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.

Christmas is coming!

We've been a little quite on the blog in the last few week - it's because we've been so busy! We're settling into the Ruskin workshop very nicely, and visitors may well have noticed a certain Christmassy smell in the air. Yes, we've been blending our Christmas Spice essential oil blend again, and our natural Christmas decorations are now smelling wonderful and will be hung on the Christmas tree very soon!

So we've finally managed to upload some of our Christmas gift ideas onto the Natural Soapworks website. This year, we've expanded our range of naturally decorated recycled gift hampers - and they look very pretty without causing problems for the environment.

Mindful that times are still tough, we've also done everything we can to keep prices down so website customers will find a great range of hampers containing pretty hand decorated goats milk soap slices and botanical fizzing bath melts - all for under £10.

We're expecting the next few weeks to be very busy, as we prepare for a number of Christmas craft events. So website orders are currently being processed on a 2 day turnaround, and we will continue to post out hampers until the Christmas postal deadline is reached....or we run out of soap!!

Visitors to the Workshop, are advised to place their Christmas orders as soon as possible now - we're expecting to have to close our Stourbridge order book within the next week or so. We hope to see you soon!

Ruskin Glass Centre shop opens

The Natural Soapworks new shop at the Ruskin Glass Centre opened yesterday. We'd like to thank all of our loyal customers who called in to see us, and sent us good luck cards and flowers. We were really touched to receive so many good wishes, and it really made our day! We're still busy stocking the shelves and working on the unit, but here's a picture of how the shop area looked on the first day.

During the coming half term week we intend to open the Ruskin shop between 10am and 4pm on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. This will coincide with the opening of the Ruskin Glass Centre's cafe, which will be offering a selection of complimentary cakes and coffee to visitors.

We're likely to be closed later in the week since we are re-fitting the Studio 7 shop, but local customers can ring our new telephone number (01384 399451) so we can advise on opening hours. We will also post an update on the blog, later in the week. We intend to re-open Studio 7 at the Red House Glass Cone on Saturday 30th October for the 'No Tricks, Just Treats' Halloween Funday. There will be no impact on website orders - these will be processed as normal.

The final thing to mention, is that the 2010 Christmas Catalogue is now available to local customers, to pre-order natural skincare Christmas gifts for collection from our Stourbridge premises during November and December. Many of these Christmas gift ideas will be uploaded to the website later this week.

Opening day preparations

We're now working around the clock to ensure the Ruskin Glass Centre shop is ready for opening on Saturday 23rd October 2010. The new treatment room is nearly complete, and we're now moving onto shop fitting and stocking the new shop. We're going to be very busy! For this reason, our Red House Glass Cone Studio 7 is now temporarily closed. We hope that as many customers as possible can join us on Saturday, to celebrate this expansion of our business:

• Opening day special offers
• Join the Natural Club to make savings on your purchases
• Enter our opening day prize draw
• Receive a discount on your first holistic treatment booking
• Enjoy a glass of wine/soft drink while you look around the new shop
• Launch of our Christmas Gift catalogue

Our new address is: The Natural Soapworks, Workshop 7 Ruskin Glass Centre
Wollaston Road, Amblecote, Stourbridge, West Midlands, DY8 4HF. The Ruskin Glass Centre has free on-site parking. We'll be open between 10am - 5pm on the 23rd, so we hope to see you there!

Ruskin opening date confirmed as 23rd October 2010

Building work on our new unit at the Ruskin Glass Centre is progressing well, and at last we can confirm our opening date as Saturday 23rd October 2010. So hold the date in your diaries!

We'd really love it if as many customers and friends as possible, can join us to celebrate and enjoy a glass of wine (or two!) We will have been in business for just over 4 years, so we're really excited to be expanding into this lovely new unit!

We'll post more information in the coming weeks....

On the move...

