My First Vegan Festival

Today I went along to my first ever vegan festival, which evidently was the first vegan festival that had graced the city of Aberdeen!  I have been looking forward to this for months now, and I was really excited to be taking mum along as this was her first experience at any festival, never mind a vegan one!  We arrived about five minutes past ten – I paid for VIP tickets which gave us priority entrance 30 minutes before standard tickets holders, as well as a very generous goodie bag that was basically full to the brim with snacks, leaflets and discounts!

The festival consisted of two floors, which was packed to the brim with various food, charity, cosmetic and clothing stalls.  We didn’t waste any time, and did a full circle of the lower ground floor in about ten minutes, stopping to speak to the Cats Protection Charity as well as having a few tasters of the Frys Coconut Island raw energy bars – these were absolutely amazing, coco-nutty goodness that legit melts on your tongue.  The couple on the stall were both super nice and friendly, and so mum and I left both with three bars each, I went for the coconut vanilla, chilli and lime and the raw booster.

Upstairs is where ALL of the magic took place, and by magic I mean the magic act of where all of my money disappeared… and I’m not even mad about it.  The stalls were all laid out alongside the walls of the room, giving us plenty of room to walk and browse in between each stall.  We couldn’t have been upstairs any longer than 10 minutes and I had already made my next three purchases!  The first was a gorgeous candle wax melt from the Mulderie Wood stall, I picked up the fragrance Hooley which is their blend of tea tree and bergamot essential oils.  I was advised that all of their candles were made completely of essential oils and wax – 100% natural -  which was a nice surprise considering just how amazingly fragranced everything was.  I paid just £2 for such a huge wax melt, which I was advised could be broken into smaller pieces to make it last longer, something I never would have considered doing!  My next stop was The Aurora Juice Company where I received a sample of the Orange juice before purchasing one myself.  It was a really refreshing, and I’m delighted to have found that they’re based just a few miles from my home town! 

I was really excited to see that the White Rabbit Skincare company had made an appearance, as I’ve been following them online for some time now and was keen to give some of their products a go.  After a lovely chat with the stall holders I left with their Orange and Aloe Toner, which I look forward to sharing my views on with you after a few weeks of use!  Our next stop was the Iuvo Skincare stall, which I have to say I think it was one of my favourite stops from the whole entire festival.  The couple were so kind, informative and just really pleased to have us look at their products, without being pushy or overwhelming.  Mum and I left with a sweet mint bar of soap each, as well as a solid deodorant bar which I was told can last anything between a months to three months, depending of course of how often you like to apply throughout the day.  I’m really excited to give this a go, as I have recently fallen back into the habit of relying on the spray ones with lots of nasties.  I’ll report back with my verdict in the near future!

The rest of our shopping consisted of lots and lots of tasty vegan foods, which pleased up greatly as we had been looking forward to coming home with lots of treats ever since we bought the tickets.  We visited the Cool Jerk Pie stall and left with 8 pies between us including his breakfast, mince and tatties, haggis, macaroni and pulled pork pies.  Right now I can confirm that the macaroni was divine, and based on that alone if you get the chance to pick up something from his stall, go get yourself a pie!  We also treated ourselves to some wonderful brownies from the Herbivore Kitchen, which were the most delicious brownies I have tasted to date!  They were thick, sticky, moist and just packed with flavour with every bite.  After much consideration we also made sure to make a stop at Laurianne’s Raw Cake stall, which held beautifully hand crafted cakes that looks too good to eat.  Our last stop before joining the Face Plants Food stall for our Philly Steak subs was the good old Grampian Health Store, were I treated myself to a trusty Vego bar and my trusty Lemon Drizzle Naked bars. 

All in all we had a great day, the food was fantastic, atmosphere was amazing and we just really enjoyed having the opportunity to browse such fantastic vegan companies in the comfort of our own city.  So thank you to the organisers of the Vegan Aberdeen Festival for such a wonderful day, we look forward to see what next year will bring! 

Until the next one,