While making our way through the new year, post-Christmas lull, many look forward to Valentine’s Day and doing something special with their loved ones.
However, as the UK currently works through its third national lockdown, celebrating the day of romance may look a little different this year.
Although Brits may not be able to spend the day how they normally would, this doesn’t mean it can’t be enjoyed! Here, we list some top innovative businesses helping you celebrate the 14th of Feb, even during the lockdown.
Our Top 12 Valentine’s Day Businesses:
- Bloom & Wild
- ILoveGin
- TheDrinksBasket
- Willie’s Cacao
- Little Riot (Pillow Talk)
- UpCircle Beauty
- Plateaway
- Papier
- ChattyFeet
- Spice Kitchen
- Neäl & Wølf
- Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET)
Bloom & Wild
Bloom & Wild not only offer the classic Valentine’s Day gift of flowers, they also provide a pandemic-proof way to get them!
Founded in 2013, Bloom & Wild is an online florists selling a range of stunning bouquets with various styles to choose from. All products can be delivered straight to your (or your loved one’s) door, with one-off bouquets, or a monthly subscription service available – the monthly subscription sending a box of fresh, beautiful flowers through the recipient’s letterbox each month.
If your other half isn’t too fussed about flowers, Bloom & Wild also sell potted plants and celebration hampers, the hampers including alcohol, chocolate and more.
ILoveGin
Another fantastic gift, especially for gin-loving loved ones – ILoveGin is a gin subscription service, offering a delivery of gin-related goodies each month to the recipient’s door. Included in this box are 2 great-tasting gins from unique distilleries, tonics chosen specifically to compliment the gins, a recipe booklet and members-only discounts in their shop.
With people urged to stay indoors if and where possible, ILoveGin makes for the perfect lockdown Valentine’s Day gift, delivered straight to your door with all the ingredients needed to make new and exciting G&Ts.
TheDrinksBasket
While ILoveGin is the perfect gift for those in the gin-loving mood, if you’re wanting to explore other tipples TheDrinksBasket can help.
Founded in 2016, TheDrinksBasket is an online retailer specialising in unique wines and spirits. The company offer a range of different drinks, from old favourites to a curated, specialist products – all within the categories of spirits, liqueurs, wines, champagne and more, and all of which can be delivered right to your door.
TheDrinksBasket recently created a list of the “Top pink & potent tipples for a lockdown Valentine’s Day”, of which includes Mermaid Pink Gin, Santero Fragolino Rosso Prosecco and Bumbu XO Rum.
Willie’s Cacao
Another timeless Valentine’s Day gift, Willie’s Cacao sells a range of delicious chocolate treats, including chocolate truffles, hampers and monthly subscription boxes.
The thing that separates Willie’s Cacao from the rest is it’s quality and taste – Willie’s (Willie Harcourt-Cooze) chocolate treats being craft made from bean to bar, and 100% natural. The cacaos are bought directly by Willie from farmers, and made into chocolate using only raw and purely natural ingredients, meaning the flavour of the bean really comes through in all of Willie’s Cacao’s products.
The chocolatier also offers tasting boxes that can be delivered straight to the recipient’s door, complete with tasting notes and a flavour map for the chocolatey treats included.
Little Riot (Pillow Talk)
For couples that are more long-distance at the minute, Little Riot’s Pillow Talk product is a perfect bit of tech to help bring you closer together.
Through Pillow Talk, users can listen to their S.O.’s heartbeat from underneath their pillow, helping to give loved ones some intimacy with one another, without having to be in the same room.
The Pillow Talk product comes with two wristbands and two small speakers – which can be placed under the users’ pillows – one of each intended for each partner. The wristband picks up the wearers heartbeat, and sends this sound to the other person’s small speaker, meaning couples can listen to their other half’s heartbeat, even when on opposite ends of the world.
UpCircle Beauty
UpCircle Beauty can help your partner feel good whilst doing good for the planet. The company offer a range of different beauty products – cleansers, scrubs etc. – that are made with natural, leftover ingredients that would’ve otherwise gone to landfill.
