Urban Decay Naked Palette (for vegans!)

In my last post I spoke about the brand 'Urban Decay' and as a follow up to that I am going to do a quick review on a fully vegan eye-shadow palette that I put together from their range. It was really in replacement for their naked palette which sadly doesn't have enough vegan shades to make it worth buying. Now, finding pigmented eye-shadows in general is pretty difficult but add onto that requirement list being vegan as well; you can near enough forget it. This was my opinion until I came across these little wonders:

I wanted a fairly neutral palette because I like having the option to range from simple day-to-day to a fairly glamorous evening look. I have found these colours to be perfect for that range, they are easily built up but regardless of which look you're going for you can guarantee that they will stay nicely without smudging or drifting throughout the day. The four colours I went with (from lightest to darkest) were 'Space Cowboy', 'Virgin', 'Buck' & 'Darkhorse'. 

Urban Decay do much more adventurous colours then the ones I chose but I thought these four were a good place to start. The most unique I think is the sparkly one because it is ridiculously pigmented without being too overwhelming and it really stays, this is quite nice in the inner corners of the eye or patted on-top of the other shades. They all blend wonderfully together but without turning a murky colour which is very easy with a lot of eyeshadows nowadays. I really do recommend that you have a look at the full range of what Urban Decay has to offer so that you can find colours that suit you and your preferences! 

love, bean xx

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD4otT45t00

Chloe's Mac & Cheese

So, on my latest YouTube video for 'Skills Saturday' (link below) I made the all time classic 'Mac & Cheese'. Due to the fact that I am a pretty awful cook it had many inevitable ups and downs. The recipe was taken from the amazing cookbook by one of my favourite vegan's Chloe Coscarelli, whose website is http://chefchloe.com/. I met her earlier this year and she is such a bubbly and smiley person, her smile was pretty contagious! 

During the video I found myself slightly overwhelmed when there were so many things going on (memory cards running out, pasta nearly done, etc) and in the end I wasn't able to film the entire process of making the sauce. Now, the video was also more than anything to show that if I can cook vegan food then you can too therefore it wasn't specifically about the dish. However, if you are interested in recreating the dish, which I hope that you are because it turned out so good, then you can get the recipe (and 124 more!) in Chloe's book which really is worth getting. However, the ingredients for this specific recipe are as follows:

• 1 pound macaroni
• 1/4 cup vegan margarine
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour (I used gluten-free)
• 3 cups soy, almond, or rice milk (I used almond)
• 1/2 cup nutritional yeast flakes
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 2 teaspoons sea salt (I used pink Himalayan)
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder (I used a bit of fresh garlic instead - worked a treat!)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice (I just randomly squeezed 1/2 a fresh lemon in)
• 1 tablespoon agave
• 2 tablespoons seasoned bread crumbs (I used 2 small slices of a leftover wholemeal hovis loaf!)

Don't forget, like I did, that the conversions are different in American books including the temperature that the oven needs to be set at. I also halved the recipe as it normally serves 6. I hope you enjoy the video and that you have as much fun as I did at trying to recreate this wonderful feel good dish. 

Love, bean xx

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYBOlJLJpPs&feature=youtu.be

Becoming a Vegan

Before I initially became a vegan it dawned on me as being a level of commitment that I aspired to have but never found myself in the right environment or possessing a strong enough incentive to make that big transition. My initial diet change came when I became a vegetarian a couple of years ago, however, during a crazy experience in Australia I found myself in the outback where the term ‘vegetarian’ was a complete foreign concept and eating meat was the only option. A year after returning to England I started to be home educated and I was no longer surrounded by farmers' daughters at school and living as a vegetarian was a much more achievable goal.

Due to the fact that I make my own dietary choices the obvious next deliberation for me was whether I wanted to go a step further and become a vegan. I had observed my sister and Mum, who are both vegans, and the idea seemed a lot of hassle in comparison to what it was worth but it still played on my mind. I decided, however, that I wanted to make an informed decision over what I was putting into my body. When I was doing some research I was watching an interview of ‘Ellen Degeneres’ and I heard her mention that the documentary ‘Earthlings’ was what had turned her vegan, and seeming as I love documentaries I had to watch it. It was the biggest eye opener I think I have ever had. It screamed the truth about the treatment of animals and factory farming which left me beyond the point of upset and in a state of shock. There was no way I could eat animal products with the same naive attitude that I had always maintained.