Building work is now underway at the Ruskin Glass Centre, to build our new holistic treatment room. Work on the unit is expected to continue for another couple of weeks, so the opening of our new shop will be in early October.

In the meantime, we have to begin removals and this means there will be some disruption to our normal opening hours at the Red House Glass Cone. This weekend we'll be open for most of Saturday, but there will be reduced opening hours on Sunday due to packing and furniture removals.

We're sorry for any inconvenience this may cause to local customers, but website orders will be unaffected by these changes. We hope you can bear with us, while we prepare the new premises!

The Natural Soapworks at the Ruskin Glass Centre

By now, visitors to the International Festival of Glass will have noticed that a certain Stourbridge soap company is named on one of the new business units at the Ruskin Glass Centre. Today we've been asked about this quite a few times so we wanted to confirm that yes, it's true - The Natural Soapworks is expanding again!

Anyone who has visited us over the years at the Red House Glass Cone will have noticed that we keep outgrowing our premises. So we've taken the decision to expand into a much larger unit at the vibrant new business centre at the newly refurbished Ruskin Glass Centre. This will enable us to open a larger shop and we're also having a fully equiped holistic treatment room built so we can offer Natroma aromatherapy and holistic therapies too.

It's all very exciting, but we're currently awaiting building work to be completed before we can open the new unit. So for now, please continue to visit us at the Red House Glass Cone and we'll post more information about the new premises later in September!

2010 International Festival of Glass Soap

Who would have thought that glass making would be the inspiration for a soap?!

The 2010 International Festival of Glass weekend is fast approaching (August Bank Holiday 27th - 30th August), and will be celebrated across the Stourbridge Glass Quarter, so we knew that we had to create a new soap. In 2008, we launched our very popular Festival soap. This has since been re-named as Kaleidoscope and still features it's 4 colour swirled pattern. This year's special edition soap is called Crystal.

Crystal has been inspired by the 'frit' (chunks of glass) that's melted in the pot in the furnace. Once the molten glass reaches the correct temperature its gathered onto the blowpipe, and then the glassblower gets to work creating their beautiful masterpieces.

Crystal is a sweet smelling (Geranium and Lavender) chunky topped soap, that's mainly cream coloured with pink and purple chunks running through each bar. Each bar is quite unique, and as the outer part of the bar is washed off it will reveal different patterns. Crystal is one of our lovely new Natroma coconut milk, palm-free soaps so is suitable for all skin types, and vegan customers.

The International Festival of Glass will take place between 23 August - 11 September at venues across Stourbridge's Glass Quarter including: Ruskin Glass Centre, Broadfield House Glass Museum, Red House Glass Cone, Bonded Warehouse, Holy Trinity Church and the Dial Glassworks. So we hope that you enjoy the Festival and pop in to see us at the Red House Glass Cone over the Bank Holiday weekend!

NEW! Palm Free Coconut Milk Soaps for Natroma

Phew...it's been a busy week! We attended the Attingham Park Summer Fair last weekend, and met lots of new customers who seemed to love our handmade skincare and soap products. It was lovely having a chat about the benefits of aromatherapy and natural skincare, and we're looking forward to seeing everyone again with our Christmas Gift Hampers at the Frost Fair at the end of the year.

We've also been busy with press interest in our Humane Cosmetics Standard accreditation from BUAV . It's been lovely to receive so much positive support for our efforts and we're very proud that our products now bear the Leaping Bunny logo, an internationally recognised symbol of cruelty free cosmetics. We'll continue to bring you news of the the valuable work that BUAV does to eradicate the practice of animal testing - which we feel is cruel and unnecessary.
So to celebrate a fantastic week, we're launching some new products - a new range of Natroma soaps! We've listened to customer requests and we think these are pretty special - formulated without palm oil (so they're environmentally friendly) and containing coconut milk (so they're perfect for vegan customers), with pretty natural colours and essential oil fragrances. We felt it was important to introduce this range, since quite a few vegan customers felt left out when we specialised in goats milk soaps. Well we think the Natroma soaps feel lovely on the skin, and have a really bubbly, creamy lather that's every bit as good as one of our goats milk varieties.

