#mychocbloggers + my first blogger event!

Welcome back dolls!

So, yesterday I attended my first ever bloggers event and to make it even more exciting it revolved around chocolate!

As soon as I received the email invite to the #mychocbloggers event back in March I knew it was right up my street and HAD to go! Plus the event was being held in London and I love any excuse to be a tourist!

The chocolate workshop event was arranged by the lovely Lauren from the @LDNmeetup Twitter group and hosted by the My Chocolate Company - it's safe to say it exceeded my high expectations!

The day started early getting the train into London at 8:30 (this is early for me at least!) with my new found blogger pals Charlotte and Hannah, to arrive at the event venue in Islington for 10:30. While we planning the journey before hand this seemed like an easy task and we had even made time for a tea stop but we couldn't have been more wrong! We arrived in Islington at 9:30 thinking we had plenty of time to make the short walk to the venue only to end up lost for an hour! After scaling the canal for a good half hour, realising we were on the wrong side and having to find a way to cross that didn't involve swimming we finally reached our destination - a beautiful all glass building facing out onto the canal. Luckily we weren't the only lost ones...

The venue was set out with wooden tables covered in different chocolate samples, marshmallows, a tray full of yummy toppings and utensils. Once we were all seated and had donned our aprons we got an introduction from the owner of My Chocolate explaining how a small idea had grown into such a magical company and was introduced to our instructor Davis.

First he gave us an insight into telling the difference between high and low quality chocolate by having us taste two different chocolate buttons (that's what they looked like anyway!) one of which was high quality Belgian chocolate and the other was a low quality chocolate. He taught us how determine between to the two and what ingredients were used making a chocolate either high or low quality. Davis then got us to try the two different shards of chocolate we had each been given on the table ..one was white covered in seeds and the other was a dark chocolate. We each tried the two shards and tried to guess what flavours had been used. The white shard was a sweet mix of lemon and poppy seed which was lovely! The dark shard was a mix of ginger, cardamon and cinnamon ..honestly I hate any thing that even tastes of cinnamon so this piece wasn't for me! Chocolate opinions aside was a great little test to see what flavours everyone was picking up. Us bloggers may not be chocolate connoisseurs yet but we do know a thing or two about good chocolate now!

Next Davis showed us how to make chocolate Ganache in order to make little chocolate truffles. He made it look super easy mixing the cream and melted chocolate together and piping the mixture into little drops but it wasn't as easy as we had hoped! After making a bit of a mess we were shown how to roll the drops into truffles and how to dip and decorate them - this was the fun part! Within minutes there were giant bowls of milk and dark melted chocolate on every table and chocolate, toppings and marshmallows flying everywhere! By the end of the 20 minutes we were given we were all covered in chocolate and coco powder but it was so worth it!

Finally we got to package everything we had made into little gold boxes and cellophane bags tied with colourful ribbons to take home in cute little paper bags!

At the end of the workshop we got to have a chat with the owner of My Chocolate who told us about the new workshop kits they now sell online as a branch company called the Chocolate Hedgehog. The kits are for 4 people or the larger kit is for 8-12 and contains everything needed to hold your own little chocolate workshop at home! Safe to say I will be buying one of these for my next night in with the girls!

The workshop event was a fab experience getting to know bloggers from around the country and making dreamy chocolate treats to take home with us.

For anyone interested in the My Chocolate company I've added the link to their website ..it even includes delicious recipes and tips in the blog section! - http://www.mychocolate.co.uk

Bootea teatox final review

I have now finished my 14 day Bootea teatox and as promised, I am going to share my results with you all!

The 14 day teatox consists of a daytime tea to drink in the mornings on a daily basis and a night time tea to drink in the evenings every other day.

Daytime teatox - Chinese Oolong tea, ginger root, fennel seeds, nettle leaves, lemongrass, dandelion leaves, ginseng root and gotu kola leaves. Best left in boiling water for 3 minutes and has a light ginger and slightly floral taste.

Night time cleanse - Senna leaves, peppermint leaves, Fenugreek leaves, liquorice root, burdock root, hawthorn leaves, valerian root and psyllium seeds. Also best left in boiling water for roughly 3 minutes but the taste of the night time tea is similar to peppermint tea rather than green tea. Great news if, like myself, you are a lover of peppermint tea.

