VEGAN HEAVEN (2/5)

Rock-Ola

After having a large dinner at Food for Friends the evening before, coffee bar Rock-ola was our port of call for a late all-day vegan breakfast. While it's not a strictly vegetarian/vegan place, what first attracted us to visit Rock-Ola over all other breakfast joints was the fun 50 and 60s diner theme, which made it so much more than your typical greasy spoon.

The attention to detail given to the theme can be seen throughout the diner, from the wall hangings and shelves of memorabilia, right down to the retro salt and pepper shakers. The cafe even joins on to a record shop, which was a nice continuation of the music theme, there's also a free jukebox complete with songs from the time for you to peruse and play records while you dine.

The breakfasts were naughty but super tasty, we'd never tried fake bacon before (or fakon if you will) so that was a nice change, it really just tasted like the smokey bacon flavour found in crisps, so it wasn't as scarily meaty as it first seemed. While I wouldn't normally eat this much 'bad food' or buy fakon myself, I feel it's fine to splash out on holiday and try something different once in a while (providing it's vegan!), to me life is about balance.

We had the option of chips or hash browns and beans or tomatoes, being the opposite couple we are we had to choose differently but then try each others - which were equally delish in different ways. We had it with a cup of soya milk tea and the breakfast came with a huge plate of (vegan) buttered toast - bonus! If I lived in Brighton I'm sure this would be a regular haunt of mine.

L'OREAL VEGAN?

Apparently so! Now the words L'Oreal and vegan are not usually synonymous with each other but maybe times are 'a changing. I recently discovered L'Oreal's 'Ever' haircare line is 100% vegan, their website states the whole range is not tested on animals and contains no animal by products. Not to mention being sulphate and silicone free - this all seems too good to be true! 

So how did the products fair? Funnily enough I had been using this line for a while but since becoming a vegan I wanted to change my haircare routine asap (automatically assuming these products would be tested on animals and/or contain animal ingredients). Little did I know they were already suitable for vegans! (thanking my intuition for that save).

The fact that I've been using these products for a long time now speaks volumes as I'm very particular about my hair. I used to only use high end hair products as I've always thought they were the best but this L'Oreal Ever line can hold it's own against the pricey crème de la crème brands as far as I'm concerned. The fact that the range is so affordable (even more so when it's on a 3 for 2 offer at Boots) is a huge plus, especially for someone with masses of hair like myself!

So some people will say if your buying this range then your supporting the animal testing/animal ingredients that go into their other product lines, but I say if we the consumer show that we only want to purchase products like this by putting our money into them, then what choice will companies have but to listen to us? 

On another note, in the same shopping trip or 'haul' if you will (but that word makes me gag) I also purchased some more of the Boots botanics range as my skin seems to be agreeing with it quite well and this No7 eyeliner. I'm going to attempt the eyeliner flick again as I love the 60s style look of winged eye but I've never quite got the hang of it in the past. I'm hoping the felt tip nib will make it easier and this was the only drugstore liquid eyeliner I could find that is both paraben and (as far as I can tell) aluminium free! So I'll let you know how that one goes.