We've also specially formulated each of these soaps, enriching them with specific oils and botanicals to support the skin. There's an antibacterial soap (which we admit is a bit smelly!) that contains tea tree, rosemary, lavender and neem oils. We've included two very gentle soaps in the range - Carrot & Rhassoul (top of the soap pile in the picture) and Hemp & Oatmeal (bottom of the pile) both of which have gentle essential oil blends so they could be used as facial bars and will suit sensitive skin. For lovers of floral soaps, there's Exotic Rose which has a delicate blend of rose, geranium and ylang ylang essential oils (middle of the pile) and we've splurged with this one including evening primrose oil in the formulation.

Customers also asked us for simple recyclable soap wrappers, so these soaps are hand wrapped in recycled kraft paper but we couldn't resist adding a little organza ribbon trim! Better still, some of these soaps will be available with hand decorated tops, so they'll make perfect stand alone gifts too.

We hope you enjoy using these palm-free Natroma soaps.....and watch this space since we have several more of these soaps on the way!

The Natural Soapworks is awarded BUAV’s Humane Cosmetics Standard

Today we have received some fantastic news – The Natural Soapworks and Natroma product ranges have achieved the Humane Cosmetics Standard (HCS)!

The HCS is the only internationally recognised scheme that enables consumers to easily identify and purchase cosmetic and toiletry products that have not been tested on animals. The standard is managed by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV), and the ultimate aim is to end all cosmetics and household products testing on animals.

From now on, our products will be able to bear the Leaping Bunny Logo, since we have never conducted or commissioned animal testing on our products or their ingredients.

We are very proud to be a member of this standard and you’ll soon see our details in the BUAV’s Little Book of Cruelty Free. In the coming weeks we’ll be issuing further information, but for now if you’d like to read more on the standard, please visit: Go Cruelty Free

Natroma and Miron violet glass refill service

Since the beginning of glass production (during the time of the Egyptian pharaohs), violet glass or golden containers were used to preserve precious oils, salves, and alternative medicines. These containers worked because the sun emits both visible and invisible light. We can see the visible spectrum (as a rainbow of colours), when white light is channeled through a glass prism, but there is also light that is invisible to our eyes – the infra red and UV-A part of the spectrum.

Sunlight is vital for plants to grow, but if they are over exposed to the sun after reaching maturity, the light accelerates the process of decay. This means that products that are packaged in traditional coloured glass packaging (clear, amber, blue and green) allow visible light to pass through so do not offer the same protection as violet glass. Miron violet glass is made in Switzerland and works like a natural filter, since it blocks most of the visible light with the exception of the violet part of the spectrum but remains permeable to UV-A and infra red light. This unique combination protects against the aging processes of visible light, and lengthens shelf life and potency of products contained within violet glass.

Over the last few years, several scientific tests have been carried out on spirulina, rose water, drinking water, oils, cereals, honey, fruits and other substances to prove the protective quality of violet glass. (The picture right shows an example of what happened to a cherry tomato left in clear glass compared to the protection offered by the violet glass).

Chemical analysis by gas chromatography of rosewater, (stored for two months in either violet or amber glass) showed that within 2 months the amount of several important aromatic compounds had decreased significantly following storage in amber glass. No change was observed in the sample stored in violet glass showing the protection against decomposition by visible light.

This is why this very special glass was chosen for the Natroma range, where it protects our Hydrolat Toners and Oil Serums. We have to import these bottles to the UK, but we felt it was important to offer superior packaging that naturally increases shelf life, and protects the natural potency of our organic natural ingredients. The bottles are also very attractive too!

Refill service now available on the Natroma website!

