Easy Ways to Make Your Bedroom More Luxurious

Guest post from Julian Charles

With winter on its way, now's the time to take luxury to the next level in your bedroom. While temperatures may be set to take a tumble, some simple additions to your sleeping space will ensure you stay snug and comfy this chilly season. 

Photo credit: Julian Charles

Top your bed with a feather and down duvet - For sheer indulgence, it's hard to beat a feather and down duvet. This natural filling is effective at trapping the heat of your body, helping to keep you warm on even the iciest nights. Meanwhile, because they're so airy, these duvets are surprisingly lightweight, even if you go for a high tog. Bear in mind though, if you're prone to allergies, you may be better off opting for a micro-fibre filled duvet instead. This bedding is similar to traditional feather and down designs, but, as soft furnishing specialist Julian Charles highlights, it is anti-allergenic. Whichever duvet you decide to go for, make sure you encase it in a soft, sumptuous cover. 

Treat your feet with a high pile rug - If you have wooden floors or your carpet's looking a little threadbare, a quick fix for winter is to position a high pile rug underfoot. As well as being much cheaper than laying an entire carpet, this transformation to your flooring is simple and takes a matter of moments to complete. As a general rule, the thicker and softer the rug, the better. For the ultimate in cosiness, consider buying a sheepskin or faux sheepskin rug. Watch out though, if you're placing it on top of wood, make sure you add a strip of anti-slip material or rug underlay to ensure the new addition to your room doesn't slide around each time you stand on it

Layer your lighting - Nothing can sap the feeling of luxury out of a bedroom quite like bright, harsh lights. So, if you rely on one main illumination in your room, now could be the time to make some changes. Firstly, if you don't already have them, try installing dimmer switches on your ceiling and wall lights, and think about adding at least a couple of lamps with different watt bulbs. This will help to ensure you can set the perfect ambiance in your room, whatever your mood. 

Light some scented candles - Last but not least, why not introduce some scented candles to this space? The reassuring flicker of these small flames can bring an instant feeling of warmth, and you can choose from an array of fragrances that are perfect for winter. Perhaps you'd like to fill your room with the scent of spices like star anise, nutmeg or cloves, or for a hit of nature you could opt for pine needles, fruits or flowers.

With a little imagination, there are plenty of ways to make your room more luxurious. The best thing is, as long as you know what you're doing, you can revamp your bedroom even on the smallest budget. 

Imperial Leather Sweet Treats Shower Gel

I love a good gimmick when it comes to bath and shower products, I'm a sucker for anything fun and fancy from Lush and I'm always drawn to the weird and wonderful fragrances, especially anything sweet, so when I heard about the new Imperial Leather Sweets collection I kept my eye out for it. I happened to see them on offer in Tesco for just 85p each so I decided to get one of each for research purposes, obvs. 

Imperial Leather Sweets Range (85p, Tesco)

The 4 sweetie fragrances are Fruit Salad, Sherbet Lemon, Marshmallow and Spearmint so all quite retro kinds of sweets; the colours reflect their scent and each of them does actually smell like sweets. I think Marshmallow is my favourite of the four because it's more of a soft sweet scent, the only problem is that it always leaves me craving Flumps when I've used it! The Fruit Salad one is also pretty unmistakable, it's kind of tropical and really does smell exactly like the sweets (I was never actually a fan of them but I really like the smell of this). Spearmint does obviously smell like spearmint but to me there's nothing really special about it; if I'd have been picking a minty scent for a Sweets collection I would have tried to make it a creamy minty smell like a mint humbug but this is like lots of the invigorating mint scents already on the market. Of course, there has to be a least favourite and mine is the Sherbet Lemon, again it does smell like sherbet lemon but in my opinion it smells too much like lots of other shower products on the market. 

In terms of the cream formula it doesn't lather too much if you just use your hand but they're great to use with a shower puff. My skin isn't left feeling tight after washing and I love being able to smell whichever scent I've used even when I've got dried. In my opinion though the main reason why you would buy these is for the fun fragrances, not for their skin nourishing properties. 

If I was going to recommend one that you should definitely pick up if you're in Tesco it would have to be Marshmallow with Fruit Salad following in close second. These were actually £1.85 in Tesco a couple of weeks ago which I think is way too expensive; I would begrudge paying that for these but at 85p/£1.00 I don't think you can go wrong. They're fun, they smell good and they get the job done.

Neom Pillow Mist and Energy Mist Review

At some point in our lives we all struggle with sleeping or waking up, in fact I dare say that I struggle with waking up every single morning unless it's for a holiday or something like that because let's face it the hum-drum of normal life isn't always the most inspiring thing to get you out of bed in a morning so there are times when you might need a little helping hand to relax you to get to sleep or to energise you in the morning even before you've had your first coffee. Neom have the answer to both with their Perfect Night's Sleep Pillow Mist and Energy Boosting On the Go Mist.

Chances are, you've probably heard of Neom Organics; they're well known for their beautiful natural wax candles which envelope your rooms with the most gorgeous scents (I was so disappointed when they discontinued my favourite candle!) but I recently got to try the mists from their new collection and I had a sneaky feeling they weren't going to disappoint. They've brought out these nifty little on-the-go spray mists which are simple to use but using a careful blend of essential oils they've created two powerful little aids to help you get to sleep and feel energised the next morning. 