The next day I went to dance classes completely clueless and bewildered as to what I was going to eat. I had always cheated whilst being a vegetarian by eating bits of fish here and there but I was keen to be strict, as I didn’t want to feel responsible for the mistreatment and death of that animal. Due to being completely unprepared I think I ate some chips from the chippy and a bit of fruit. It was quite hard that day but as soon as I told my Mum my decision I then became fully introduced into the wonderful vegan world. Without her there is no way I could keep it up as I have no culinary skills in the slightest.

A couple of days later, following my documentary experience, I read the book ‘Skinny Bitch’. I'm really happy that I read it once I had made the transition as it was just a final confirmation for me, giving me plenty of practical facts to think about without concentrating too much on their information they give about animal welfare. I am constantly learning about this lifestyle choice I have chosen to adopt, another great documentary is 'forks over knives', and reading posts on the the 'PETA' are also very interesting.

I have not particularly missed any foods, partly due to the fact that there are such fantastic replacements for everything which I loved – they are also often more healthier and better tasting in my opinion too. Physically I feel so much more healthier than before. For example, my skin has always been fairly problematic and within a very short space of time my spots began to fade. My diet is constantly evolving, such as I'd love to cut out as many refined products as possible but it is a journey and I have to kep on reminding myself to take it one step at a time.  


I am so pleased and proud to be a vegan and it takes every bit of my inner strength not to preach about my new found wisdom to everyone in the world at every single opportunity! I have realised that being vegan isn’t just a diet but it is a lifestyle, an enlightened way of thinking and a new perception towards the world.

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Magnificent Manna!

Inspiration

My mum once decided to create a blog in order to write about the various aspects of her life but predominately for self development reasons. As always I have been inspired by her and have also come to the decision that it would be quite fun to do the same. She decided to base hers on 12 parts that she believed to be the main factors of her life & it got me thinking about what I believed to be my 'parts' that I would want to write about. I came up with the follow -

1) Performing
2) Discovery of health exercise (inc. being vegan)
3) The trials of being a teenager & growing up
4) Finding myself (inc. religion, life goals, etc)

I believe that being 38 years younger than my Mum, it is quite acceptable to have only a third of the amount in terms of the aspects of my life that I'd want to write about, which I deem to be important and influential in my life, in comparison to her 12. My 4 subjects are all relatively different and I think how 'deep' they are also varies quite a lot. I have been doing quite a bit of 'research' of different blogs and you-tubers and haven't quite found someone as of yet who has inspired me in the sense that they talked about all the things that I wanted to cover. So, as I have been told in the past - if you want something doing, do it yourself.

A brief explanation of who I am is that I am 16 years old and I left school at 15 to teach myself and entered the strange world of being 'home educated'. Before that decision of leaving school I had been to a total of 8 schools. I left each one for different reasons and I believe it is by going to so many schools that got me to the point where I felt ready to leave school a few years earlier then planned. I come from a strong, tight knit and supportive family of 6, with 2 dogs to fill in the spare space of our house. My parents run a successful and thriving company that is now 21 years old. My 2 sisters are both equally successful with one following into the family company and the other just starting a PHD in physics. My brother, is much like myself however, he has big dreams of making it in the performing industry without a concrete plan of how exactly to go about it.

I believe that different people have different forms of outlets to express themselves and I am hoping that through the Internet I may be able to express myself in this strong time of self discovery.

Much love, Bean xx

 

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-fOHtE1rXE

Welcome

Hi!

I have decided to start this blog simultaneously alongside a YouTube channel, both called ‘BuddingBean’. They will hopefully develop into a go-to place for all the necessary information about being a Vegan and the realistic and achievable fundamentals of living a natural and eco-friendly lifestyle. I think that people are slowly becoming more accustomed to the idea of living in a different way to how society tells us to live but there are limited resources that people can trust in learning more about how they can practically apply these ideas to their life. I plan on talking about an array of  topics ranging from the best current beauty products to how to be eco-friendly when doing the laundry. Ultimately I’d like this to be a journey and just see where it takes me, as Buddha once said 'do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.'

Much love, Bean

 

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-fOHtE1rXE