Romance is in the air!

Yes it's that time of year again....Valentine's Day is nearly here!

So this year we've developed a new aromatherapy blend that should appeal to both men and women. It's called Romance and is a complex blend of the aphrodisiac essential oils, including ylang ylang, cedarwood, frankincense and patchouli. Romance smells initially quite sweet, but there's a lovely woody depth to it too. Because it contains cedarwood, it's not recommended during pregnancy, but that's not problem since we'll be happy to make any of our Valentine's products with our Sensual blend (which is safe to use thoughout pregnancy).

We have a wide variety of Valentine's gift ideas available in our Ruskin shop, including heart shaped bath bombs (with or without rose petals), bathing salts (a special edition version that contains pink Himalayan salts), fizzing bath melts (hand rolled in rose petals), heart shaped soaps, lantern candles, aroma teddys, sensual incense and crystal heart necklaces. Romance is also available to purchase as a 10ml essential oil blend - perfect for diffusing in an oil burner.

We also have a selection of Romance items to purchase from our Valentines Day web page. We'll accept website orders until 10th February, to allow time for them to be delivered.

Support the campaign to end cruel animal tests

This week saw the launch of an important campaign by BUAV. As you know, BUAV operate the internationally recognised scheme which enables consumers to identify cruelty-free cosmetics. The Natural Soapworks and Natroma aromatherapy skincare are part of this scheme, and that's why our products display the Leaping Bunny on their packaging. We are strongly opposed to any form of animal testing.

On 11th March 2009, all animal testing of cosmetics in the EU was stopped (largely due to two decades of campaigning by the European Coalition to End Animal Experiments - ECEAE). But this ban had a catch since it's currently still permitted for three types of animal tests to be carried out in non-EU countries for cosmetics sold in Europe. This arrangement is permitted until March 2013, to to allow non-animal tests (‘alternatives’) to be developed and approved.

However EU officials are currently considering whether to extend the ban for another 10 years, due to pressure from some cosmetics companies. If this is agreed it could mean 10 more years of animal cruelty, where animals are needlessly injected, gassed, force-fed and killed worldwide for cosmetics products sold in the EU.

So we're supporting BUAV's campaign to try to ensure this doesn't happen. We'd encourage all of our customers to visit the campaign website and sign the petition to say NO to cruel cosmetics in Europe! We hope you visit the campaign website, read the facts and show your opposition too.

PS: A belated Happy New Year everyone! (We've had a busy start to the year, so unfortunately there hasn't been enough time to add to the blog until now). More soon!

Christmas arrangements

Now as we enter the final week before Christmas, we'd like to thank all of our customers for their valued support and custom during this busy pre-Christmas time. Rest assurred, we'll still be opening our Ruskin shop during the coming week (Tuesday to Thursday), with a shorter day on Christmas Eve (please see the opening hours to the right). So there's still time for local customers to visit us for last minute natural skin care gift hampers!

The website is still accepting orders, but it is now so close to Christmas (and the weather isn't helping) that we cannot guarantee delivery before Christmas. But for lower value orders received before midnight on 21 December, we will automatically upgrade the normal postage to 1st class (by Royal Mail) in the hope the parcels will be delivered by Christmas Eve. On larger value orders (over £50) received before midnight 22 December we will automatically upgrade to a next day courier service which should arrive in time for Christmas provided someone is available to sign for the delivery.

This year (for the first time since the company began) we will be taking an extended break over Christmas. We've been so busy, that we need to re-charge our batteries! The Ruskin shop will close at 12.30pm on Christmas Eve (the Cone shop is now closed), and will re-open again on Tuesday 11th January 2011. Website orders received from 23 December will begin to be processed from 5 January 2011. (So there's no problems with placing orders over the Christmas break, and they will be dealt with in the order they arrived). Due to the UK VAT increases, we will be revising the websites over the Christmas break with new prices effective from 4 January 2011.

So from all at The Natural Soapworks and Natroma Holistics, we'd like to again say thanks to our customers for their valued and loyal support. The move to new premises put us under a great deal of pressure this year, so your patience and understanding has been wonderful. We hope that everyone has a peaceful and restful Christmas, and a Happy New Year in 2011. Have fun!

Christmas Shopping Evening

We'll be open this Wednesday 15th December between 11am and 9pm.

We thought it might be useful for customers to have a late night shopping evening at our Ruskin Glass Centre shop, to stock up on last minute Christmas gifts! We'll have a range of special offers, Secret Santa ideas, natural skincare hampers, Christmas candles, fragrant Christmas decorations and more. So we hope to see you all on Wednesday!

We've also taken the decision to close our Red House Glass Cone shop for the next few weeks. Most people are now visiting our larger shop at the Ruskin, so it makes sense to have all of the stock available from one location.

Fantastic Frost Fair...but busy, busy!

We'd just like to say thank you to all of our customers, new and old, who visited our stand at last weekend's Frost Fair at Attingham Park. We had a wonderful time, and we were so pleased with the lovely feedback about our new range of pretty soap slice and botanical hampers! We hope the gift recipients enjoy using them.

But it's back to work again - visitors to both of our shops will find empty shelves at the moment! But don't worry, we're working around the clock to manufacture fresh bathing products and will have a selection of Christmas hampers available within the next day or so.

We also have a late night shopping evening planned for the Ruskin Workshop - so why not visit us on Wednesday 15th December for your last minute Christmas shopping. We'll be open between 11.00am and 9.00pm on that day, so hope to see you soon!

Christmas events and gift orders

Christmas is rapidly approaching now, and this means that we'll have reduced opening hours at our shops due to attending some Christmas Craft events. So we thought we should warn of the following closures:

Sunday 28th November - we'll be attending the Christmas Fayre at Hampton Manor in Hampton-in-Arden (for sat nav directions use postcode B92 0DQ).

Thursday 2nd to Monday 6th December - we'll be closed due to attending the Frost Fair at the National Trust's Attingham Park in Shropshire. The event runs between 3rd-5th December.

Internet orders will continue to be processed as normal. For Stourbridge customers, we've received lots of Christmas gift orders so it looks like we're going to be very busy in the coming weeks! Therefore we'll be closing our order book at the end of November, so there's just one more week to send in your order.

Red Cone Christmas Craft Fayre 20-21 November 2010

This coming weekend is the Red House Glass Cone's Christmas Craft Fayre. This marks the begining of the Christmas Festival, and Santa will soon be coming to the Cone each weekend in December.

So we'll be extending our opening hours in Studio 7 again (please refer to the opening hours on the right of this page), and will have a lovely range of natural skincare and goats milk soap Christmas gift hampers available to purchase or order in time for Christmas.

Please note, that this weekend we will not be opening our Ruskin shop.