Christmas Day: A Few of The Best Bits

Merry Christmas to all my wonderful followers. I'm still in disbelief that is Christmas day, this year seems to have gone incredibly fast. I'm currently relaxing after stuffing myself full of a lovely vegetarian dinner made my my in-laws and later I'll be sipping on my favourite tipple Disaronno. When it comes to presents, I've been completely spoilt rotten this year. I've been given many things for the house I'm moving into in the New Year and also plenty of what my mum calls 'smellies' to keep me feeling and smelling beautiful all year long. Whilst my food is digesting and everyone around me sleeps off their Christmas dinner, I thought I'd fill you in on a few of my favourite Christmas presents.

The Elie Saab 50ml Box Set was bought by my wonderful fiance. I recently ran out of this perfume and I really didn't expect him to buy me another bottle. I'm so grateful.

This cute miniature Disaronno set was purchased by my lovely sister-in-law. They know me so well as Disaronno is my favourite alcoholic drink.

As a beauty blogger, I feel ever so slightly ashamed that I've barely tried any Soap and Glory products, but thanks to my future mother in law, I'll be testing out this Butter Yourself body butter shortly. It smells beautiful.

Wilkinsons has some amazing household items at the moment and from the minute I saw this owl tea pot, I knew I had to have it. I was planning on buying this in the boxing day sales with my Christmas money, but my fiance beat me to it. This will look great in our future kitchen.

My mum knows how much I love the Body Shop and treated me to this fantastic Body Shop Ginger bread house containing a ginger body butter, cranberry body butter, two shower gels and a bath sponge. 

Finally another one of my smaller presents was a Topshop voucher from my mum. I'm heading down to the sales tomorrow in hope I can snap up some fab bargains.

This post was only an extract of a few of smaller presents as I don't believe in boasting about what we have, after all Christmas is supposed to be about family and spending times with the people that make you laugh. I'm fortunate that i've been bought some lovely Christmas presents this year.

Has Santa brought you what you wanted?

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A Sample a Day Keeps the purse at bay.

I admit I'm not one of the most frugal people around, but I love collecting samples. It's been an ongoing thing since I was quite young and discovered the likes of 'Free Samples UK' and 'Magic Freebies'. Yes, you have to be careful of not to sign up to any marketing scams, but if you know what you're doing and can see the legit sites from the scammers, you can bag yourself some fantastic freebies. In the picture above you will see my little sample case. It's full to the top with little samples from Chanel to tea bags and Olay to Aveena. I use these when I'm running low on a product and wanting to see what to buy next and they also come in really handy when I go on holiday. 

Where to look:

http://www.latestfreestuff.co.uk/

I think this has to be my most trusted and most used site. I've never had any problems and always bagged some wonderful little items. 

http://www.magicfreebiesuk.co.uk/

Magic Freebies is loaded with marketing scams, but there's quite a lot of genuine samples to get your hands on. 

https://www.facebook.com/StudentMoneyTips

Student Money Tips ie '10 ways to have more money as a student' has some great money saving tips and the occasional good freebies.I've got this site on my favourites and check it regularly.

My latest freebie was found on the 'Latestfreestuff' website and it was a coupon for a free 30ml Body Shop handcream worth £5. Being a blogger I couldn't refuse the opportunity to get my hands this one and there's still 3 days left for those who are still interested!

Visting The Body Shop is always tempting. The sweet aromas that fill the air always makes me want to buy something. I ended up purchasing the Strawberry Eau De Toilette which wasn't quite free, but had 10% off due a promotional day. When I got to the counter I was offered a free Love Your Body Body Shop loyalty card worth £5 for spending over £5 in store today. The loyalty card gives you £5 credit to spend in store on your birthday, money off at certain times of the month and lots of special offers.  The Body Shop has definitely been treating me well today.

I did a post about this when I first started my blog, but for a long period of time I've been obsessed with collecting magazine perfume samples. The obsession derived from my childhood memories of sniffing magazine pages and falling in love with the various scents on the page. For the last year or so I have been collecting magazine pages which have perfume samples and keeping them in a folder for when I need a different perfume to try or for when I'm looking for a new perfume to purchase. I call this my perfume diary and I love it. If anything, it's worth doing just to look at all the iconic perfume advertisements in the last few years. I recently tried a perfume from this folder from two years ago and it still worked. This could definitely be an interesting piece for those that love collecting magazine memorabilia in the future.

Finally, this isn't a freebie but the purchase was made thanks to a freebie I received a year ago. I had a few samples of Estee Lauder products from a beauty night at my local Boots and since then I have been using the Estee Lauder mascara I had been given for special occasions. Unfortunately my mascara sample has run out, but I feel in love with it so much that I spent £22 on buying one of the newer mascaras,  the Estee Lauder Sumptuous Extreme. The mascara alone was supposed to cost £22, but due to another promotional offer, I was given this lovely little box set with a sample of makeup remover and night cream for the exact same price. Today has been a fabulous freebie Thursday.

Have you used any sample sites in the past?

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