This glorious sunny Saturday just past marked the first of hopefully many Cruelty Free Festivals’ held at the Earthwise centre in Subiaco.

As you can see from the photo above, vegan cakes & sweets were out in full force, as were helpful advocates giving out informative flyers & pamphlets about cruelty free living.

The main focus though was the food, proving what most already knew – it is possible to eat delicious food without the use of animal products.

Lunch in the form of mock meats, vegetable curries, spring rolls and rice dishes (I also spied mango flavoured sweets just out of this picture!)

Peach muffins & custard fruit tarts (these were both GREAT!), chocolate + green tea cheesecake, melting moments plus a couple other things I wasn’t sure of… keep in mind there are no animal products in any of these, which is pretty amazing / awesome!

Here’s a photo of the wood-fired pizza magic happening, I didn’t get a chance to test these out but there were some winning combinations happening and I’m kicking myself for filling up on chocolate cupcakes before I saw this.

There were many wares to be found including heaps of books, stickers, shoes, tees & hoodies, vegan dog treats (!!!), snacks and so much more.

One well known healthy living company that made the trip up from down South was Samudra.

Here are some of the goodies that they had on display:

As you can see, these snacks look great and they are all amazingly good for you! Aside from selling these treats, Samudra also run yoga and surfing getaways in Dunsborough, well worth a look.

The bands playing kept the spirit lively outside and if you ventured into the back corner there were vegan cooking demonstrations being held inside if you could tear yourself away from the cakes for long enough.

All in all it was a lovely way to spend an afternoon, a fantastic new event and one I will be wholeheartedly supporting next year!

Many thanks to Animal Rights Advocates for organising it!

Did you go to the Cruelty Free Festival?

Ever tried a vegan cupcake?

Be well,

xoxo

This event sounds incredible…

Held in the peaceful and shady grounds of Earthwise Community Centre (315 Bagot Road, Subiaco) from 10am-2pm, the festival will celebrate cruelty-free vegan living, social justice and sustainability – all growing interests for West Australians!

There will be two photography stalls on the day, so if you want a snap of your pooch bring them along!

Now that’s the one that’s sold me! The chance to mingle with copious amounts of puppies while dining on healthy vegetarian treats? I’M THERE!

It should be a great day, looking after and caring for animals is something very special that we can all do, so come down and learn more about it, taste some delicious veg food & listen to some bands on a Sunny afternoon 🙂

You can join the event Facebook Page or e-mail info@ara.org.au for more details.

Hope to see you there!

Be well,

xoxo

Breaking out is not hard to do.

Especially when kit kats, Vintage Cheddar and Onion Red Rock Deli chips & toasted sandwiches have been flying down your throat at hyper speed.

Whoever said that what you eat is unrelated to the state of your skin must be giving Pinocchio’s nose a run for his money by now.

So I’ve been slipping up, I admit it, I’m far from perfect! But the past week has seen a big effort to get back on track.

RRP $58 AUD, available at Mecca Cosmetica

Yesterday I tried the REN Jojoba Microbead Purifying Facial Scrub. I’d previously been using a cheap and cheerful teenage staple, Aapri (which is a bit rough for my skin), and felt like I finally graduated when the thousands of tiny smooth REN jojoba beads glided easily across my face and got down to work.

The scent of this product is really mild too, despite having peppermint and juniper oils doing their dance in there, which is nice.

Post-exfoliating, my skin felt VERY smooth and even a tiny bit tight, but the tightness soon passed. It really felt like a breath of fresh air and if my cells could smile, they probably would. I now realise that temporarily forgetting about the wonders of exfoliation was a grave error.

DEAD SKIN CELLS: BE GONE!

My skin still feels smooth and more glowy today!

In addition to re-discovering a great exfoliant, I’ve been smashing frozen berries in smoothies (bought a 1kg bag of blueberries – so excellent!), eating lots of avocado, drinking 2+ cups of decaff green tea a day plus heaps of water and generally trying to clean up my diet by eating more wholefoods and cutting out dairy / chippies (weaknesses!).

My skins been on the naughty mat for a while now, hopefully these changes will get it behaving again!

Do you change your diet when your skin plays up?

What’s your favourite exfoliant?

Be well!

Annette

xoxo

A big sleep-in started my birthday with a snoozy bang. I did wake up at 7am to rush into my housemates room and sleepily jibber about birthdays and she made it worthwhile by presenting me with two wonderful prizes!

