Occasion Wear for Teens from Femme Luxe

 

{This is a paid collaboration with Femme Luxe}

No matter your age you want to feel comfortable and beautiful in the clothes you wear and when you're a teenager you don't have infinite amounts of money to spend on fashionable clothes, so it is great to be able to go to an online shop like Femme Luxe which has a massive selection of on-trend clothes at really reasonable prices.

Miss M's friend El was happy to help us out with modelling some new items from Femme Luxe. With it being winter she wanted items that she could wear over Christmas to parties, ice sharing with friends, Christmas shopping in London and maybe a meal out with her boyfriend. Luckily Femme Luxe can provide for all occasions. 

Let me show you what E chose. 

Black PU Faux Leather Long-Sleeve Button Detail Blazer - £22.99

I'll be honest when I opened this blazer I wondered what E had chosen as it just looked really crumpled, but after a couple of days on a hanger the creases from being folded had dropped out and just look how amazing it looks on her. She choose to team it with a lovely bright red top and stonewashed jeans for an elegant look that will work well for a special day trip out or maybe a date. 

It's a double-breasted jacket that you can wear undone or done-up and it has 2 front slant pockets. It is super lightweight to wear and feels comfortable. Available in sizes 6-12.

Teen Spring Looks with Femme Luxe

{This is a paid collaboration with Femme Luxe}

Thank goodness the weather is starting to improve.  We all need some good news and things to help us feel a bit more positive this year, so the easing of lockdown and the sun are definitely positives. My twin girls ordered some new clothes from Femme Luxe ready for this warmer weather and are looking forward to being able to get out more and wearing them.

They both opted for a shacket (a cross of a shirt and a jacket) as they are the perfect item for layering. In the warmer weather, they can be worn open over a long or crop top as a jacket and in the colder weather, they are still thin enough to be worn under a thick coat. Femme Luxe has a range of shackets. in checks and plain colours, as well as regular length, longline or even a hoodie version.

The girls went for the oversized button front shackets, Miss E chose the lilac colourway and Miss M wanted the sage colour. These are currently £21.99, although there is a 15% sitewide discount at the moment, which takes the price down to £18.69 which is great. They are styled with breast pockets, slant pockets at each side and metal buttons down the front. As you'd expect with fast fashion you do get some hanging threads etc, but I think the quality is commensurate with the price and we've found that our items from Femme Luxe wash up fine. 

Femme Luxe - Perfect Clothes for Relaxing during Lockdown

{This is a collaborative post}

I had a call from the girls form tutor at school today to ask how they were and if they were finding this lockdown time difficult? I had to be honest and say no, they were loving being off and just acting as if they had the longest summer holiday ever!

Of course, it helps immensely that we live in a gated community with 220 acres, so they can go swimming in the lake, climbing on the low ropes course or cycling through the woods. Also, being twins, they always have a playmate and that is great. As young teenagers though, neither of my girls want to be outside and being busy all the time.

The one thing they really do miss is their friends, so chatting via zoom, Instagram or FaceTime are essentials for them and I often come into my lounge or bedroom to find them lounging about and talking very loudly.

One of the things I've found a bit tricky since lockdown is that the girls both seem to have had a growth spurt and whereas we'd normally pop along to the high street and pick up some clothes, we can't do that right now, so online shopping has been a lifesaver. We've ordered from a couple of the high street stores that we know well and I'll be honest, I've been really disappointed with their delivery times and choice of courier.

Can you believe Cashback can be exciting? It is with Boom25...

We all love money for nothing and that's why more and more people are signing up for cashback sites, but with traditional sites normally only offering between 1 - 10% cashback on your purchase (and that's if they don't catch you out with some reason as to why that purchase wasn't eligible) its not likely you're going to get rich overnight.

