CHARITIES WANT TO MUSCLE in on your love life. Not content with helping the poor and the oppressed, they think they can improve your relationship too - and with their offerings this year, maybe they can. Read on for our guide to the ultimate ethical Valentine's Day gifts...

Flowers
Many of the major flower-delivery services are offering Valentine's flowers where a percentage of the takings goes to charity. Interflora has pledged to give 12.5 per cent of all sales from a specially created website to Breast Cancer Care (see profile). Cancer Research UK (see profile) has similarly linked up with flowersdirect, where it gets 20 per cent of the takings from flowers and ten per cent from gifts. If you are a little braver, the World Land Trust (see profile) suggests donating a bit of rainforest rather then giving flowers. However this might land you in some trouble - so arm yourself with these two loving rebuffs: a) At £50 it’s a substantial donation and probably more then you would have spent on flowers; and b) according to War on Want (see profile), supermarket-bought cut flowers are unethical.

Cards
Given that over a billion Valentine’s cards are sent worldwide every year, it is surprising that the huge range of charity Christmas cards is not matched in February. That said, Hallmark has joined the (Product) RED campaign and offers a range of cards where eight per cent of sales will go to the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria. If you prefer to choose your cause, then CharityCards.co.uk offers a 7.5 per cent royalty to a choice of 44 major charities. Alternatively, of course, you could always head down to your local charity shop.

Gifts
If you're passing Harrods on February 14th, Clinique will be donating the day’s takings to Great Ormond Street Hospital’s Kiss It Better campaign. On the jewellery front, Hearts and Crosses will be donating 10% of its profits to the British Heart Foundation (BHF). And for those of you well-versed in the phenomenon of wooing via Facebook, the BHF has made available a range of gift icons that can sit proudly on your soon-to-be loved one’s wall.

Dinners and Getaways
The busy folk at the British Heart Foundation have also teamed up with Red Letter Days, the company which provides 'experiences' ranging from Ferrari-driving to Paris getaways. BHF only gets two pounds per ‘experience’, so purchasing three cheaper ones for the price of an expensive one triples your donation. For a romantic dinner, however, you're on your own - charitably speaking - unless you head down to ASK and eat only kids' meals.

Buying these products ought to leave you with a warm glow. But don't forget that it's not you doing the giving: it's the company diverting what's usually a fairly small portion of its profits to a good cause. So have an ethical Valentine's day - but don't forget that buying charitable flowers or choosing an ethical card is no substitute for supporting a charity with your own hard-earned cash.

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