WatchWatchWatch.co.uk sell watches and sunglasses from well-known names such as Diesel Sunglasses, Gul and Kahuna surf watches, Jeep watches and Indian Motorcycle sunglasses - including the popular Indian night driving glasses. They pride themselves on offering low prices, speedy dispatch and superb customer service.
To get your 10% discount, just enter the discount code HOTZEST at the checkout.
Feel Unique specialises in skincare products, cosmetics, perfumes, aftershaves, anti-ageing products and related accessories from top names such as Christian Dior, L’Oreal, Joop Homme, Calvin Klein etc. all at great savings compared to high street prices. Being based in the Channel Islands they are able to supply products ex-VAT. They even offer free UK postage and say that orders received before midday will be despatched same day.
To get 10% off all men’s products at Feel Unique simply enter the Discount Code 10FATHERS at the checkout. Remember, this offer expires on 31 May so don’t hang about.
The Hotzest UK Shopping directory now has 250 links to UK on-line shops covering a wide spectrum of goods and products. I’m not resting on my laurels though. there’s still plenty of interesting UK shops out there waiting to be discovered and added.
Don’t forget, if you own a UK based online store, or even if you have a favourite one that you use, you can submit it to the directory - it’s free for regular listings. If your favourite store is already listed, why not rate it or write a quick review so other visitors know how good it is.
Here’s to the next 250!
Thorntons have put together a great range of chocolatey yumminess for Father’s Day on June 15th.
There’s chocolate sports cars with iced messages, such as “I Love My Dad” and “World’s No. 1 Dad” and a chocolate football which can be iced with your own special message for just 50p extra.
The ulimate Thorton’s gift is the Father’s Day Gift Hamper that’s choc-a-block with toffee, chocolate and fudge.
If you spend more than £25 enter the code FB18 at the checkout and you’ll get free shipping too! (offer ends 12th June 2008).
Thortons last day for Father’s Day orders is 4pm on Thursday 12th June 2008
In 1990 I wrote a letter of complaint to Mars about their plans to rebrand the Marathon Bar to the Snickers Bar. I pointed out the dictionary defined snicker as “to laugh in a half-suppressed, indecorous or disrespectful manner, and the madness of using a plural as a singular. Incredibly, despite this, they went ahead with their plans anyway.
You can imagine my delight, therefore, when last week it was reported that, after an 18 year absence, Mars intended to bring back Marathons albeit for a short period.
I wrote to Mars again to confirm that this is the case and today received the following reply:
We can confirm that we have no current plans to bring back the original name in a three month trial and are sorry, if this has caused disappointment.
It seems to me that this was a case of the papers jumping the gun and reading too much into the fact that Mars had reregistered the “Marathon” trademark. I guess they were simply protecting the trademark so that no-one else could bring out a chocolate bar called Marathon.
On the other hand, how many times have we heard politicians announce “We have no current plans to…” and then do it a short while after?
A few discount codes for you:
Cybercandy is more of a rediscovery than discovery. I used them several years ago when I made-up personalised Christmas selection boxes for various nephews and nieces (plus one for myself of course).
Cybercandy import and sell sweets, chocolate and soft drinks from various places around the world, including America, Canada, Australia, Japan and Europe. It’s the perfect way to try something completely new or variations on old favourites - how about Almond M&Ms or Tropical Skittles?
Many of the names you will probably recognize from watching American TV: Hercheys, Reeses, Twinkies, etc. Cybercandy gives you the opportunity to try out some of these familiar sounding products.
For a new taste experience you could try the Japanese section or sample some Cactus Candy.
The Cybercandy site is a joy to browse with lots to discover. Each of the countries have their own section and there are ‘Specialist Stores’ such as The KitKat store (seven different KitKats at the time of writing) and the M&M Colorworks store (200g bags of single colour M&Ms so you can make your own selection).
The one downside to Cybercandy is the prices seem expensive when compared to products that are freely available in the UK - £1.15 for the Almond M&Ms for example. When you consider that the alternative would be to travel to the countries of origin it doesn’t seem so bad.
Have you used Cybercandy? Tell me about it in the comments or write a review in the HotZest directory
The oldest known piece of material dates from around 8000BC and is made from hemp fibres. From that time onwards hemp was used extensively to make clothing, rope, animal feed and paper. Economies were based on hemp, navies relied on it, wars were fought over it and laws were passed that required farmers to use part of their land to grow it. Great artists, such as Van Gogh and Rembrandt, used hemp canvases and hemp oil based paints and the American Declaration of Independence was drafted on Hemp paper. Henry Ford even produced a car that was largely made from hemp plastic and designed to run on hemp fuel.
