(cheery christmas music)
- Hi, we're Joel & Lia.
- And welcome back to VLOGMAS.
- Yeah.
- Today's video, we're in a very luxury location
as you guys probably can tell by now.
- This isn't just any old place.
- Oh, this old shack.
(laughter)
- Oh, this is just where I live.
(laughter)
- Today's video is a luxury Christmas gift guide
for you, so we're gonna go through some
of our favorite brands
and give you some ideas if you're looking
for something extra special for somebody.
And we're gonna touch on British brands
'cause that's the niche
- And we've just thrown in one American brand
that we really love, who happen to be sponsoring this video,
so stay tuned to hear more about that.
- Spicin' it up with a bitta this.
- Spicin' it up.
- Bitta that.
- Well, you know, lots of our content is British
versus American, so we thought,
why not work with an American brand as well.
- Yeah, British brand and a bonus American brand
for you guys.
So, the first brand we want to talk
to you about is Hunter.
So, Hunter are famous for their wellies, really.
If you don't know what wellies are,
they're Wellington boots.
- [Joel] Yeah, we wear them a lot in the UK.
- Actually, haven't worn my wellies this year yet.
- Really?
- I'm waiting for the snow.
- Okay.
I wore mine the other day, but not Hunter
because I can't afford Hunter wellies.
I mean, they're not that expensive.
- What?
In a house like this?
- I mean, yeah, can you believe.
I'm so rich.
Maybe I should treat myself,
but I have some rival wellies, they're Argyll,
they're not Hunter.
- Okay, guys.
- And I really love my Argyll wellies,
but Hunter was established in 1856
and, like Lia said, they're well known for their outerwear.
I think they have branched out into coats,
but they're well known for their wellies,
especially their green wellies.
Now, people just wear it as a fashion statement.
People in the city will be walking through London
with their Hunter wellies on and you're like,
"what are you doing?"
- What are you doing?
That was made for the countryside.
They hold actually several Royal Warrants by Appointment,
which a Royal Warrant by Appointment is
when the Royal Family have given them a Royal Warrant
and said, "can you make me some of your products?"
So, they've actually worked
with the Royal Family quite a lot of times
and, actually, a few of these brands
that we're gonna mention in this video
have done lots of royalty like them.
- Oh, amazing - So, that's good.
- I'll never forget the time I was at drama school
and one of our teachers suggested that I go
and get a bra fitting at the bra fitters to the Queen.
- Oh, wow.
- Yeah.
She was like, "I highly recommend this place
for bra fitting, they're bra fitters to the Queen."
- I remember 'cause she got all the girls in a group
and was like, "boys, keep doing the dancing."
She was like, "girls, come in, come in, come in."
- Girls come in.
- "Right."
- She spoke of our bras.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- It's fantastic.
- So, funny.
- Still haven't been there, but I'm gonna go.
- Do you own any Hunter?
I don't.
- No, I don't actually.
I'd love some Hunter wellies.
Might treat myself to some this year if it snows.
- But, I found out a good hack,
so if you want to save some money,
Hunter do some, like, in,
what do they call them?
Not insoles, but their socks that you wear.
Sort of, thick socks that you wear with wellies,
so your foot doesn't slip.
They've got branded Hunter socks
that you can fold down over the rim of your wellies.
So, you could just get a cheap wellie
from, like, Primark or something,
buy the Hunter socks, which I think are £15.
- That's really cool.
- And roll them down onto your wellies,
so then they look like they're Hunter,
but you haven't had the price tag.
- [Lia] That's a really good hack.
- Yeah.
- I mean, no one would think we were doing this hack
when we live in this incredible place.
- Yeah, it's true.
- It's not our house.
- It's not our house, but we wish it was.
- Oh my gosh.
- So, next up is JBL.
- JBL is an American company,
founded by James Bullough Lansing.
He was an American audio engineer
and he started his own company
and, now, it's pretty huge.
- Pretty huge.
- And the product that we have from JBL
that we really love is the Link 10.