However, I've learnt about a different site, offering a different way, and Boom25 certainly is exciting and may just help you along your path to riches. If you're a gambler and like to take a risk then Boom25 might work perfectly for you, as you could win back the whole cost of the purchase you've made. So if you're spending around £2,500 like I did with Oak Furniture Superstore a while back, you could literally win every penny of that back, just by going via the Boom25 site.

That sounds pretty great doesn't it? And I suspect you might be wondering what the catch is, but there isn't one. To open an account with Boom25 costs you nothing, you only have to give them minimal information and they will never charge you anything, ever. The only risk you take is not getting the traditional 1-10% back from a regular cashback site. So for example with my £2,500 purchase, if I got the 1% cashback, I could have made £25 but if I went via Boom25, I have a 1 in 25 chance of my whole purchase cost being won and paid back to me. Of course that means I also have a chance of getting nothing, but that is the excitement and where the name comes from - it's boom or bust!

Challenged to Kit Miss E Out for £50 with Get The Label

Both my twin 9 year old girls were set the challenge by Get The Label to kit themselves out with an outfit (footwear, tops/bottom or dress and a jacket/jumper) for £50. I mentioned in my other post that I thought they were having a laugh, you might be able to kit out a baby or toddler in a full outfit for £50 but surely not a girl who wears age 11/12 clothes with adult sized feet?

I'm happy to put my hands up in the air and say I was wrong, you really can and I think Miss E's outfit is so funky. I love her sense of style, she knows exactly what she likes and is not at all swayed by her very opinionated twin sister or anyone else.

Miss E is not as confident on the web as her sister so we started to browse the Get The Label site together and I steered her into the clearance section and footwear at first as I thought that might be the most expensive part of the outfit. Well in Miss E's case I was certainly right as she fell straight in love with a pair of limited edition Swizzels Love hearts sweets Kickers boots. She is a girl after my own heart, I remember owning my very first pair of kickers when I was 17 years old and I had paid for them myself and they cost so much money. Well no need to spend a ton of money nowadays as these ones only cost £23.99, that's far less than I spent back in 1990.

Here is what Miss E choose in all -

• Kickers junior girls kick lite hi boots £23.99 (should retail at £64.99)
• French connection juniors girls safety pin dress £15.68 (should retail at £34.99)
• Adidas women's collegiate jumper £9.49 (not known, as no longer on the website but I think £29.99)

The total for her three items came to £49.16 and I think she did a great job of buying three items that she can wear together but also style with totally different outfits too. Miss M already has her eye on the Adidas jumper to borrow!

If Miss E had bought these elsewhere without any discount from Get The Label the cost for the three items would have been £129.97, so we made a saving of £80.81 and just imagine what we can do with that amount instead!

Thank you Get The Label for a fun challenge, we will happily shop with you again as we found your service, delivery and clothes to be really great.

Why don't you have a look what her twin sister, Miss M chose too.

If you fancy winning an outfit for your child for £50.00 and 4 tickets to Gulliver's World you can enter over HERE.

Disclosure: We received the clothes free of charge for the purpose of this post but I was not instructed what to write and I remain honest.

Get the Label - a fabulous find!

Have you heard of GettheLabel.com? I hadn’t before they contacted me and as I’m now becoming a convert to online shopping I was sure pleased to find out about an online store which offers up to 75% off brand name clothes and accessories. You can find popular brands including Converse, Adidas, Kickers and Quicksilver

My children were sent an item of clothing each to review and see what we thought of the kind of things stocked on Get The Label.

JJ received a Le Breve navy blue hoodie and he loved it, it was so much better than his regular ones bought from high street stores, it has a lined hood and the material feels really thick and comfortable (50% cotton and 50% polyester). I don’t think there is any chance of the zip coming off in the washing machine as has just happened with one of his other ones. We ordered a size 13-14 years and it feels true to size.

The hoodie can be machine washed but I was a little sad to see it can’t be tumble dried as I do not have an outside line but I suppose at least this means there won’t be any shrinkage like there is with some tumble dried items. This hoodie retails for £14.99, instead of the RRP of £34.99.

