For those who are in desperate need of some self-care ahead of the frantic festive season, Amaranth has all the deals you need.
You can get a Dr Hauschka ‘one hour to myself’ facial for just £39 (normally £55).
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Or book in for a 30 minute consultation with a nutritional therapist, with up to £20 to spend on supplements, for only £15.
All their Black Friday deals will run until the end of November – you can book by calling 0161 518 1334.
The Royal Exchange building
L’Occitane
Perfect for Christmas shopping (or for a bit of pampering for yourself), L’Occitane is a much-loved brand for beauty and fragrance.
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Its shop on the Market Street side of the Royal Exchange is knocking 20% off all its full-priced products this weekend.
The deal runs from November 25 to 28.
The Body Shop
The deals are running for ages at The Body Shop, with prices slashed for almost a fortnight.
There’s 50% off Black Friday collections between November 18 and 30.
Up until November 23, you can get a free gift when you spend £35.
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And there’s 20% off for all Love Your Body Club members, which is free to subscribe to, right up until November 30.
French Connection
French Connection is discounting products right across its fashion and home collections.
There’s 20% off the lot – including things that are already on sale.
The offer’s running until November 29, and there’s a chance to win your Black Friday spend in store.
Yards Store
This menswear shop on Old Bank Street stocks massive brands like Carhartt, Patagonia, Paul Smith, Barbour and Fjallraven.
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Now’s a good time to start browsing if you’ve not already visited – it’s 20% off in store.
The deal has already started.
Lululemon
For activewear that will last through countless workouts, Lululemon is always a good bet.
The shop, which faces out onto St Ann’s Square, is running big discounts for Black Friday.
You can get up to 30% off in store on the day itself.
Featured image: The Royal Exchange
Shopping
Viral sportswear brand Gymshark is holding a huge free fitness event in Manchester this weekend
Daisy Jackson
Some of the biggest names in the fitness community are coming together for a huge Gymshark event at Manchester Central this weekend.
The fitness brand’s previous Lift events have had queues stretching down the street as thousands flock to see figures from the worlds of lifting, fitness and bodybuilding.
Gymshark’s first post-pandemic Lift event is taking place right here in Manchester, featuring a programme of athlete seminars, meet and greets, competitions, challenges, and prizes – and it’s free.
It promises to be their biggest event yet, with the huge events space split into four zones.
There’ll also be a pop-up shop selling the brand’s activewear range, loved by fitness influencers across the globe.
A previous Gymshark event with Whitney Simmons. Credit: SuppliedGymshark Lift in Manchester in a previous year. Credit: Supplied
Famous faces appearing at Lift this weekend will include Whitney Simmons, whose hilariously honest and educational fitness content has pulled in 3.5m Instagram followers (plus another 2.1m on YouTube and 1.4m on TikTok).
Also taking part are Gymshark’s creative director of lifting David Laid, Instagram star Libby Christensen, and power lifter Jamal Browner.
More than 10,000 tickets have already been sold for Lift at Manchester Central.
Gymshark itself was founded by Ben Francis in his garage in 2012. He used YouTube tutorials – and a little help from his grandmother – to learn to sew.
Now, there are more than 18 million Gymshark customers across 180 countries, and it’s achieved ‘unicorn’ status after being valued at more than £1bn.
The brand turned over around £500m in its last financial year and employs around 800 people worldwide.
You can book your spot at Gymshark’s Lift event at Manchester Central, taking place on 1 and 2 April, here.
The GIANT £375 chocolate Easter egg that’s ‘too beautiful to eat’
Daisy Jackson
One of the north’s most legendary hospitality businesses has created an Imperial Easter Egg, and the effort that goes into crafting it is wild.
Coming in at 10kg, 22 inches tall, and £375, Bettys enormous chocolate treat shows off a whole lot of artistry.
The iconic tearoom, which has sites across Yorkshire, has shared the behind-the-scenes video to its TikTok page, drumming up almost half a million views.
The mouth-watering video shows first milk chocolate being hand-painted onto a chocolate egg-shaped mould to create the Easter egg’s beautiful textured appearance, The Hoot reports.
Then layer after layer of melted chocolate is poured in from a chocolate tap, before being trimmed and tidied.
Bettys, which has tearooms across Harrogate, York, and Leeds, uses the finest Swiss Grand Cru chocolate for its imperial Easter egg, and every bit that’s trimmed away is melted down to reuse elsewhere.
Then a pastry chef at the tearoom will spend up to an hour PER EGG piping on the ornate decorations, carefully piping on coloured white chocolate stems and ferns.
Then colourful royal icing flowers are placed on its surface, each one again hand-piped by their cake decorators.
The end result is a whopping Spring-time masterpiece covered in shades of green, yellow and purple.
Bettys Imperial Easter Egg weighs in at a massive 10kg and stands at 22 inches tall.
Bettys says: “Celebrating the creativity and craft that makes Bettys unique, our handmade Imperial Easter eggs continue a tradition stretching back more than a century, when our founder Frederick Belmont designed eggs which were ornately embellished with hand-piped icing designs.
“Containing over five kilos of Grand Cru Swiss chocolate made from prized Venezuelan criollo cocoa beans, the Imperial Egg is a true work of art, showcasing the highest skills of our chocolatiers and cake decorators.
“Each Imperial Egg carries an array of delicate, individually crafted spring blooms and foliage including primroses, narcissi and pansies, with hand-piped stems as a final perfect touch.
“Our Imperial Easter Egg is made to order and is only available for collection from one of our Yorkshire shops.”
Daisy Jackson -
25th November 2021 
