Christmas gift ideas for the vegans (and for everyone!)

Buying gifts during Christmas can be really stressful and if we have a vegan friend it can be even more challenging. You can’t buy milk chocolate or anything with leather. It can be difficult to make research of which things are vegan and which aren’t. Veganism can be truly important value to your friend and you of course don’t want to make your vegan friend feel bad by giving them accidentally something which contains animal products. I’ll give you six ideas what to buy for the vegan friend (or for anyone!)

 

1. Vegan chocolate

One of the best things in Christmas is chocolate. If we go to supermarket mostly all the chocolate has milk in them so it’s not suitable for vegans. But that doesn’t mean that vegans have to survive Christmas without chocolate. Milk is usually the only non vegan ingredient and some chocolate might contain honey (which is not vegan!). So almost every dark chocolate is vegan and there are some “milk” chocolates which are vegan. For example ichoc use rice milk to make their chocolate creamier. They have many good flavours like a nougat, choco cookie, almond orange and white chocolate. You can find all these in our shop and we have also amazing selection of other vegan chocolates too.

 

2. Vegan cosmetics

If we buy cosmetics for vegans what we’ll have to make sure is that it’s not tested on animals and that it doesn’t contain any animal products. Natural cosmetics are never tested on animals so if there is natural cosmetic certification it’s not animal tested. But not all natural cosmetics are vegan. There are six non vegan ingredients which are allowed in natural cosmetic. They are honey, beeswax, lanolin, eggs, milk and buttermilk. If you buy your cosmetic from supermarket there are a lot more non vegan ingredients to watch out.

We have these new amazing Avivirs products which main ingredient is baobab oil. Baobab is a native African tree. This tree has a very nutritious fruits. Baobab fruit contains more antioxidants than any other fruit on earth.  The oil is extracted from the seeds of baobab fruits and it has a lot of benefits to our skin. It is a moisturising, anti-inflammatory and source of antioxidants. Baobab oil contains omega 3, 6 and 9 fatty acids. Our skin needs vitamins to stay healthy. We have to of course get vitamins from our diet but it’s also good to nourish your skin externally with vitamins. Baobab oil is rich in vitamin A, D, E and K. Which are all good for your skin. Vitamin E is really effective preventing the wrinkles.

In this product line there are 100% baobab oil, magic balm which is best for lips and dry areas, pampering creme all body, all body oil and scrub all body. You can choose between neutral or citron myrtle. All these has natural cosmetic certificate, doesn’t contain perfume and they are 100% vegan. We have these Avivir baobab products in offer all December.

 

3. Vegan wine

This can be a little confusing because if you read the ingredients of wine bottle it seems to be vegan but actually not all wine are vegan. Part of the process of making wine is filtering it and some cases it’s done either egg whites or casein (made of milk). Luckily it can also be done with carbon, bentonite clay or silica gel. Because filter doesn’t stay in the wine it doesn’t have to read on the bottle. Now you might think that how I’ll ever find out which wines are vegan and which aren’t. Some manufactures put a vegan mark in a bottle and that means that it’s for sure suitable for vegans! We have four different wines in Anni’s vital shop and for my and every other vegans luck all of them has a vegan logo. All these wines are also organic. So if you have wine drinking friend with these wines you can’t go wrong!

 

 

 

4. Gift basket

If you can’t decide whether buy chocolate or wine you can combine all of these and make a vegan gift basket. You can choose there only those things that you know your friend would like. We have in Anni’s vital shop many really tasty sweets and snacks which you can fill the basket. Christmas tea, juices, chocolate, ginger cookies, nuts, chocolate covered dates or mulberries and a lot more! Come and see!

 

5. Superfoods

If you have a vegan friend who is really into health it could be nice idea to pack up their favourite superfoods. There are a lot of options in our shop. Maca, lucuma, chlorella, raw cacao powder, acai and much more. Of course if your friend is also into fitness you can maybe throw in some protein powder. Which we have also vegan options!

 

6. Home made sweets

It’s always good idea to bake something yourself. Everyone for sure appreciate the effort for making gift yourself and who wouldn’t love homemade sweets. I am going to give you recipe for vegan fudge. You could think that it’s not possible to make a fudge without milk and butter but you absolutely can do it and I promise this is worth to try! Main ingredient is coconut and we are using it in it’s different forms. This is so easy recipe that you can’t go wrong with this and also it’s so fast that you for sure have time to make it!

 

Ingredients are

0.5 dl Coconut milk (place it in the fridge overnight and use only the solidified part)
3 tbsp Coconut sugar
2 tbsp Coconut oil
2 tbsp Peanut butter  (or any else nut butter you prefer)
Vanilla powder and hazelnuts

 

If you need more tips about vegan Christmas gifts I’ll gladly help you in the shop so see you there!

Milla – Anni’s Vital Shop, Los Boliches