Carmen Electra: Fit to Strip Vol. 2 (review coming very, I love it!) and STOTT PILATES: Sunrise Workout (also coming soon!). Yay! We’d both been meaning to get some workout DVD’s happening, so now we’ll be busting moves and stretching it out in the comfort of our own home!

After my gift receiving I fell back into bed til 11am and then made my favourite healthy breakfast: Honey porridge with sliced banana!

This stuff is really good for you too as it keeps blood sugar levels even throughout the day, so it’s a perfect brekky.

Backtracking a little… the night before I went to dinner at Galileo Buona Cucina, Shenton Park. Totally in love with this place now!

Bruschetta for starters (possibly the best I’ve ever had), pear nectar (!!!) and one of their signature dishes, artichoke ravioli for mains… such a fantastic birthday dinner!

Urban Spoon rating:

My parents gave me something dorky I’d been wanting for a while, A WATER JUG! I’m going to use this to make my special Iced Green Tea – I make a big batch of this up and drink it throughout the week, I’ve found it really helps with glowing skin so I’m really excited to get back into this!

Back to my day though! I met up with my Mum and had a HUGE salad and detox juice (beetroot, carrot, apple, celery) from Edens Salad Bar in Subiaco, they were both delicious and the juice was enormous! I recommend.

Urban Spoon rating:

As my birthday treat to myself, I bought the latest Good Health magazine and some of the new Lindt Blueberry Intense chocolate – OH MY DELISH! As well as the blueberries, it also has little slivers of almonds, yum.

Another lovely gift I received, from Conor @ Hold the Beef was some Oxfam Unwrapped seeds, I found it really thoughtful and it made me smileeeeeee that my birthday inspired Conor to want to help someone else 😀

Throughout the day I slurped on green tea & rosehip tea to up the wellness quotient, and when it came time to get ready for my party, I used some Akin & Al’chemy prods to “gussy up”.

My locks were treated to [Al’chemy] Rice Aminos & Wheat Protein Intensive Moisture Shampoo and Avocado & Calendula Re-Moisturising Conditioner. These hair heroes are SLS free (a very good thing) and are devoid of many other nasties as well, so are great when you want to give your strands a break from the chemical torture they’re usually subjected to!

Post-shower I spritzed some ‘Cellular Brightening Mist’ on my face, I –LOVE- this stuff! It smells like lavender and feels cool & sparkly on the skin. I haven’t done any comparitive analysis pre and post spritzing but it makes me FEEL like my skin is brighter, so I’m sticking with it!

Seeing all my favourite people in one place that night ended my birthday on a high note, friends are critical to wellbeing and I was so happy that all my besties made it out to celebrate with me.

Love you all. Thanks for reading. Here’s to the next wellness filled year, hope you stick along for the ride!

Be well,

Annette

xoxo

Having heard good reviews & keen for a stomach-rumbling-reducing Sunday morning brunch-date, one of my besties and I made our way down to Crumpet in Vic Park.

When we got there it was PACKED and we were very lucky to snare a table outside as a couple were leaving. Unfortunately their dirty dishes were left there for a good 20 minutes before we had to ask for them to be removed.

There is also no queue system for getting a table and we were told they couldn’t keep track of who got there first, which is understandable but disappointing – perhaps they didn’t realise how popular their little cafe was going to be as there were lots of people turning up only to leave due to no available seating.

So grumpy stuff out of the way! I ordered the ‘Omnomlette‘ ($12) – hands down the best named breakfast food I’ve eaten to date – which was free range eggs, mushrooms, spinach & brie omelette drizzled with EVOO, as well as a decent-sized freshly squeezed orange juice ($6). My counterpart had the Mushies on Toast ($11) & an OJ as well.

It was a hard decision given the many healthy sounding choices, including a vegan brekky (although unfortunately it was more expensive than any of the dishes with meat, which was surprising as it didn’t contain any out of this world ingredients). There were also various smoothies to choose from and some delicious sounding porridge.

My meal was amazing, a perfect breakfast and kept me going through the afternoon of window shopping! My girl thoroughly enjoyed her mushies as well 🙂

Despite the few negatives, I’d definitely return to Crumpet, there are a few really cute cafes opening up in Vic Park, it seems to be turning into the hip new spot!

Location: 8/885 Albany Hwy, Victoria Park

Phone: 9355 0901

Tues – Fri: 7:30 am – 3:00 pm
Sat & Sun:8:00 am – 2:00 pm

I’ve also planned to introduce more free-range eggs into my life, I feel I may not be getting enough protein and this could be a good way to go about it! I’ll keep you posted 🙂

Be well,

xoxo