Soap making classes are fun!

At times when you make soap commercially it can feel like it’s all work and no play. Part of this is because soap is a cosmetic product, so here in the UK it’s governed by the EU Cosmetics Directive. Every soap has to be cosmetically safety tested and commercial batches have to consistently use this approved formulation. There’s also a mountain of admin to track ingredients and batch references before the soap can even be presented for sale.

So today was fun! We ran one of our all day soap making courses and met up with 4 lovely “beginners”, to pass on our pearls of wisdom about how to make cold process soap. We love these days since it gives us a chance to share our passion for handmade soap and natural skincare ingredients. Today’s group asked some fantastic questions, and the class over-ran because we were covering so much ground. But it was lovely to have the chance to play again, and it’s resulted in some lovely new soap fragrances. To everyone who attended – it was a real pleasure to meet you all and we hope you had an enjoyable day!

There are now two places left on our April soap making class (Saturday 25th April), and then we’re fully booked. So if you fancy learning a new skill, visit our soap making page http://www.naturalsoapworks.co.uk/Classes.aspx for more details.

After this, our last soap making class of the year will be held at The Birmingham Botanical Gardens on Saturday 27th June. To join this larger class, you’ll need to enrol at the Gardens’ Reception during normal opening hours or enrol over the telephone on 0121 454 1860.

We had a famous visitor this week

What an amazing week so far! On Monday, The Red House Glass Cone was the location for some filming of a very well known TV show.

We were all very excited that a certain celebrity would be visiting the site, but imagine our surprise when he actually came in to our studio! He decided to pop in for a quick chat, after smelling the gorgeous aroma from our essential oils which wafted across the courtyard.

We were thrilled that he called in to see us and even posed for a piccie. So if you want to know who it was, remember to ask us at the weekend and we'll tell you more!

Blowing Red Noses in aid of Comic Relief

What a weekend it's been!

Comic Relief was definitely the focus at 'The Red Nose Glass Cone' this weekend, with a fantastic combined effort from studio tenants and staff all working together to raise as much money as we could in aid of Comic Relief.

As everyone who visited will know, we created a special Red Nose Day bath bomb and soap. We hope you enjoy using them - we've certainly used ours for a nice relaxing bathe this evening! Thank you to everyone who supported us by making a purchase, which has added to a final combined amount of over £1000 collected over the weekend at the Cone (we'll post the final amount, once the count has been completed).

But special thanks has to go to Charlotte Hughes-Martin, our resident glass artist, who you will have seen on the BBC's Midlands Today (and heard on the BBC's Radio WM). Charlotte blew over 200 glass red noses (she's in the piccie), supported by Caroline Scully, and had people travelling to see her from across the Midlands. Good one Charlotte! Sadly she had some very sore hands by the end of weekend, so we rustled up a soothing butter balm which should hopefully help them a little.

BOS UK and Orangutan Diary

It seems only right that our first post should be about Borneo Orangutan Survival UK. We've proudly supported this wonderful charity since the begining of 2008, when The Natural Soapworks took the decision to only use organic palm oil from a sustainable source in Columbia to make our soaps.

So what's the problem with palm oil and the significance of it being from a sustainable source, you may wonder? Well soapmakers use palm oil because it adds hardness to a bar of soap, and it's used as a botanical alternative to tallow (rendered animal fats, which we certainly wouldn't use). But the problem with palm oil sourced from the Far East, is that it tends to be grown on palm plantations which have been planted after the rain forest has been cut down and burnt. This is causing catastrophic damage to the environment, and as the forests are destroyed it means that the local animals die too.

You'll find palm oil in all manner of products on our supermarket shelves (e.g. crisps, cakes, chocolate, biscuits, cosmetics, detergents, soaps etc), and there's even more problems on the horizon due to the interest in bio fuels. Unless action is taken soon, more and more habitat will be destroyed and ultimately this could lead to the extinction of many animal species.

When we discovered that even in a small way we were contributing to such destruction, we decided to act quickly to find some palm oil that is grown in a responsible and sustainable way, that doesn't endanger the environment. Organic sustainable palm oil is more expensive but we think it’s the right thing to include in our soaps. This is because one of the worst things that we discovered about palm oil, was the impact it's having on the orangutan populations in Sumatra and Borneo. There's a serious risk that one of our closest cousins will be wiped out within 10 years.

We were so concerned about this, that we contacted Borneo Orangutan Survival (BOS UK) and they confirmed that our soap is "orangutan friendly". This very worthwhile charity works to rescue and rehabilitate orphaned orangutans in Borneo, whose mother's are killed as the rainforest is cleared. BOS's work, led by Lone Droscher Nielsen, is featured in the Orangutan Diary screened by the BBC in 2007, and now back for a second series on BBC2. We wanted to help this fabulous charity so we have adopted 2 orphaned orangutans, and fund raise to support BOS by attending events and selling our ‘Orang’ soap. We guarantee that £1.00 from the sale of each bar of 'Orang' goes straight to BOS UK. http://www.naturalsoapworks.co.uk/CharitySkincare.aspx

So how we all help? It's all about the purchasing power of the consumer, and we'd encourage everyone to try to find products that have sustainably sourced palm ingredients within them. To find out more about helping to save the orangutan visit the BOS UK website: http//www.savetheorangutan.co.uk/index.php

Welcome to the Natroma Blog

Well we've finally caught up with technology, and have started our blog. We've called it the Natroma blog, but it will also cover all things Natural Soapworks too.

We'll be using this to give updates on products, ingredients, events, our charity work and probably a little general musing too. We hope you pop back to see us, once we've added some more information.