It's a portable speaker, it's also waterproof,
which is really handy when it's Summer.
- Yeah, it's just nice to know that if any water gets on it,
it's not gonna-
- Explode.
(laughter)
- Because sometimes you just wanna take your speakers
into the shower, not into the shower,
but into the shower room.
- The vicinity of the shower, that's it.
- You just don't want the steam
or anything to just damage the speaker.
- Yeah, I know, it's true.
- That's what I really, really, really love about JBL.
- The fact that you can link it to Google Assistant,
so it can control your music, you can set it up
to control your light bulbs or the smart heating.
So, you could just be like, "hey, Google,
turn up the heating."
And then it heats up.
- This is pretty cool.
- It's incredible.
- That is amazing.
- As you guys know, when we went to Winter Wonderland,
we were controlling the music
in our pod on the Ferris wheel
with JBL speakers and Google Assistant.
- That was so fun.
- Wasn't it fun?
- We literally had the best time
and we were dancing in our little pod.
- And no one's on their phone trying to be like,
"oh, change song."
You just go,
- "Hey, Google!" - "Hey, Google!"
- "Play whatever."
- We were like, "play Nicki Minaj."
- Oh, it was so funny.
- What was the song we played?
- I can't remember the name of the song.
- Ah, I can't remember, it was so funny.
- But, it was an inappropriate song
and then there was a kid about to get on
and we were like, "hey, Google,
- "play nursery rhymes." - "play nursery rhymes."
- We were like "cut the song."
And it stopped it straight away.
- So, here's a little clip from earlier this week
when we were using our JBL speakers,
thought you might like to see.
(singing)
- Okay, Google.
Turn it down now, please.
- Hey, Google.
Turn it up.
(orchestral music)
- So, the next brand is Penhaligon's,
which is a British perfume house
which was founded in 1860.
So, it's super, super old, super classic British
and you've got shops all over.
But, their main, what is it called?
- Flagship?
- Flagship, I love that word.
- Flagship.
- Flagship is in Covent Garden.
- Yeah, a fun fact about William Henry Penhaligon,
who started it, he was actually a Cornish barber,
so for those of you that don't know,
Cornish means he's from Cornwall in the UK.
And he actually moved to London
as Queen Victoria's perfumer.
- That's pretty cool.
- How cool is that?
- That is a really cool job.
- So, again, it's another brand that has worked
with the Royal Family.
- I am perfumer to her.
- I'm a perfumer to her.
To the dead Queen.
(laughter)
- Just follows her around, like,
(spraying)
with his squeezy bottle.
- Yeah, I don't even know what that involves.
Is it just making or is it spraying it on the Queen.
- Probably just making it.
- Yeah.
- What a cool job.
- He probably doesn't spray it.
That's so cool.
When we found out that Carol Ann Duffy is poet to the,
she's currently in-house poet-
- The resident poet.
- Resident poet at Buckingham Palace.
- So good, as if the Queen's like,
"I want a poem written about me.
"Carol Ann."
- "Carol Ann, where is she?"
- "Write me a poem."
- And it's not even a paid gig.
- No, she just gets, like, a bottle of rum or something.
- Bottle of sherry. - Sherry.
- Bottle of sherry every year is her payment.
- Wow.
- We're like "wow."
- She must love poetry. - She's getting ripped off.
- Yeah.
(laughter)
But, Penhaligon's, their flagship store on Covent Garden,
it's beautiful, it's a beautiful shop
and they pump out the smell,
so you can see under the windowsill
there's, like, steam coming out,
but it's not steam, it's the perfume.
- That's pretty cool.
- So, as you walk past, you just smell it
and you go inside.
The bottles are really beautiful.
My favorite ones are ones that have animals as caps.
So, out of, like, it's probably not pure silver,
but it's silver looking caps and it's got a stag's head-
- Oh, that's cool.
- On a normal bottle or a boar's head on a bottle.
Again, it's very expensive.
I, personally, have never bought anything from Penhaligon's,
but I really want to, so that's why it's in this gift guide.