We've always offered a studio refill service for products packaged in Miron glass (just bring your empty bottle back into the studio and we'll re-fill it with the same product again). So we’re very pleased to announce that we’re now offering refills on our Natroma website too! So when you purchase full sizes of Natroma products packaged in Miron bottles, don’t throw the valuable violet glass away when the bottles are empty. Instead, order a refill from our website (packaged in recyclable plastic) so you can top up your bottle and re-use it again. In this way, you’ll be helping the environment since the plastic bottle will be lighter for mail order and there will be no need to recycle the violet glass. To encourage you to recycle we’re pleased to offer refills at a cheaper price, that reflects their ‘no frills’ packaging.

Coping with oily skin

Just lately we've had a few customers ask us about which products can help oily skin. Using the correct cleansing regime is often a major factor in supporting oily skin, so we hope the following short article will help.

Oily skin can be prone to acne, often beginning at puberty when the body starts to produce hormones called androgens. These cause the enlargement and over-stimulation of the sebaceous glands in some people (particularly young men). The extra oil mixes with dead skin cells and bacteria on the skin's surface, which in turn blocks the skin pores – leading to spots. Unfortunately many commercial acne products work by drying out the skin, but some products actually make the condition worse since the skin reacts to the dryness by producing even more oil. A vicious circle continues since the products are applied as more spots appear, leading to more dryness then more oil production and even more spots!

Natroma products do not work in this way. Our cream cleanser contains natural ingredients, to work in harmony with the skin. There are no harsh alcohols in the formulation so the cream isn’t drying. It also contains castor oil, which is very moisturizing but absorbs slowly into the skin. This means the cream can be safely applied so it mixes with the dirt and impurities on the skin, and can be wiped away easily. The cleanser also contains gentle white clay to draw out impurities, and panthenol to gently moisturize the skin.

To use the cleanser it’s best to use a single pump of the cream, and gently apply over the face. Massage very gently onto the skin (do not rub), paying attention to the areas around the nose and chin which can be more prone to break outs. Rinse out a clean muslin cloth in hand hot water, and wring out so the cloth is warm and damp. Then use the cloth to gently remove the cream, and you’ll lightly exfoliate the skin at the same time. Do not rub, and try not to damage existing spots since this can spread infection. Alternately simply rinse the cream off with water (as you would, if using a soap). Use the cleanser each morning and night and by gently cleansing (rather than stripping the skin) you’ll remove excess oil, gently remove dead skin cells and leave it without any dryness. This will help to break the vicious circle, and should calm down any breakouts. Weekly deep cleansing with one of our rhassoul Clay Masks (we’d recommend our Chamomile variety) will also help to draw out skin impurities.

Remember that our skin’s condition is largely dependent on a healthy lifestyle, so also try to:

• Eat more fruit and vegetables.
• Drink more water to hydrate the skin.
• Take regular exercise.
• Take about 10 minutes of fresh air and sunshine (avoiding the midday sun and very strong sunlight) when you can since it stimulates the production of Vitamin D which is essential for healthy skin.
• Reduce your caffeine intake (contained within coffee, tea and fizzy drinks etc).
  
• Reduce the amount of refined (white) sugar and carbohydrate in the diet since this can increase hormone levels (particularly in young men) making you more prone to spots and acne.

We hope you've found this information useful!

NEW! Natural Shaving Kits

We've just updated our Natural Soapworks Pamper Hamper page with a range of new natural skincare hampers which would be perfect for birthdays, anniversaries and Christmas. By popular request, we've included some new natural shaving items which would be great for Father's Day.

Our Natural Shaving Kit (left) contains some our our luxurious Forest Spice shaving soap. It's a specially formulated goats milk soap, that contains a lovely blend of woody essential oils (with skin caring properties), and rhassoul clay which is a fabulous clay that's usually used in spa treatments. This gives the soap a really lovely feeling on the skin, with a rich creamy lather (without lots of foam) which keeps the razor close to the skin so it glides and reduces razor burn. Teamed with the shaving soap, we've added a natural bristle wooden shaving brush and one of our Natroma Shaving Oils.

