Celebrating Mother’s Day 2017 with the Bentall Centre Kingston

Celebrating Mother’s Day 2017 with the Bentall Centre Kingston

I love Mother’s Day.  Every year my sister and I love to spoil our mum.  We always spend the day with her, buy her flowers and hopefully give her a relaxing day.  Last year was my first Mother’s Day and with a month old baby I definitely enjoyed putting my feet up too (albeit very briefly).  This year I’m not sure I will have that luxury at all!

A few weeks back I was approached by the Bentall Centre Kingston to join them to spend some quality time with my mum.  We were invited to come and have a makeover at one of the many beauty houses and to then enjoy lunch in one of the restaurants they have to offer.  I jumped at the chance, as my mum definitely deserves a bit of pampering.  She works very hard at her job and has re-jigged her hours so that she can look after Oliver for me once a week, whilst I work.  My mum does so much for my sister and I and she has basically raised us alone.  She’s an amazing woman and I don’t know what I would do without her.

So on Saturday we headed to Kingston.  It’s about a 40 minute journey from home, and we tend to only shop there once every couple of months.  The Bentall Centre is brilliant and is probably where we spend most of our time.  It holds plenty of the big name high street stores.  The Bentall’s store is brilliant, we always love looking around.  They boast a great selection of products, I’m pretty sure you could find most things in there.  They have some big designer stands throughout their store and I always spend lots of time browsing the selection they have to offer.

We were asked to choose which beauty house we wanted to visit for the makeover.  After plenty of umming and ahhing we decided on Yves Saint Laurent.  It was a really hard decision, they have most of the big name beauty houses under their roof, but we decided to choose a brand neither of us had tried before.  YSL is something I had wanted to try for a while after reading lots about the Touche Eclat range.  Neither of us have had a makeover before so we were looking forward to having a bit of pamper time!  My sister came along with us to help look after Oliver as Stu wasn’t able to.

My makeup artist was Shamilla and she was so lovely.  She started by giving me a facial and removing the makeup I was already wearing.  She then talked me through all the products she was using.  I felt completely relaxed and really enjoyed it.  I didn’t feel like there was a hard sell going on either, which was something I was worried would happen!  Shamilla was so friendly and we just chatted throughout.  My mum couldn’t remember her makeup artist’s name, but she was very friendly as well.  Mum was pleased that she told her she had nice long eyelashes!!


We both really enjoyed the pamper session and loved our new looks.  I never really wear a full face of makeup, so it was a nice change!  We had about an hour to kill between this and our lunch booking so we headed to the Bentall’s Clearance store (mums favourite!), Gap Kids and Zara to have a mooch about.

Our lunch was booked at Restaurant on 3 which is the restaurant in Bentall’s (on level 3!).  We hadn’t tried it before, I think it is fairly new, I seem to remember there was previously an American style diner there when I had been to level 3 in the past.  I digress!  It is a really lovely restaurant serving a wide selection of food.  There was a choice of freshly prepared pizza, pasta, salads, carvery, sandwiches, burgers, fish and chips, the list was endless.

Mum opted to have the carvery, whilst my sister and I opted for the burger and chips.  I can never say no to a burger!  The carvery looked delicious, the choice on the day was pork or beef, and Mum chose the beef.  She said it was absolutely delicious.  The burgers are cooked to order, but only took about 10-15 minutes to arrive.  They were really scrummy too.  Oliver enjoyed sampling a bit of everyone’s lunch, by the look on his face, he gave it a thumbs up!  We didn’t get him lunch as he isn’t a big lunch eater at the moment, but the children’s selection looked brilliant and very reasonably priced.

For dessert there was a good selection of cakes and pastries.  They all looked so yummy.  There were some beautiful looking patisserie cakes, but I was so full from lunch that I opted for something without cream!  I had the Rocky Road Cake, it looked so nice I couldn’t have passed it up.  Mum opted for a danish and my sister had a raspberry meringue.  We were all really pleased with our choices and all really enjoyed them.  My sister made the bad move of offering Oliver a taste of the meringue, he clearly enjoyed it and kept asking for more!  (I’m sure next time she won’t be so willing to share!!)

We all enjoyed our lunches, the restaurant was quite busy as we were there in peak lunch hours, but it wasn’t overcrowded.  I thought it was brilliant as there is plenty of space between the tables, so you don’t feel too on top of each other.  There’s also a lot of space for buggies by the tables so you don’t need to worry too much about where to park it!  The manager Sarah was so helpful and accommodating, I tried to find her before we left but she wasn’t out on the restaurant floor, if you are reading this, thank you very much for giving us such a lovely lunch!

Mum really enjoyed her treat day, we spent the rest of the afternoon shopping and had a really nice time.  I had never thought of doing something like a makeover together.  Having now done it, I would really recommend it, as it’s a nice treat for you both.  Especially as I’m a mum now too, we take very little time for ourselves.  It’s nice to be the one who’s being looked after once every now and then.  If you live nearby, it is well worth checking out the Bentall Centre for a Mother’s Day treat.

 

I was invited to have a makeover and lunch by the Bentall Centre Kingston in return for a review.  All words and opinions are my own.

 

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2 Comments

  1. March 11, 2017 / 7:43 am

    Aww you and your mum look great! I love Bentalls in Kingston – one of my favourite places for a mooch. I’d have been tempted by the Charlotte Tilbury counter I think! Or maybe Bobbi Brown. I love their restaurant too, and really child friendly. I had a series of monthly beauty treatments a while back and my mum and dad used to take Max to look around the toy section and then for lunch and a play in the restaurant – their play area is such a nice touch!

    • March 13, 2017 / 8:59 am

      Yes it is, we didn’t venture in because it was really busy but such a great idea! I was tempted by Charlotte Tilbury too, the counter is so nice and bright!

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