Health and Beauty

Sometimes the appearance of clothes can be deceptive, you know you wore it yesterday but it still looks pristine, so will you wear it again, perhaps your nose has the answer if that says no you probably do not. However there is something that could turn that no into a yes.

When I wrote a piece about face masks a year ago they were still a talking point and one that few - if any - of us thought would still be a feature of day to day life a year later. Now when we leave home it is a thing we check along with wallet and keys as while in an open area they are not currently compulsory they are on public transport and shops.

Nescafe produce a large number of two pod solutions for those liking a coffee with milk, Cappuccino, Latte and most other possible combinations. Until now there has only been a single offering in one pod Flat White. In the last five years there has been a 400% increase in Veganism so to help those who do not partake of dairy items, three plant based offerings have been produced, Coconut, Almond and Oat and while I was checking these out along with the original Flat White I f

Two rather different toys that will also intrigue, first a ball – a little smaller than a tennis ball – that can with very little effort bounce to a far greater height than it is dropped from. Second a rocket that takes off with only the effort of your foot. So while I must say it very quietly they are both toys to get the child thinking and therefore learning.

As regular readers will know I was very impressed with my initial weeks using the SleepHub and my last posting 25-11-20 told you so in no uncertain manner. While my sleep has certainly improved overall I have had some recent problems using it. However this could well be due a bout of toothache as well as some stomach problems and nausea.

Not an ordinary juicer that extracts a good amount of content from soft fruit but a masticating juicer that does much more with almost anything that has juice, so for those of you who want juice from Celery or Carrots or even things like onions this is the tool to do it.

Regular readers will know that I find sleeping difficult, often its 4AM before I start to sleep even then its poor so the SleepHub from Cambridge Sleep Sciences was a no brainer for me to request to review. Initial tests were nothing short of amazing. I have a watch that records sleep length and more importantly the deep sleep part of that.

With all of us spending more time in our ‘bubbles’ clean air is vital as otherwise if one gets a cold – or worse – we all get it. So this device from Philips could well help. It is rare that I quote the top of the box in this introduction but here it seems appropriate ‘removes 99.97% of airborne allergens’ is the claim.

While a lot of devices claim to take your blood pressure they give a single figure and most will know your blood pressure is made up of two components systolic and diastolic the ideal reading is something like 120 over 80. What most devices give you is your pulse which in a fit and healthy person can be around 60 when resting.

It’s been a while since a pair of shoes or trainers has passed over my desk. Here an offering from Brooks that will support the complete foot. When I first took them from the box I thought that they looked a little small but a comparison with what was currently on my feet disproved that.

This is a scale that can help in the fight against Obesity. However it also does other things giving you other reading while on the scale, you decide from a list in the App and just for good measure it will give you the weather forecast, for those who weigh themselves first thing in the morning this may help you decide what to wear.

This is a watch that could help you lose weight and as such is an aid for those of us termed as ‘Obese’ and one of the vast range of subjects that the Government are working on apart from the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

This is a filter coffee machine that has a timer built in so you can set it up before you leave the office or in the home before you go to bed. The timer delay means the coffee will be ready to drink when you wake up or arrive at the office.

Strange times not that long ago if you went into a bank or jewellers wearing a mask the alarm would sound. Now if you go on a bus or train and you do not wear a mask then you face an immediate fine. Yes it’s a different kind of mask but when people wore a hijab with just the eyes showing lots of people were very unhappy, now with a Pandemic not only is a mask OK, its required, even in a lot of shops.

I never sleep well, for a while now I have been looking for a new mattress; then the problem is what to do with the old one. This all became worse now the Pandemic is here with no courier or delivery driver coming further than the front doorstep. The solution I hit upon was to try a memory foam mattress topper on top of the mattress that I already have.

If you use coffee beans then you know that while it’s important to have them reasonably freshly roasted. Far more important is to have them freshly ground so while the ability to roast your own coffee is beyond most of us it is not that difficult to grind the beans as you need it. This grinder from Melitta gives you coffee shop taste without the coffee shop cost per cup.

This is not a cheap electric razor in fact you could probably buy several cheap electric razors for the cost of this one. This razor removes a week’s stubble quickly and without any discomfort either at the time or later. It has three round heads for the shaving part these pop off to attach the hair trimming head and there is yet another head for another purpose.

Looking after your teeth is not a task to be taken lightly.

With all the advertising on television and magazines I am sure we all know that a powered toothbrush gives better cleaning results than a manual brush. While the whiteness of your smile is important to some, perhaps the most important thing is to have no tooth – or tooth associated – pain.

With the nights now longer than the day’s most of us need to get up before the sun and that means we are far more likely to be woken unnaturally with the result that we feel – at the very least – less charitable towards others and therefore unhappy. This light from Philips can wake you with a gradually brightening light and for the heavy sleeper even bird song.

Making things from raw vegetables does not really appeal to me, fruit yes, vegetables no I tend to prefer my vegetables cooked. But things like carrot cake can appeal even to children so be a man and give it a go, the pulp that is not juiced goes into a vacuum environment and can be kept – even frozen - to be added to stocks to give extra bulk.

I think of a plaster for a minor scrape of the skin, while most will say the biggest name in plasters is Elastoplast but they do other things apart from plasters. Here I am looking at plasters, wound healing ointment and wound spray.

Worcester Bosch has launched a new range of domestic wall-hung boilers, the Greenstar 8000 Lifestyle range to replace the 14 year old CDi Classic series

When walking through Waterloo station I noticed lots of adverts for a new razor that I have heard nothing about, there was even a pop up barbers salon where willing victims were receiving a shave, so I contacted their PR company and I received a razor and a canister of their new shaving foam so that I could try it myself and then tell you all about it.

While it is not the first toothbrush that uses the airwaves to store brushing results that has resided in my bathroom it is the first such device intended for adults. It comes from a company whose main lines are in the connected home.

A Wi-Fi security camera from Time2, this is an internal offering but I see this range of releases also has an external offering that I shall ask to look at when this one returns home. So what can this camera offer to help secure your home?

This water bottle charges colour according to the temperature of either the internal contents or the external air temperature. While this on the face of it is little more than a gimmick it could possibly have other uses that may be more useful.

Even if like me your daily shave is with an electric or battery razor there is nothing like a wet shave and even though a lot of recent electronic offerings are ‘wet or dry’ the scrape – for want of a better word – of a wet razor is a pleasure. My razor of choice for such a task uses the five blades on offer from Gillette here an offering that will make a perfect gift at a low price.

A rechargeable battery operated toothbrush designed to allow the child to ‘enjoy’ the time spent brushing his/her teeth, while it is a fairly normal looking brush the difference is that it connects via Bluetooth in an App on a mobile phone. While a young child under full supervision will soon get the idea that different brushing techniques help, my worry is for the mobile phone getting dropped into a basin or worse.

While one hand operation for a water bottle may not be essential – for most – it is nice and once used you realise what a faff it is to have to use two hands just to get a slurp of water, so this becomes a rather neat implementation of it.