The Shaving Oil is presented in a Miron violet glass bottle with a pipette attachment, so you can measure out the correct amount of oil for a pre-shave mini massage. This helps the facial hair to lift and soften, so the razor will glide more easily and cause less irritation. The oil is packed with skin-kind botanical oils and herbal extracts - all formulated to calm and nourish the skin.

Our larger Shaving Hamper (contents shown right) also contains a black stone soap dish to stylishly drain the shaving soap between uses, and a new Natroma After Shave Balm. This is a lovely completely natural balm, for use after shaving to naturally condition and moisturise the skin with botanical butters, oils and herbal extracts. In this hamper we also include a fact sheet on shaving, with a recommended routine for obtaining the perfect shave!

What is aromatherapy?

These days, there are all manner of products on the market claiming to have aromatherapy benefits. The problem is that quite often cosmetics have names that make them sound like aromatherapy products, but they only contain minute amounts of essential oils or even have synthetic fragrances. These products may not even be formulated by a professional Aromatherapist, so how do you spot the genuine article? We hope the following information about essential oils and aromatherapy will be useful.

Aromatherapy is often defined as the careful, controlled use of essential oils, to enhance the well-being of the mind, body and spirit. Essential oils are highly concentrated, volatile, and fragrant substances that are extracted from flowers, berries, twigs, wood, seeds, fruits and leaves of many familiar plants. Essential oils have many different properties and research has shown that each oil contains a complex mixture of chemical components which contribute to essential oil therapeutic qualities. These could be stimulant, expectorant, anti-infectious, anti-inflammatory, relaxant, calming, soothing or uplifting. The important thing to stress is that they need to be used with respect and knowledge, so aromatherapy is far more than just pretty smells!

A professional Aromatherapist will have extensive knowledge of the therapeutic qualities and the chemical components within each essential oil. This enables them to create synergistic blends that are personalized for their client, taking into account their needs and any existing health conditions. In the hands of a knowledgable professional Aromatherapist, this means that these plant essences can be therapeutically blended to assist with stress, enhance health and support the body’s own healing processes. Clinical aromatherapy focuses on achieving synergy within the essential oil blend, and usually employs massage to use essential oils in a holistic treatment. So while this is not a medical treatment, aromatherapy has been found to work psychologically and physiologically to improve well-being.

In the coming months, we’ll be featuring a number of essential oils to explain their qualities and why we use them in our handmade natural skincare products. In the meantime, you can see more about our natural ingredients on our websites.

The Natural Soapworks and Natroma product ranges are formulated in-house by a professionally qualified Clinical Aromatherapist, and member of the International Federation of Professional Aromatherapists (IFPA).

Palm Free Goats Milk Soap Slices

We're pleased to announce that our handmade palm free soap slices have now been added to The Natural Soapworks website. We're really proud of these, since they use a new formulation of our popular goats milk soap. It's a really creamy, bubbly soap made even better by the lack of palm oil in the formulation, so they are completely orangutan friendly soaps! They are pretty soaps too, with delicate aromatherapy blends of essential oils.

These are slightly larger soaps, at 120g each, sliced from a log and hand decorated with pretty botanicals. We hope you enjoy using them!

The 2010 ducklings have arrived!

We just wanted to mention some new arrivals were spotted this afternoon - the ducklings have finally arrived!

We've been expecting them for a while, so it looks like Spring is definitely here. Visitors to the Red House Glass Cone should visit the canal side, and look out for 13 little ones this year. They are quite noisy and have lovely yellow colouring at the moment. We'll try to post some pictures, if they will keep still for a few moments!

