Modern luxuries include noise-cancelling headphones and quilted loo roll
A poll of 2,000 adults found they typically enjoy a touch of luxury five times a month.
2
2
With robot vacuum cleaners, smart thermostats, and having an after dinner treat also considered to be indulgences.
Others include high-end scented candles, a mid-week glass of wine, and boiling water taps.
Commissioned by Müller Bliss, the research found almost 46 per cent of adults feel like they don't have time to add luxury to their daily life.
Great British Menu winner Kate Austen, who has teamed up with the yoghurt maker to show us how to inject a little extra into our daily grind, said: 'For me, little luxuries are basically edible happiness, from a comfort dish to a sneaky ready-made dessert, it's my instant mood elevator.'
Kate has created "Bliss Bites" inspired by two new flavours: Whipped Greek Style Strawberries & Cream with miniature biscuits, and Whipped Greek Style Yogurt Lemon Meringue Pie.
The study also identified the things adults believe used to be considered luxury which aren't any more – including holidays abroad, air travel, and owning a personal computer.
Others include subscription TV, buying clothes, and fast food.
For 38 per cent, getting the chance to enjoy 'little luxuries' has become more important than it used to be.
With 72 per cent of the opinion being able to enjoy such things is also much easier now than it has been previously.
And this is reflected by the 34 per cent who 'always' or 'often' incorporate indulgences into their daily lives.
Brits renting spend nearly £700 on décor to make rentals feel like home
As many as 82 per cent believe small luxuries have a positive impact on their mood, suggesting making a concerted effort to enjoy them is worthwhile.
However, it can be very much a private pleasure - 70 per cent have secretly enjoyed their luxuries alone.
While 35 per cent have resorted to 'extreme' lengths to do just this – including hiding away in the bathroom (43 per cent) and repackaging it up in disguise (32 per cent).
Carried out through OnePoll.com, the research identified food as the most common type of indulgence (39 per cent), with dessert being seen as the most luxurious meal (58 per cent).
A decadent taste (51 per cent) is the number one reason for food feeling more luxurious, followed by the sensation they get when eat (44 per cent) and how it enlivens more than one sense (33 per cent).
Marina Lazu, Müller Bliss brand manager, said: 'Luxury is enhanced convenience, it is important we indulge in luxuries to give us those dopamine hits.
"We believe luxury isn't about extravagance, it's about those small moments that bring joy. Our new Whipped Greek Style flavours offer a way to elevate the everyday with a little bit of luxury in every spoonful."
TOP 30 MOST COMMON LITTLE LUXURIES:
1. Peace and quiet
2. High-speed internet
3. Good quality coffee
4. Next day delivery
5. Grocery delivery
6. Good quality skincare
7. A TV show with no ads
8. Robot vacuum cleaners
9. Having an after-dinner treat
10. Ad-free TTV
11. Air fryer
12. Unlimited data when abroad
13. Priority boarding
14. Boiling water taps
15. Getting your nails done
16. Subscription boxes e.g. food, beauty products
17. Heated blankets
18. Scented candles
19. Having a mid-week glass of wine
20. Quilted loo roll
21. Noise cancelling headphones
22. Heated clothes airers
23. Pre-chopped vegetables
24. Electric bikes
25. Smart thermostats
26. A fully charged electric toothbrush
27. His and her sinks
28. More than one type of cheese in the fridge
29. Ordering food/drinks using a QR code rather than getting up to order
30. Phone charger nearby so you don't have to get up
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Times
16 minutes ago
- Times
The Manchester college creating luxury watchmakers of the future
You've bought the mechanical watch you've had your eye on for a long time and take pleasure in wearing it. But eventually, especially if you strap it on daily, it might need a repair. At some future point it will also require a service to ensure it continues to function well. Think of it like this, says Jon Weston, the managing director of the Midlands-based Rudell the Jewellers, 'you've got an engine in a car running 24 hours a day for a period of time, how long could it last? While some new watches will run for ten years before needing a service, it's something that needs to be done over time. And someone experienced has to carry out the work.' You wouldn't want it to take months to repair your treasured timepiece. But in some cases it does. One of the reasons for the wait is because there's a worrying shortage of qualified watchmakers in the UK — and, according to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, it's a worldwide problem. Positive changes in the watch world are driving this, from the unprecedented demand for luxury watches over the pandemic and since — which have often led to waiting lists and retailers displaying 'exhibition only' examples — to the public's increasingly enthusiastic embrace of vintage and pre-owned pieces, propelling businesses to seek more skilled technicians. Globally, the UK is a significant market, Weston says. 'For most luxury watch brands, it's in the top four. But if you sell twice as many watches that means you have twice as many for after sales servicing.' Also adding to staff shortages is the increasing number of watchmakers on the cusp of retirement. Helping to plug that gap is the British School of Watchmaking, the only school in the country to offer courses by the Watchmakers of Switzerland Training and Educational Program (WOSTEP), the industry gold standard accreditation for luxury brands and retailers. Gordon Bryan co-founded the Greater Manchester-based school in 2004. A trained watch and clock maker, he served an apprenticeship at Garrard and has worked with Asprey, Cartier, Breitling and Omega. While working at Signet Jewelers he was looking to employ watchmakers for the firm's branches. 