The daytime tea is perfect in the morning as it gives you a little energy boost and, as I mentioned before, helps keep you hydrated as the tea is obviously made with water! I found the tea helped speed up my metabolism while at the same time suppressed my cravings for naughty food during the day and also helped me choose healthier options for lunch as I could think with my brain and not my stomach! After a week or so I also noticed less breakouts and clearer skin.

The night time cleanse on the other hand seemed to have little effect on me. The idea is that the ingredients, mainly senna and liquorice root, are meant to aid the clearing out of your colon without getting too graphic! I have read reviews that describe the night time cleanse as a 'nightmare' but honestly unless you are eating rubbish all day every day or you have existing colon issues, I believe the night time cleanse just helps along what would happen naturally - no horror movie scenes here!

Unfortunately Bootea does not offer a 100% guarantee, so if you don't feel it agrees with you or simply don't like it you're stuck with it, which is a bit of a downside but from  my personal experience and all the happy reviews I've read I would definitely recommend the product for anyone looking to loose weight, stop bloating or just to help kick start a healthier diet.

I hope my review will help you decide whether Bootea is right for you - good luck! If you have any questions feel free to ask ❤️

Bootea detox - Day 9!

Just a quick update of my Bootea teatox girls.

Day 9 of my teatox and I'm happy to report I've lost 4lbs already!
That's even after a few cheeky slices of pizza over the weekend!

Of course, the teatox does require a pretty clean diet to have the best effect so I wouldn't suggest any cheat days to anyone looking to try this detox in order to loose weight.

As for the other effects of the Bootea teatox I've found for me personally it has helped clear my skin quite dramatically and also stopped bloating after I eat, which was the main reason I turned to Bootea.

Another huge side effect (in a good way) would be the reduction of cravings In between meals - I find working in an office at a desk all day sets off the killer cravings for anything that's full of sugar and covered in chocolate which is bad news for any diet! The morning teas help to suppress any cravings and stress eating during the day which can be a big factor in weight gain.

Watch this space for my final update and review ❤️

Bootea review - day four!

Day 4 of the Bootea detox!

After completing the first few days of my teatox so far so good – I had heard the tea tasted horrible as the teabags each contain pretty much everything but the kitchen sink, but surprisingly they are quite light and refreshing with a slightly florally taste with a hint of ginger. Normally I am fussy with food and drink but if I can stomach these bad boys I would say any girl determined to detox and loose weight will manage these easily.

One of the worst things about these online run teatox and diet supplements businesses is the rumours can sometimes over power the truth of how well a product actually works. I actually saw a comment on Instagram saying the Bootea daytime tea’s tasted like dirty bathwater (eww!) which really is a complete over-exaggeration and should be ignored!

After just 4 days I feel less bloated after eating and because it helps you to drink more water than you normally would, I feel more awake than usual.. Even on a Thursday morning.

I'll keep you guys posted and fill you in on the 'dreaded' night time tea tox in my next post ❤️

Bootea review - Day one

Morning!

So today is day one of my 'teatox' diet.

I have been following some of these teatox companies on social media sites for quite sometime now and there is always a debate to whether these 'cleansing' teatox's actually work - so I have taken the plunge to try one of these detox regimes and post an honest review over the course of the diet.

My weapon of choice is the Bootea 14 day teatox as it is the most commonly used tea diet and isn't overly expensive like most weightless programmes (£19.99 for the full 14 day course) which consists of 14 day tea bags and 7 night tea bags.

The idea is to have one daytime tea bag every morning for 2 weeks to aid digestion and prevent bloating when used as part of a balanced diet  - each tea bag contains a mix of ginger, fennel seeds, dandelion and nettle leaves leaves as well as a mixture of other herbs great for detoxing.

Now for the interesting part ...the night time detox. To my surprise it actually contains laxatives, which can be a terrifying thought at first but after reading a little about it online I learnt that these laxatives are gentle and mild to help flush away all toxins. No horror movie scenes here!

I will be posting a day by day review of my 14 day teatox - wish me luck & watch this space! ❤️

Purchase from www.bootea.com