plant based

18 Tips for a Sustainable Lifestyle for Earth Day and Everyday!

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Happy Earth Day! I pretend it’s ‘earth year’ and that it’s every year. 🤗

Ways to help our home:

💚Recycle

💚Buy things in easily recycled packaging

💚Repurpose things you’d normally throw away

💚Give things to charity

💚Shop from charity shops

💚Rescue bigger items from skips

💚Bring your own bags (even if you are reusing a plastic bag for life)

💚Use takeaways which don’t use plastic boxes or use them as draw dividers or planters (make holes for drainage).

💚Try to buy organic food and skincare

💚Grow your own veg

💚Plant wild flowers which insects and bees love

💚Cycle, walk or take public transport or buy an electric car

💚Buy locally grown produce (to reduce air miles/shipping)

💚Buy from your own country when shopping online (same reason)

💚Cut down on meat and dairy (to reduce CO2)

💚Replace fast fashion with sustainable fashion or buy things you know will last and you will wear for years to come.

💚Buy a metal water bottle as the plastic one’s de-laminate and go funky after a while anyway.

💚Use skincare and cleaning products which are as natural as possible.

Do you have any other ideas?

✨💙✨Chrissie✨💙✨

Vegan Hotdog Meal from Zad’s Manchester

/ Vamp It Up Mcr (Chrissie) / 3 Comments

When it’s not possible to pile on anymore topping 😁

My tea from Zad’s Vegan Takeaway

Hotdog – odd little pieces of red stir-fried onion, okaaay 😐 but loads of spicy BBQ seitan pieces (to bulk up the skinny sausage), mayo and jalapeños, which tasted lush as a whole but I really missed having a big pile of soft, brown onions

Curly fries – who doesn’t love a curly fry!

ZFC – spicy fried cauliflower, so much like popcorn chicken

Lemon sheese cake – Delicious

Overall really creative and tasty! 😋

✨🖤Chrissie🖤✨

The Hip Hop Chip Shop at The Carlton Club, Manchester

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The Hip-Hop Chip Shop has gone mobile! They are parked throughout February at The Carlton Club in Whalley Range, Manchester.

We decided to book on their pop-up website (which I now think is mostly booked up) to make it easier ordering food from their pop-up van. You can visit the van but you might have a bit of wait so (as they advise) wrap up warm!

This is the Vegangstarr Sausage Meal

Skin-on chips; Mushy Peas; Battered Sausage and Tartare Sauce; with a side of Battered pickled gherkins and a Chocolate Brownie by Lush Brownies (Chortlon) for desert.

They also have a battered halloumi meal if that’s more your deal.

The fact that people peel potatoes when making chips now amazes me. Battered gherkins have some real bite to them in texture and flavour. The inside of the sausage has a soft consistency like sweet potato pakora but it tastes exactly like a chippy sausage – whaat?! The choccy brownie is perfection.

FYI This is enough food to last me for my tea tonight and breakfast and dinner tomorrow.

✨✨🖤Chrissie🖤✨✨

Really Easy Way to Make: Dairy-free, Gluten-free Mac n’ Cheese

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Hi lovely people!

I was having a very Dyspraxic day (knocking everything over/dropping everything/getting stuff tangled up/bumping into stuff/tripping up/behaving more drunk than when I’m actually drunk!) so upon arrival to his flat, my Bloke surprised me with (gluten free, dairy free) Mac n’ Cheese to cheer me up.

Ingredients:

Any own brand Free-From (gf) Pasta

@freeandeasyfoods (df) Cheese Flavour Sauce

Rice or Oat Milk

1 heaped tbl spn Nutritional Yeast

A pinch of Garlic salt and Pepper

Nommm 😋

✨✨🖤Chrissie🖤✨✨

7 of the Best Tinted Lipbalms and Lip Oils

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Fruu Colour Balm in Peach Perfect £5.00

This has quite a thick consistency but still glides on easily. Soothing Aloe and Banana extracts. Good colour payoff but I should have chosen Cherry as it’s too pale for me. My lips are really happy with it and so is my purse!

Organic / Vegan

Badger Lip Tint in Garnet £5.25

This doesn’t glide on easily but it is hydrating and moisturising with Shea Butter and Cocoa Butter. Sensibly priced for something you would use everyday. The Garnet shade would be a moody sort of nude for people with olive – darker skin tones.

BUAV (leaping bunny) approved cruelty free

Revolution London Good Vibes Lip Balm in Euphoria £5.00

Sadly, the colour of this balm is incredibly sheer. Not quite as long-lasting as some other lip balms but it is a very purse friendly fiver. Cannabis Sativa extract to soothes chapped lips.

Vegan

Glossier Mango Balm.com £10.00

Anyone else hate the title of this, just me?! The colour of this balm only shows up on the palest part of my wrist, it’s that sheer. It works wonders on dull, dry, dehydrated skin. I apply this on my lips, my cheekbones, the tip of my nose and my chin to instantly make me look fresh and awake too.

Paw Paw Rich Mocha Balm £3.95

A tube full of air! I was half way down the tube, squeezing with both hands before any of it came out. I love the colour but it’s too thick to spread consistently. This felt great on my lips at first but when it wore off (rather quickly) my lips felt dryer than they were before!? More like lipstick than a balm. Contains active ingredients of Olive Oil, Paw Paw and Aloe.