- It's in the gift guide because we can all dream, guys.
- We can all dream.
- We can all dream about it.
Onto the next brand.
- So, the next one is Harrods.
You guys know we went to Harrods,
we did a Christmas in Harrods video.
- [Lia] Oh, yeah.
- [Joel] It's a must have British brand isn't it?
- [Lia] It's amazing.
- [Joel] I've got some facts about Harrods,
that I'm gonna read
because there's no way I can remember it.
- Okay.
- But, for those of you that don't know,
it's a massive department store in Knightsbridge,
which is a very exclusive, sort of, posh end of London.
But, the department store is over 20,000 meters squared.
It covers 330 different departments
and it works out at 1.1 million square feet
and it's the largest department store in Europe.
- Which is- - Is it?
- Incredible.
Yeah.
- I didn't know it was the biggest in Europe.
- Yeah.
- But, it is actually massive isn't it?
- Yeah, it is huge.
- So, one of the gift ideas that we thought would be great
would be something from the food hall.
- Yeah.
- Because you've got these amazing jams,
you've got loads of cool marmalades and just, ugh,
all the yummy things.
- It's really, really, really lovely.
And the food hall, like Lia said, is our favorite.
When we went in there, we just spent so much time
with the food, the vegetables,
even just the stock cupboard stuff, you know,
like, the dried goods.
- Yeah, there's nice stuff.
- Nice seeing the shelves all stocked
and it's just so nice.
- Especially, at Christmas time.
It's, just, they make it so, so special.
- But, also is was founded in 1824 by a 25 year old man.
How unsuccessful does that make you feel?
- No way.
- Back then it wasn't that big.
- Selfridges would have come first, right?
- I think so, that was the first department store.
- Selfridges was the first ever department store.
- Bought be an American, started by an American.
- Oh yeah, Mr. Selfridge.
- Yeah.
- We all know that show.
- Yeah.
So, it's now owned by Qatar Investments Authority
who paid £1.5 billion for it.
- It's a lot of money, guys.
- It's a lot of money.
- It's lot of money, but it's worth it.
- It's worth it.
- I'd buy Harrods for 1.5 billion if I had it.
- Yeah, if I had it in spare change maybe I would.
- Yeah.
The Seville.
- Also, those cakes we saw.
- What cakes?
- Remember those little cakes that were £10
and we thought that was really good value.
- Massive cakes.
- They were beautiful.
- You say small, but they had depth.
- They had depth.
- And they were, like.
- Yeah, we can put the footage in.
So, these are individual cakes
that are only a tenner, we'll see.
Look how cool gift they would be.
- [Lia] It's £10.
You can't fault that.
Imagine that boxed up and then in a Harrod's bag.
It's just, like, the whole presentation of it
that makes it look extra special.
So, the next brand is Barbour.
You may be familiar with their outerwear,
but they are actually a luxury and lifestyle brand
for men, women and children.
They do everything.
- Yeah, but like Lia said, they're known
for their waxed coats.
Even now, it's become a thing that
a wax coat that isn't made by Barbour
will still be known as a Barbour coat.
- Yeah you'd go, "oh, I like that Barbour jacket."
Even if it isn't Barbour, yeah.
- Yeah, because it's so synonymous, wax jacket with Barbour,
that now people just call all wax jackets Barbour coats
or Barbour jackets.
- Yeah, I'm not sure how the wax jacket started.
It must be for, like, shooting or for, like-
- Because it's waterproof.
- outdoorsy sort of stuff.
It's all waterproof.
- Because it's wax cotton, so, yeah,
I guess it's just like, this is probably cotton,
but they've just waxed it and it's great.
- It is so nice.
- I love the smell of it.
- Do you?
- Yeah, I love it.
- I don't like the smell,
but maybe it's because my Barbour was second hand.
- Oh, okay, yeah.
- And I was always a bit, like, I like this jacket,
but I just don't like the way I smell in it.
- But, you've got a new Barbour now that isn't waxed.
