As veganism is becoming ever more popular, there’s a high chance you’ll have at least one vegan on your Christmas list this year. To help you navigate the minefield of potential slip-ups that vegan-friendly shopping can be, here’s our top pick of Christmas gifts for vegans – from food and drinks to fashion and cosmetics.
Picking presents for a vegan, especially if they follow a fully vegan lifestyle, requires a bit of thought and research. Strict vegans don’t just ban animal products from their diet, but also avoid all other products made using animal by-products, including leather goods, wool, beeswax and alcohol. In addition, most vegans steer clear of products that are tested on animals, which rules out a lot of mainstream cosmetics and perfumes.
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Brands and retailers have been quick to respond to the growing vegan lifestyle trend, though. Many mainstream brands have become more transparent about their ingredients and production processes. The number of fully vegan and cruelty-free companies and start-ups is also on the rise, offering everything from food, drinks and skincare products to clothes, shoes and accessories.
So there’s no need to dread the Christmas shopping – it’s now easier than ever to find presents suitable for vegans. Here’s our top pick of vegan-friendly Christmas presents for 2018 to help you choose.
Fashionable accessories: vegan leather alternatives
Votch silver and Piñatex classic watch
Price tag: £135
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By GlobalDataThe perfect gift for that friend who’s always 10 minutes late
What makes it a great gift?
Launched by one woman on a mission to find nice and durable leather alternatives, watch brand Votch is entirely cruelty-free. The silver and Piñatex ‘classic’ watch is our top pick from the collection – a stylish unisex accessory that combines timeless, minimalist design with ethically sourced materials. The straps are made from Piñatex, a fabric created from pineapple leaf fibres. As a by-product from the pineapple harvest, Piñatex is a pretty awesome material as it’s sustainable, no animals are harmed, and it creates additional income for the pineapple farmers. The watch is available in brushed silver, all-black and a number of gold variants, as well as a petite version for smaller wrists. PETA approved and the winner of several vegan awards, it’s an all-round eco-conscious and vegan-friendly Christmas present.
Felvarrom ‘Punctured’ bicycle inner tube belt
Price tag: €59.90 / £55
The perfect gift for (up)cycling enthusiasts
What makes it a great gift?
Hungarian brand Felvarrom’s accessories are made from upcycled bike parts – more precisely, tyres and inner tubes. That’s pretty nifty, great for the environment and, to be honest, they just look cool. The ‘Punctured’ belt is made from recycled bicycle inner tube (try saying ‘recycled bicycle’ ten times fast) with stitching in contrasting colours, textile trims on the sides and a metal buckle. It comes in a number of different colour trims, including brown, blue and orange. A great alternative for vegans who want to avoid leather without missing out on style.
Matt & Nat ZAM Olive weekender travel bag
Price tag: £175
The perfect gift for people who care about material sourcing
What makes it a great gift?
Accessory brand Matt & Nat (which takes its name from ‘material and nature’) combines style with ethics and sustainability, using synthetic leather as well as recycled nylons, cork and rubber in its products. This large unisex weekender bag is both stylish enough to make a fashion statement and designed to be practical. It has plenty of inbuilt pockets inside and out and – now this is nifty – can be unzipped completely to become a garment bag. We’d say this makes it a pretty useful all-rounder for everything from gym to business trips and weekend escapes. Oh and the lining is made of 100% recycled plastic bottles, which is a great eco-friendly bonus.
Available in a range of colours from Matt & Nat
Vegan skincare and cosmetics gifts
Good Day Organics organic beard grooming gift box
Price tag: £54.99
The perfect gift for beardy vegans
What makes it a great gift?
The products in this grooming kit are handmade in small batches in Newcastle using vegan, cruelty-free and certified organic ingredients. It contains an unscented beard oil, a scented travel-sized beard oil, a ‘forest’ scented beard balm, as well as a folding beard comb made from sandalwood and stainless steel trimming scissors. Everything is packed up nicely in a handmade box made from ethically sourced wood. It’s a lovely, ethical Christmas present for grooming-conscious vegans.
Buy it from notonthehighstreet.com
The Little Beauty Parcel’s Vegan Beauty Edit
Price tag: £40
The perfect gift for the vegan beauty enthusiast
What makes it a great gift?
Shopping for vegan-friendly beauty products can be a faff as a lot of them are made using animal by-products. Many brands now offer at least some vegan products, but they aren’t always clearly labelled. This beauty box from Little Beauty Parcel takes the hassle out of shopping by offering a ready-made, vegan and cruelty-free collection of cosmetics and makeup. It comes with a ‘superfood’ facial wash and face oil, ‘detoxifying’ charcoal soap and shower gel, plus a Nude by Nature liquid illuminator, a rosy lipstick from vegan and organic makeup brand Inika, and a Lily Lolo eyeshadow brush.