The 'Burst of Energy' energy boosting on the go mist* is designed to invigorate your senses with grapefruit, lemon and rosemary. A spritz of this above my head whilst breathing deeply for a few seconds leaves me feeling a lot less groggy and gives me the motivation I need to get on with my day. 

Similarly, the 'Tranquility' Perfect Night's Sleep Pillow Mist* is made with a blend of lavender, sweet basil and jasmine to create a light yet effective fragrance to help relax your mind and muscles to create the perfect environment for sleep. I personally have definitely got more use out of this than the energy boosting one, purely because I find it more effective; the fragrance is so relaxing!

Not only are these two little spritzes perfect for awakening your senses and then winding down they also leave your room smelling beautiful without being overpowering. You could be forgiven for assuming that anything with lavender in will be too much but I think the pillow mist really does have the perfect blend of essential oils to make the lavender an asset rather than an overpowering scent which I think it is in a lot of pillow mists. 

These might look like tiny little bottles but you can get up to 100 applications from each depending how liberal you are so for £8.00 each I don't think these are bad priced at all considering that Neom is a high end brand. You can buy these and lots of other products from the Neom Organics range from Beauty Expert (who also offer free delivery, winner!)

How to see Cornwall in 24 hours

Travelling is quite a massive part of my life, I work hard but I try and make sure that I make time to enjoy life as well. I've been wanting to do Cornwall for a while now, I've heard lots of people rave about how beautiful it is and the weather is often far better than what we get up north. A couple of days sounds a bit mental considering that it's a 6 hour drive on a good day but when you're so desperate to get away it matters less. We knew we only had 24 hours to see Cornwall so we had to make sure we made use of every bit of time.

Setting off at 12.30am on Tuesday morning to get a good run down to St. Austell (which was the base for the couple of days) it took 6 hours 5 minutes to arrive at the Premier Inn. I quickly grabbed some breakfast and had an hours snooze in the car before I set off on my travels at 9.30am. This is where it became a bit of a whirlwind.

First stop was Newquay and the beautiful Fistral Beach

It's true what they say, Cornish beaches really are stunningly beautiful. Fistral Beach is a surfers haven with up to 4ft waves perfect for riding (not so much on the day we visited, it was pretty calm). I couldn't believe how clear the water was, it was honestly like being somewhere in the Mediterranean. I can totally understand why this gets so busy on a hot summers day. Thankfully it was quiet when we visited probably because it was still fairly early in the day and most of the kids had gone back to school. I expected Newquay to be very commercialised but I was pleasantly surprised and would definitely want to spend more time here.

Next we moved onto one of the places on my travel bucket list; Land's End

If you ignore the massive commercialisation of Land's End, (and it is very commercialised, presumably because it's actually privately owned) the views out to see are quite breath taking and to think that directly across sea the next bit of land you'd hit would probably be America is quite fascinating. There is a way to escape the commercial aspect of Land's End; you could do a coastal walk but I just took the obligatory photo of the sign and pressed on.

I did consider going to the Minack Theatre but when I saw the massive walk up there I decided to give it a miss as the only real reason I would be there would be to take a photo and move on.

Next stop: a rather cloudy St Michael's Mount

When the tide is low you can actually walk over to the island but as you can see the tide was pretty high so I looked and took a photo from afar. I did grab a quick overpriced drink from the little shop there but moved swiftly on to my next destination which was St. Ives.

You could easily spend at least half a day in this lovely little picturesque town. With it's narrow streets it's not advisable to take cars down there so I parked at the leisure centre and took advantage of the £1 shuttle bus there and back; after seeing how steep it was I realised it was the best couple of quid I'd spend in a long time!

The harbour is beautiful and the streets are full of quirky little shops, restaurants and obviously pasty bakeries. I may have partaken in a Cornish pasty or two, be rude not to wouldn't it?! When the sea is right you can hire your own boat and take a little trip around the harbour or you could hire a deckchair and soak up the sun on the bit of beach.

St. Ives marked the last place I would visit on my first day and I finally checked into the hotel at around 5.30pm, had some tea and got some much needed sleep.

I woke up the next morning and decided to take it a little bit easier; Port Isaac was my first calling place, the home of Doc Martin.

Port Isaac was a beautifully quaint little place, again with very steep, narrow roads which you had to walk down. You can jump on a bus to take you around the Doc Martin sights or you can grab a freshly dressed crabs from one of the popular little seafood shops. I found Port Issac really beautiful and you can take another short coast walk where there's some stunning views out to see.

My final call of the day and indeed the break was Padstow. Slapped quite hard by the hand of Rick Stein, it's another commercialised little town which is very popular with tourists desperate to get a taste of what they think is Rick Stein's handy work either from his Fish & Chip restaurant/takeaway, posh seafood restaurant or little patisserie. I gave all three a miss, settled for a quick coastal photo and a short walk around the Lobster Hatchery and headed back to the hotel for some food and a well earned rest.

After realising that I wouldn't get in anywhere for tea I decided that another nights stay in St. Austell wouldn't be very productive so I set off homeward bound at 8.45pm to try and ensure another clear run home; I was home in my own bed for 2.30am which was absolutely heavenly.

I really, really enjoyed the few days away and I've found some places that we'll definitely visit again (Newquay, St. Ives and Port Isaac) and some that I'll probably never see again but I can safely say that even though I crammed a lot in in a short space of time I loved every minute and it was just what I needed.