You can see from these pictures that JJ is loving his new hoodie. He commented to me the other day that he looked like a teenager in it and apparently this is a good thing!

I ordered a coat for Miss E but she decided it was better on her twin sister as Miss M is more into fashion and in her words ‘this is a big girls coat’. So Miss M turned out to be lucky and she got a coat and a pair of hi-top trainers.

First up is her Bench coat, it is black with a great pattern on the external stitching. The interior is shocking pink and it has nice Bench branding on the front. The sleeves are cuffed to keep her warm in winter and the material feels as it is would give good warmth even though this coat is not too thick or too heavy.

The coat retails for £29.99, which is a saving of £10 against the RRP, it is machine washable and has a special waterproof coating that will last for the first ten washes. As the coat is black I’m hoping it won’t need washing too much as actually ten washes is not that long and I’d want the coat to remain waterproof for the full duration of her needing to wear it, we are in rainy Britain after all!

The other product Miss M received is Supra skytop trainers and she is absolutely in love with these, she thinks she is some kind of cool teenage street dancer/ skateboarder in them which suits me just fine as they are a nice sturdy pair of trainers.

The pink colour of these trainers is lovely and they are finished well with white trims, you can see the Supra branding really easily. They can be laced fully to the top or just on the lower part and we now have to teach Miss M to tie her own laces as it is a bit of a bind having to help her constantly. The tongues are nice and soft so they are easy to get off and the ankle support is padded.

These trainers are a super bargain, they cost £19.99 on Get the Label and the RRP is £49.99 so that is a massive 61% saving.

Our parcel arrived nice and quickly and was well packaged. Standard delivery is £3.95 and will arrive in about 3-5 days. Next day delivery is available for £5.95, although I see standard delivery is free right now (when you spend £40) if you use the code FDGTL4 at the checkout. It is good to see that if you return any unworn item in 21 days you can get an exchange or full refund.

In all we loved our clothes from Get the Label and I will happily buy from here again.

Disclosure: We received these items free of charge for the purpose of this review. I have not been instructed what to write and I remain honest.

Zalando - More than just women's fashion

I think Zalando have done a great job of establishing themselves as a premium online supplier of women's fashion in the UK but I was really pleased to discover that they sell an awful lot more than just clothes for women.

Men's clothing 

Of course there are also men’s clothes, including many designer brands such as Tommy Hilfiger and Bench, as well as shoes too. I ordered JJ a pair of slippers ready for Christmas and I was pleased to receive some nice grey snuggly ones from Tom Tailor. These retail at £17 and that did feel a bit on the pricey side but they are well made and I hope they would last quite a while. You can tell they are a premium brand as they come beautifully wrapped in paper and have a nice box - great as I’m giving them as a gift.

Children's clothing

I had no idea that Zalando sold clothing for children too and it would not have been my first place to look but the range they sell is huge. It takes quite some time to refine your search and find what suits you. I was pleased to see I could refine my search on all sorts of criteria though, such as size, price and colour and I did come up with loads of things that I liked so it was then just the hard decision of what to choose for Miss M to have as a party dress for Christmas.

I chose a navy blue lace dress from Molly Bracken which was advertised as 6-8 years but when it arrived with me it is tiny. I know Miss M is tall (but no taller than an 8 year old, she is only 6 years) and she could only wear this as a top with leggings. It is a shame as nothing on the description indicated to me that this particular brand might come up small and it seems a bit of a flaw that the measurements of the garment are not on the Zalando site. The dress I choose was £22 in the sale, so not cheap but for a special occasion dress I was happy at that price. I’m not so sure it would have made it into my basket at the original price of just under £40 for a child’s dress (or top as the case actually is!)

Can you see how short it is, would any parent let their daughter wear a dress that short?