The idea for the company came to founders in 2015, when they realised how large quantities of coffee grounds were going to waste in London’s coffee shops. Upon this realisation, UpCircle Beauty began collecting these coffee grounds from coffee shops all around the capital to use in their products.
UpCircle Beauty products are sustainable, cruelty-free and vegan, and accommodate to a range of different skin types. Their skincare range is 100% natural, and makes for the perfect gift to give environmentally conscious loved ones.
Plateaway
While you might not be able to eat out this Valentine’s Day, Plateaway can give you the next best thing.
Launched in July this year, Plateaway is a meal kit delivery service offering fantastic dishes from a range of different restaurants. These meal kits can be delivered straight to your door, and provide ingredients needed to make your chosen meal, as well as a recipe showing you how to make it.
These meal kits not help to provide restaurant-quality meals from the comfort of your own home, but also make for a fun cooking date activity.
At TechRound, we’ve done a Plateaway review before, and can vouch for its delicious meals and easy-to-follow recipes!
Papier
A great way to personalise your Valentine’s Day celebrations – Papier sell a range of stunning Valentine’s Day themed cards, of which can be personalised with your own images and words. Papier’s Valentine’s Day cards range from cute to funny to often wonderfully weird, helping you choose the type of card best suited to your relationship.
Papier also sell other gifts you may want to explore for Valentine’s Day, including personalised calendars, wall art, photo books and stationary, helping you to tailor your romantic celebrations around you and your loved ones.
ChattyFeet
ChattyFeet is another gift perfectly fitting for a lockdowned Valentine’s Day. The cheerful sock brand sells fun, unique socks depicting witty, foot-themed characters – our personal favourites including Richard Brandsox, Vincent van Toe and Stephen Toeking.
ChattyFeet was founded in 2012 when the founders asked themselves late one night – ‘what if our socks could talk?’ From this the fun-loving sock brand was born, striving to inject some cheerfulness into the otherwise substantial seriousness of adult life.
For those wanting these humorous characters to extend pass their feet, ChattyFeet also sells character-themed mugs and other products for you and your loved one to enjoy.
Spice Kitchen
One sure-fire way to spice up this year’s Valentine’s Day would be to give the gift of Spice Kitchen. Founded in 2013, Spice Kitchen offers a range of hand-blended, high quality Indian Spices. Particularly, Spice Kitchen specialise in authentic spice tins – otherwise known in India as Masala Dabbas – which hold inside seven separate containers of spices. These spices are expertly chosen to help users create perfectly blended Indian curries and other dishes.
On their website, Spice Kitchen also offers a list of tasty recipes to try out, making it easy for you and your Valentine to have a great tasting home cooked meal.
Neäl & Wølf
Helping to offer a little luxury, at an affordable price no less, Neäl & Wølf products could be another great gift to consider for Valentine’s Day.
After more than 20 years in the professional hair care industry, Neil Capstick came up with the idea to sell a range of hair beauty products that weren’t only effective, but also luxurious at an affordable price. The company claim that their hair care collection “redefines indulgence as a right not a privilege.”
Neäl & Wølf offer a range of different hair care essentials, helping users to find the right products for them based on their hair type – damaged hair, dry hair, blonde hair, frizzy hair or fine hair. They also offer home and spa gift sets, and have developed a new Valentine’s Day Protect and Pamper Gift Set, of which includes Velvet Nourishing Hair Oil and a Guard Heat Protection Spray.
Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET)
The Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) are a registered charity and awarding body dedicated to the development of qualifications in wine and spirits.
The company claim to provide “best-in-class education and qualifications to inspire and empower the world’s wine and spirits professionals and enthusiasts” offering a fantastic range of globally recognised qualifications around wines, spirits and sake, available to those just starting out in the industry, experts, and also enthusiasts wanting to learn more on the world of wines and spirits.
Their wine course makes the perfect gift for wine lovers, and can be enjoyed as a unique joint activity for couples to try throughout lockdown – learning how to properly explore and navigate wine lists and ignite a new found passion for the drink throughout the learning experience.