- Yeah, it's from their actual motorcycle range
and I saw inside it was for motorcycle collection,
which is a bit cool, bit cool, guys.
- [Joel] Yeah, that is cool.
- [Lia] Very cool.
- Again, they've got several Royal Warrants,
so they've been supplying wax jackets
and more to the Royal Family for years.
- Yeah, that's cool.
- So, it is really cool.
And I just love it because it just reminds me
of the countryside brands like Hunter, Barbour,
all these sorts of outdoor British heritage brands.
Really, really love.
- Yeah, love that.
Love those vibes.
- Yes.
- All those vibes.
- And the final brand we're coming onto
is another perfumier.
Is that how you say it, perfumier?
- I think so.
- Perfume. - Perfume.
- Perfume person.
- How else would it be, like, perfumier.
- Perfumier.
- The next brand is a perfumier.
(laughter)
Joe Malone is the next brand we want to talk about.
- Yeah, and she wasn't founded in, like, the 1800s
like lots of these people or early 1900s
- No, she's a modern day chick isn't she?
- Yeah, and she sold the company in 1999 to Estée Lauder.
- [Lia] For 1.5 million?
Billion?
- [Joel] Yeah, I think so.
- [Joel] Well, millions. - [Lia] Four million.
- Oh yeah, I think on the website
it said undisclosed millions,
so it could be-
- Could be, like, a lot.
- 50 million.
- It could be, not. - We don't know.
- Well, isn't it, like, £350 for a Joe Malone candle?
It's quite a lot.
- It is expensive.
- I did come across some the other day
and I was like, "wow."
They are very luxury.
- What you can do as well is go
and make your own scent in Joe Malone.
So, they run classes or little experiences
where you can go in and make your own perfume.
- That's really cool.
- So, that's a really cool gift.
'Cause I think they're based in the UK.
- Yeah, they must be.
- You could only really do it if you're in the UK.
But, if you are in the UK, go and do it.
It's a really cool gift.
- That's a really cool experience.
And then you get something at the end,
you get your own scent.
- Yeah, it's personalized.
- I'd love for us to do that.
- Yeah, we should do it.
So, those were some of our favorite brands.
We hope we've inspired your Christmas gift giving.
- And we know some of these brands may be a little bit out
of your price range.
Some of them are certainly out of my price range,
but we can all dream.
But, you've got Barbour and JBL that are so affordable
and, honestly, money well spent on products
that will last you a very long time.
- I think that's the important thing isn't it?
To find the balance of something
that's not too extravagant, but is really good quality.
And, like you said, money well spent.
'Cause we can all spend so much money at Christmas.
- I know and that's the thing.
You can go and buy something
from a cheaper shop on the high street,
but in, like, a year, you might not be wearing
that coat anymore, you might not be using
that technology anymore
because it might have broken by then.
I think the brands that we've mentioned in this video,
certainly the ones that we ended up
hands-on experience with, we can vouch for 100%.
- Oh, definitely.
And JBL is one of those.
Love their speakers.
I'm thinking of, oh no, I was going to give it away.
I was saying I might get one
of my family members a JBL speaker for Christmas.
But, they're gonna watch this.
- Well, they all watch our videos.
- Oh well, they don't know which one.
- Thanks for watching this video, guys.
If you did enjoy it then please share it with a friend
who maybe doesn't know J&L.
- J&L.
- I was just about to say JBL. - JBL.
And don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already.
At the moment, it's VLOGMAS.
We're posting a video every single day until Christmas Eve.
So, come back tomorrow,
we'll have another brand new spanking video for.
Brand spanking new video (laughter),
not brand new spanking.
- [Lia] We'll see you tomorrow.
- [Joel] We'll see you soon.
- [Lia] Bye guys. - [Joel] Bye.
- [Joel] Not soon, tomorrow, Joel.
- [Joel] Dammit. - [Lia] Soon.
- [Joel] VLOGMAS. - [Lia] Say soon.
- [Joel] Soon. - [Lia/Joel] Tomorrow is soon.