Delivery and returns

The dress being very small did give me an opportunity to use the returns service and I found this really easy.  I went into my account and printed a label, then I packaged the dress back up, stuck the label on and had to take it back to a site which accepts Yodel, there were loads of sites near me and as I live in the middle of nowhere I think that must be indicative that there are lots of them everywhere. Once received back at the warehouse the money was transferred back into my account and I could choose again.

While I'm talking about Yodel I need to comment on how good I found the delivery service too, I received an email to say my parcel was now with Yodel and then once it was delivered I received another email, which might be surplus for some people but as my parcels go to our reception it was mega useful for me.

Household and home 

What I was really shocked at was that Zalando sell home goods. As with everything else there is a massive selection on there - you can purchase towels, bedding, accessories, rugs, clocks, wall stickers and much more. Again I chose an item ready for Christmas and was pleased to receive the designer pictogram rainbow clock by Karlsson. This retails for £29 and is great quality; really sturdy and it looks good as well. It is larger than I might have thought and again it highlights that sizing needs to be displayed better on the Zalando site.

I was very happy with my experience using Zalando and I'd happily use the site again, especially at sale time as I do love a good sale. At the moment you seem to be able to pick up some last minute summer bargains, so if you are heading abroad they might be good for you.

I received the products shown in this post free of charge for the purpose of this review. I have not been instructed what to write and I remain honest.

Review of M and M Direct - My girls gorgeous winter boots

I am genuinely pleased to have been introduced to the website M and M Direct.  It is not somewhere I had heard of before and I am not a massive online shopper but give me a bargain and I can not resist and better still a brand name bargain.

The bulk of the stock sold appears to be men's, women's and children's, clothes, sportswear and shoes/ boots but there is also a gift section. The brands that are available on the site are just too numerous to mention but all the big trendy ones you would expect like Diesel, Ugg, Adiddas, Bench and Ralph Lauren are there. What I found though is that sizes or stock ight be limited and that is why you can get such great big discounts against high street prices.

I have my eye on a Helly Hansen coat at the moment ready for my trip to Belarus in December.  Normally this coat retails for £99.99 but currently on the M and M Direct website it is just £34.99.  You can't do better than that, surely?  It is a discount of £65 or 65%.

To try out the service from M and M Direct I was offered some bots for my girls to review. I can confirm that the package arrived very quickly and was delivered by courier. As I was not in the courier used their initiative and left the boots in a safe place and left me a note through the door. The boots were packaged in a heavy duty mailing bag so that had it of rained they would have been fine. I notice that right now there is free delivery on all orders over £10 but the normal postage is £3.99 standard delivery and other quicker options are available too.

If you need to return an item to M and M Direct it is easy to do and there is a 28 day no quibble guarantee but you need to note it is not free. One of the ways they keep their initial costs very low is by not offering a free returns service. A pre-paid label is available for £1.49 so it need not cost too much and if the item is faulty then they pic up the cost of return of course.

M and M Direct pride themselves on being the cheapest on the internet and they have a price promise that you can take them up on if you find the exact same product elsewhere for less money. You'll need to check out the terms and conditions but generally you will find that you'll get up to 75% discount at M and M Direct.

So what did we think of the boots that we received for my girls?  Brilliant is the short answer. They are branded as Norvic and I have not heard of them before but was willing to give them a go and I'm really pleased I did.  Normally I might spend £40 - £46 per pair at Clarks but not so this year, the M and M Direct boots were discounted by 50% and cost just £24.99.  That is practically buy one get one free in the case for me, having twins.

 

As you can see my girls were thrilled with their boots.  The fit is good and there is growing room for over the winter.  At first glance I thought they were not leather but I now see they are leather coated and that is why after a weekends really hard wear (Legoland, dog walking, park and shopping) they still look perfect - not a scratch in sight. I'm pretty sure I am going to have a fight on my hands to get them off my girls this winter!

I'll happily shop again at M and M Direct now I know about it.  Why don't you give it a try too?


Disclosure:  I received 2 pairs of girls boots for the purposes of this review.  I have not been instructed what to write and I remain honest.