Manic Panic 
• Montagne Jeunesse 
• Cute Cosmetics 
• Soap and Glory 
• The Body Shop 
• Viva! 

I believe that by buying cruelty free cosmetics, companies will begin to see that by switching to this method they could branch out to new customers and hopefully will release that there are other methods of testing make-up and cosmetics than just on animal subjects.

If you're out and want to check if your favourite brand is cruelty free, there are a few different logos which indicate this. The most common ones in the UK are below:

BUAV

Also, if you check your make-up and it says it was dermatologically tested this means that it was tested on skin, but that does not mean it wasn't tested on animals too!!

Rachel X