Eden Perfumes candle and perfume gift set
Price tag: £40
The perfect gift for vegans who miss their favourite perfume
What makes it a great gift?
Run by a vegan family in Brighton, Eden Perfumes specialises in creating vegan and cruelty-free equivalents to popular mainstream perfumes. This candle and perfume gift set comes with a citrus-scented, soy-based vegan candle and a perfume of choice. It’s a great opportunity to customise it with a men’s, women’s or unisex fragrance. And with a little browsing on Eden’s website you can probably even find a vegan alternative to the recipient’s favourite perfume.
Vegan food and drinks gifts: From cheese to champagne
The Goodness Project’s luxury champagne and truffle gift box
Price tag: £72
The perfect gift for anyone really!
What makes it a great gift?
Champagne and chocolates are the ultimate treat, but many kinds of alcohol are processed using animal by-products, so vegans have to be careful when choosing their bottle. And of course most chocolates contain dairy so they’re out, too. This gift set solves the problem by bringing together a bottle of award-winning, biodynamic and vegan AOC Champagne Fleury Blanc de Noirs with a selection of Booja-Booja vegan organic chocolate truffles. (Ask any vegan and they’ll tell you Booja-Booja are the holy grail of vegan chocolates!) Everything is packed up nicely in a pinewood gift box with a handwritten message. Vegan Christmas treats: sorted.
Buy it from The Goodness Project
The Vegan Kind lifestyle box
Price tag: £36.45 (3 months) to £133.80 (12 months)
The perfect gift that keeps on giving
What makes it a great gift?
Subscription boxes are booming and thanks to The Vegan Kind, vegans don’t have to miss out on their monthly surprise delivery. The ‘lifestyle box’ comes with six or seven vegan and cruelty-free products every month, including food, snacks and sweets, magazines and cookbooks and useful everyday products such as toothpaste, soap or lip balm. Subscription options cover three, six and 12 months and worldwide delivery is available. It’s a great way to treat a vegan again, and again, and again…
Buy a lifestyle box gift subscription from The Vegan Kind
The Big Vegan Cheese Making Kit
Price tag: £27.50
The perfect gift for cheese lovers…obviously!
What makes it a great gift?
Ask any vegan what they miss most and the answer is very likely cheese. Shop-bought cheese alternatives are often a disappointing, bland blob consisting of fat, starch and flavourings, but making your own cheese from nuts can be a hassle and require specialist ingredients. This vegan cheese making kit makes it easy by delivering everything you need to make six varieties of fresh, dairy free cheese: mozzarella, ricotta, mascarpone, halloumi, feta and parmesan. It comes with enough ingredients to make 20 batches, instructions for making the cheeses and recipes that use them. It’s not Christmas without cheese, right?
The ultimate vegan cookbook
Minimalist Baker’s Everyday Cooking: 101 Entirely Plant-Based, Mostly Gluten-Free, Easy and Delicious Recipes
Price tag: £29.99
The perfect gift for foodie vegans
What makes it a great gift?
Vegan cookbooks have flooded the bookstores in recent years but not all are created equal and finding recipes that really work can be tricky. Dana Shultz, author of the hugely popular blog The Minimalist Baker, is a bit of an authority on veganising all kinds of foods, baked and otherwise. As the title suggests, her recipes are straightforward and require 10 or fewer ingredients. Instead of using the obvious substitute for a meat or dairy product, her philosophy is to start with the desired outcome in flavour and texture and work backwards to determine which ingredients can be combined to achieve it. The Everyday Cooking book contains a great variety of breakfasts, snacks, mains and desserts and is proof that vegan cooking can be easy and taste amazing.
A culture gift for vegans… and everyone else
Marquee.TV subscription streaming service
Price tag: £89.99 for a 12-month subscription
The perfect gift for culture-loving people, vegan or otherwise
What makes it a great gift?
It’s basically the Netflix for culture fans. Streaming service Marquee.TV offers arts and culture content on demand, including classic and contemporary dance, opera, music, theatre and documentaries. It also promises new releases from Glyndebourne, The Royal Opera, Sadler’s Wells, and The Royal Shakespeare Company in time for Christmas. If you have a culture lover in your life, vegan or not, a year’s gift subscription would make a fantastic Christmas gift to help tide them over in between theatre trips.
Buy a gift subscription on Marquee.TV