Then marijuana was made illegal and so was growing hemp - even industrial hemp which has no psychoactive properties at all. Research and development of this versatile plant became impossible.
Luckily, the laws on growing hemp have been relaxed over recent years and hemp products are making a big comeback as the many uses of hemp and its practical, health and environmental benefits are being rediscovered. Many large companies, such as Ford, BMW, Mercedes, The Body Shop, and Calvin Klein are now using hemp to make their products more environmentally friendly.
Hemp is the strongest natural fibre in the world - ten times stronger than cotton - so hemp clothing lasts longer than cotton clothing. Hemp fibre is also naturally anti-bacterial and anti-fungal which means they don’t have to be washed quite as often. This results in less detergent and water being used and less wear-and-tear on the clothes themselves.
Parents have also reported that these same anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties, along with hemp’s natural absorbency, make hemp fibre nappies excellent for reducing nappy rash and thrush.
Hemp paper is also longer lasting than wood pulp paper. In addition it doesn’t yellow with age making it ideal for archival purposes.
Hemp has been described as one of nature’s super foods. Hemp oil contains the ideal balance of Omega 3 and 6 required for human health, it has a full amino acid spectrum meaning it provides complete protein, and it has a massive trace mineral content.
Hemp oil, like cod liver oil, has also been found beneficial in keeping joints healthy with the added advantage of being veggie/vegan friendly.
One of the biggest benefits of hemp is that its cultivation requires very little or no pesticides or herbicides. Hemp is naturally resistant to insect attack and it grows so rapidly and creates such a thick canopy as it does so that weeds don’t have a chance to get a foothold. By comparison, cotton crops use 30% of the world’s agrochemicals.
Hemp can also produce more product per hectare than conventional alternatives. For example, a hectare of cotton plants only produces half as much fibre as a hectare of hemp. Incredibly it would take four hectares of trees to produce the same amount of paper as a single hectare of hemp. When you take into consideration that a hemp crop can be ready in four months compared to twenty to fifty years for trees and hemp paper can be recycled up to seven or eight times rather than two or three for wood pulp paper, the potential for reducing deforestation to make paper is stunning.
Hemp has many other environmental benefits too. It can be grown virtually anywhere - it doesn’t require warm conditions or large quantities of water like cotton. It puts very little strain on the soil - it has a very large root system that can absorb nutrients that might be out of reach from other crops plus it constantly sheds its leaves throughout its growing cycle adding rich organic matter to the topsoil and helping it retain moisture. In fact a hemp crop often improves the land it is grown on.
I have been adding shops that sell a wide variety of hemp products to the HotZest directory over the last couple of days including:
Do you have a favourite hemp product or store that sells hemp based goods? Let me know in the comments.
Heavenly Jewellery are running their Summer Competition which gives you the chance to win £20 worth of Me to You Goodies.
The competition is really simple - just find the bunch of tulips that are hidden somewhere on their site and let them know where they are for your chance to win.
The competition ends midnight, Sunday 1st June.
See the Heavenly Jewellery site for full competition details.
Today is World Fair Trade Day 2008
To mark this I’ve added a new Fairtrade and Ethical Category to the directory and have been busy adding links. You’ll find general Fairtrade stores, such as Shared Earth and Traidcraft down to specialist shops such as Traces of Rock who print and sell fairtrade organic cotton children’s t-shirts and babygrows.
Choosing to buy fairtrade products is a very simple way for you to make a very real difference to the people that actually produce your clothes, food, household furnishings etcetera etcetera. And not only to them, their children and communities too.
Demand for ethically produced products is growing rapidly. According to analysts Mintel, the total fairtrade market was worth about £230m by the end of 2006, experiencing some 265 per cent growth between 2002 and 2006. As the demand continues to grow, companies will begin to sit-up and take notice. Indeed this is already beginning to happen; Tate and Lyle announced earlier this year that they are converting their entire retail sugar range to fairtrade.
That jar of fairtrade coffee or fairtrade t-shirt that you buy today could mean that, one day, fairtrade will be the norm and all producers in developing countries will get a fair deal.
For more information on Fairtrade see: The Fairtrade Foundation, IFAT and The World Fair Trade Day site