'I was bench testing and all of them were unsuccessful,' he recalls. 'I moaned about it to a friend who said, why don't you do something about it? So I did.' It was a long haul. 'I'd studied at WOSTEP and they said they'd support us while the watch brands stepped up financial support, for machines and premises. It's important we give students the best equipment and facilities and keep the equipment up to date.' 'It had to be right,' Bryan says. 'We are nothing without the tutors, and it takes years to find them. Of course, they need to know the technical work but must have that inspirational factor. Now we have two tutors who have been students here, and the wheel has turned full circle.' The school turns out eight students annually, 16 every other year from a two-year course. It's a slow but steady roll out and 2021 saw the 100th graduate. The school offers two WOSTEP courses. There's a one-year, Service Watchmaker Course that prepares students for after sales services with eight places. Then there's the two-year Watchmaker Course which combines the syllabus with additional micromechanics training in which students learn how to create watchmaking components. A third industry-recognised course was introduced last year, WOSTEP's three-week programme teaching different polishing techniques. It's more a workplace than college, with 37.5-hour weeks and four weeks' holidays. Students are any age, and have ranged from 18 to 54. 'We've had very successful computer programmers, doctors, vets, joining the courses. More women are coming, and there's often a 50:50 split. At the moment there are two women with six men on the one-year course and all are sponsored by brands or retailers. I don't think we've had a student leave without a job' says Weston, who is one of the school's six trustees. 'It's not good enough to be taught by a colleague in the workplace. The WOSTEP qualification is internationally respected by the watch brands. It gives credibility to the student and what they've achieved.' The school has 35 well-known trade backers. 'Anyone who's anyone in the industry is a supporter,' Weston says. 'We were granted charity status in 2019 and we're providing a public service,' Bryan adds. 'The tutors are the only ones paid. It makes it so worthwhile to see the students collect their certificates at graduation with their families.' Two watches created by students on courses have been COSC-certified, surpassing tough standards set by the Swiss. 'We have to remember a lot of the important inventions in horology were made in Britain, there's so much history here,' Weston observes. 'It's so good now to be back producing quality watchmakers. One day, one of them might do something that is of a George Daniels [the legendary British horologist] level — or the ingenuity of [the contemporary British watchmaker] Roger Smith — so we'll be back up there.' And in the meantime, your watch will be back faster from a servicing.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Remember When by Fiona Phillips review – an unsparing insight into early-onset Alzheimer's
In 2019, the TV presenter and journalist Fiona Phillips booked a last-minute trip to Vietnam with a friend. Nothing unusual there, you might think. But not only did Phillips not invite her husband or children, she didn't consult them, instead simply informing them that she was leaving the following week. It was an impulsive decision that she hoped would lift her out of a depressive episode that was manifesting in brain fog and anxiety. But for her husband, TV editor Martin Frizell, it was another instance of Phillips behaving oddly, a sign that things 'were not all they should be'. Remember When chronicles, with illuminating candour, the changes that culminated in Phillips's diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's in 2022, at the age of 61. Billed as a memoir by Phillips herself, owing to her decline during the three-year writing process, it's really a co-production between her, her ghostwriter Alison Phillips (no relation) and Frizell, who provides fitful interjections. As such, it offers a rare account of the impact of Alzheimer's not just from the person who has it, but from their primary carer too. Frizell initially attributed his wife's symptoms to the menopause, which can also present as low mood and memory loss. Both wondered if she had long Covid, having been infected with the virus during the first lockdown. It's a reflection of the insidiousness of Alzheimer's that neither of them managed to join the dots until comparatively late, even though Phillips's mother and father had developed the disease in their 50s and 60s respectively. She had even made documentaries about her parents' decline, and was an ambassador for Alzheimer's charities. Yet, as this book makes clear, the memory loss that is intrinsic to Alzheimer's makes it unfathomable to the sufferer. How can you pinpoint what is going wrong with your brain when the main symptom is confusion? Among the early signs, Phillips reflects, was a feeling of flatness. She recalls going for a walk on Clapham Common in early summer 2018 and looking at other Londoners enjoying the weather. 