Vegan

e.l.f. Mocha Kiss Lip Oil £7.00

This is like the lip gloss you’ve been dreaming off. Glides on easily, with a sheer but noticeable tint and shine. The Jojoba, apricot and Vit E ingredients stopped my lips from drying out.

Vegan

Lottie London Lip Oil in Extra Cherries £4.17

This oil (with Almond Oil with extracts of Cherry) works well and stays put, without feeling too thick or goopy. I love the retro packaging but sadly there isn’t any colour pay off, just a very subtle iridescent shine.

*In the above image I called this colour ‘Sugar’ by mistake*

Vegan

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Which one’s would you use? Do you have any recommendations?

✨✨🖤Chrissie🖤✨✨

Vegan and Cruelty free Winter Skincare Saviours

/ Vamp It Up Mcr (Chrissie) / 4 Comments

Hello lovely people! Between the wind, rain, cold and central heating it’s no wonder our skin can become sensitive, dehydrated and dry, or like mine, freak out and become oily and dry in different places.

Here are my winter skin saviours!

e.l.f. Holy Hydration Face Cream

A really light, easily absorbed daily moisturiser which can be layered with serums and balms. This moisturiser contains (plant based) Squalane to improve moisture balance and elasticity, Peptides to protect skin, B3 to brighten and even the complexion and Hyaluronic Acid to help the other ingredients sink deep into the skin.

UpCircle Organic Face Serum

This serum uses repurposed coffee extract, which is rich in antioxidants and rosehip and jojoba oils to brighten and care for dry, dehydrated skin. I apply this serum and before it sinks in completely I apply moisturiser, which helps the moisturiser to sink in easily. It does have a tiny tingly sensation at first but doesn’t make my skin flush or react.

Wild Tree Skincare Organic Body Scrub Melt

This has the most delicious chocolate scent! It also has the most amount of oil (cacao seed butter and Shea butter) and scrubby bits (cacao seed powder) in anything I’ve ever used before. It’s really easy to hold in your palm and one melt covered my whole body. I don’t think I’ll have dry skin again for the next year! Okay, a slight exaggeration there.

Lucky Cloud Soothing Super Balm

This balm contains Oat Oil, Evening Primrose Oil and Sweet Almond Oil to calm dry, sensitive, itchy skin. The Lavender and Geranium Oils also calm body and mind. It’s a little miracle in a pot!

Balade En Provence Solid Night Cream

I normally have very cold hands so I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to use this but it melted into my palms straight away! Containing Cocoa Butter and Apricot Kernel Oil, this cream is both hydrating and moisturising, without clogging pours or creating an oil slick on your pillow.

Quite the dream team and all plant based!

Feel free to Like, comment (ask questions), follow and share.

✨🖤✨Chrissie✨🖤✨

Bol Plant Based Dinner Boxes

/ Vamp It Up Mcr (Chrissie) / 2 Comments

Whilst shopping online at Tesco I stumbled across the Bol range of dinner boxes, which are plant based ready-meals in a cardboard tray (thankfully not plastic, which is a bit of a deal-breaker for me).

Fire Roasted Cauliflower-Tikka Masala

The Tika Masala wasn’t quite sweet enough and I had no idea where the ‘sweet pickled onions’ were!? I did really like the combination of ingredients though.

Caribbean Jerk, Rice and Peas

This tasted like it was homemade comfort food at its best.

Thai Panang Coconut Curry

I thought this contained too much lemongrass and citrus flavour and not enough coconut so I added two pinches of sugar. The butternut squash was cooked perfectly.

South Indian Spiced Chickpea Curry

Again, the flavour of citrus overwhelmed the other flavours, which I balanced by adding some sugar.

Overall

I noticed that every meal had a lot of ‘leafy greens’ in them, which I didn’t mind but it was rather repetitive.

I loved all of the chutneys and used them on the rice and greens. I don’t usually like quinoa but mixed with rice it tasted lovely.

I’d buy these again because they are a quick and simple way of getting vegetarian and dairy free, balanced meals for one, which I’d never be able to cook for my self.

Rating 4/5

✨🖤✨Chrissie✨🖤✨

Delicious Gluten-free Plant-based Mezze

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Toofoo (smokey version) coated in sesame oil and chilli oil and grilled so it tastes like roast chicken, which I’m dipping into Helmans vegan mayo.

PICKLES!

Batata Harra (lightly fried potatoes with red peppers, coriander, chili, and garlic).

Falafel (from a shop bought dry mix, then shallow fried) which I’m having hot with caramelised onion humus.

The falafel and tofu are easy to prepare and store in the fridge until you want to cook some. The potatoes are a simple and quick dish to cook fresh.

🖤✨Chrissie✨🖤

The Best of Vamp It Up 2020 – Style, Plant-based Food and Lockdown Lifestyle

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Even though this has been one of the weirdest years I’ve had, being in ‘lockdown’ isn’t that different from having chronic fatigue anyway really. Lots of telly watching, reading, putting outfits together for no particular reason, eating copious amounts of takeaway and going out to have a quick drink, when I’m able.

Leave your questions or comments below and I will consult my foggy (but sometimes, strangely encyclopaedic) brain to reply to them lol

🖤✨Chrissie✨🖤