'It was like looking through a double-glazed window on to another world of which I had no part. It was a strange sense of disconnection. Of seeing others laughing, enjoying the moment, while increasingly I felt, well, nothing. Just flat.' At this point in the book, Phillips presses pause on the story of her illness to trace her early years growing up in Canterbury and, later, Southampton. Along with her childhood, we get a whistle-stop tour of her career in journalism: after starting out in local radio, she began working for Sky News and later got a job reporting for GMTV from Los Angeles. On her return to the UK in 1997, she succeeded Anthea Turner as co-host alongside Eamonn Holmes, interviewing prime ministers and Hollywood stars. The intention of this determinedly breezy segment is clear: to let us know the fearless and successful person Phillips had been before Alzheimer's did its worst. Yet it is also revealing about the impossible juggle of fronting Britain's leading TV breakfast show and raising a young family, while caring for her parents through their own diagnoses. Her devastation at watching them disappear before her eyes is mirrored in Frizell as he observes his wife's incremental withdrawal from the world. This sadness erupts into anger when he states: 'I wish Fiona had contracted cancer … It's a shocking thing to say, but at least then she might have had a chance at a cure, and certainly would have had a treatment pathway, and an array of support and care packages.' As it is, following diagnosis, the Alzheimer's sufferer and their family are largely 'left to their own devices. There is nothing more that can be done and you are left to cope alone.' By the end of Remember When, Frizell's is the dominant voice, since Phillips no longer has the capacity to articulate her experience. Early in the book she says she doesn't want to become an object of pity, or for her story to be viewed as a tragedy. But there can be no happy ending here, no endnote of hope. Capturing the loneliness and sense of loss that occurs when a loved one is alive but no longer fully present, Frizell simply says: 'I miss her. I miss my wife.' Remember When by Fiona Phillips is published by Macmillan (£22). To support the Guardian, order your copy at Delivery charges may apply.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Rising food prices driven by climate crisis threaten world's poorest, report finds
Climate change-induced food price shocks are on the rise and could lead to more malnutrition, political upheaval and social unrest as the world's poorest are hit by shortages of food staples. New research links last year's surges in the price of potatoes in the UK, cabbages in South Korea, onions in India, and cocoa in Ghana to weather extremes that 'exceeded all historical precedent prior to 2020'. Such price jumps not only affect local food security and health, particularly for the poorest in society, but have knock-on effects around the world. Unprecedented monthly temperatures in February 2024 after drought in late 2023 and early 2024 across Ghana and Ivory Coast, where 60% of the world's cocoa is grown, led to global prices for the commodity spiking by 300%. The high price of staples can have an impact on public health as low-income households cut back on expensive fruit and vegetables, according to the report from a team including the UK's Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), the European Central Bank (ECB), the Food Foundation, the Barcelona Supercomputing Center and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. The study investigated examples across 18 countries between 2022 and 2024 where price spikes were associated with heat, drought and heavy precipitation. It found food price spikes can have a wider economic impact, making it harder for economies to keep down overall inflation and so, for example, bring interest rates down. A hot dry spring in the UK this year, for example, partly drove unexpectedly high UK inflation figures published last week, dampening expectations for further interest rate cuts this summer. The report also suggests 'high rates of inflation can directly alter election outcomes in modern democracies'. Maximilian Kotz, a Marie Curie postdoctoral research fellow at Barcelona Supercomputing Center and the lead author of the report, said: 'It is clear the cost of living played a role in last year's election in the US.' He added: 'These effects are going to continue to become worse in the future. Until we get to net zero emissions extreme weather will only get worse, but it's already damaging crops and pushing up the price of food all over the world. 'People are noticing, with rising food prices No 2 on the list of climate impacts they see in their lives, second only to extreme heat itself. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion 'Sadly, when the price of food shoots up, low-income families often have to resort to less nutritious, cheaper foods. Diets like this have been linked to a range of health conditions like cancer, diabetes and heart disease.' Raj Patel, a research professor in the Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, said: 'Food price inflation is always political.' For example, people in Mozambique took to the streets when the price of bread shot up after extreme heat in Russia, a big wheat producer, prompted the country to block exports to protect meagre supplies in 2010 meaning the price of wheat soared globally. The research is published ahead of the UN Food Systems Summit Stocktake on 27 July, where world leaders will meet to discuss threats to the global food system.