Skin Spring Clean with Natroma

Now that the days are lengthening in the UK, it's lovely to see some very welcome sunshine! Spring is on the way and we'll soon be baring more skin again, so it's a good time to review your skincare regime. During the colder months it's easy to neglect the skin, and it can become damaged by being exposed to the elements and the dry air from central heating systems.

Therefore we'd recommend using a cream cleanser and a muslin cloth each day, to gently cleanse and exfoliate away dry patches, and brighten the complexion. Our gentle facial approach, involves a 3 stage process which takes only a couple of minutes each day - it's no fuss and can be built into even the busiest of mornings and evenings.

First of all you massage our rich cream cleanser across the face, allowing it to draw out skin impurities. We formulated this to harness the deep cleansing power of organic caster oil and white clay, with the moisturising benefits of nilotica shea butter and D-panthenol, and the wonderful skin soothing properties of calendula and chamomile botanical extracts. These are gentle cleansers, fragranced only with organic hydrolats (flower waters), making them well suited to sensitive skin types, safe to use around the eyes and perfect for removing make up.

Our Natroma cleanser works best when used with a muslin cloth. You simply rinse a muslin cloth in hand-hot water and wring out so the cloth is warm and moist. Use the cloth to gently remove the cleanser cream, make-up and skin impurities - and it will lightly exfoliate the skin to leave it feeling refreshed, brighter and clean.

We'd then suggest using some hydrolat toner to ensure all traces of cleanser are gone and to further refresh the skin. Hydrolats are produced during the steam distillation of essential oils, so contain dissolved plant extracts which are kind and soothing to the skin. Ours are presented in a Miron glass, a special violet glass which protects the hydrolat from light.

The final stage of our mini facial, is to smooth on some moisturiser. Like the rest of our range, Natroma's moisturisers are handmade and contain a blend of flower waters, botanical oils (including jojoba oil), natural plant extracts (rosehip seed and arctic cranberry seed), and are lightly fragranced with Neroli and Rose essential oils. We're proud of these lovely moisturisers since they feel light on the skin and sink in quickly to provide lasting skin hydration without any greasiness.

Make up can be applied after moisturising, making this a quick but enjoyable mini pampering session at the start and end to every day!

To encourage everyone to try out the Natroma range, we have a special Spring Offer on the Natroma website. We're offering the facial starter kit (includes a 30ml cleanser and moisturiser in airless pumps with a 50ml hydrolat and a muslin cloth). This kit should last for around 4-6 weeks and normally costs £15.25, but our special Spring Offer saves you 15% and is just £12.95 These are available in 3 varieties - Chamomile (unscented), Rose and Orange blossom (Neroli). We hope you enjoy!

The Natural Soapworks supports WWF's Earth Hour - are you?

We've just signed up to WWF's 2010 Earth Hour.

On Saturday 27 March 2010 at 8.30pm, the aim is for a billion people around the world to switch off their lights for one hour – WWF’s Earth Hour. This will be a very public show of support for the people and animals that are threatened by climate change. WWF are also encouraging us all to think about our impact on the environment, and to take part in fun fund raising activities as everything goes dark.

Visit the WWF website for ideas if you want to take part.
We hope you join us in the big switch off!

Sustainable palm oil and the plight of the orangutan

We wanted to add a brief note regarding the BBC's Panorama 'Dying for a biscuit' programme which was screened in the UK earlier this evening. It gave a good insight into the issues surrounding the palm oil industry, and the effect palm oil plantations are having on the habitat of the wild orangutan and other animal species. Further information on the palm oil trade can be found in this article on the BBC's website.

We'd like to re-emphasise to our customers, that we have already taken steps to only source palm oil from a sustainable source (in Colombia) for use in our handmade soaps. We have also undertaken extensive product development, to successfully develop a luxury palm-free soap formulation which is the basis for our new range of contemporary soap slices. As the programme highlighted, it isn't always easy to care for the environment when the supply chain for botanical oils is so difficult to regulate. But we hope that in some small way, our efforts will highlight that companies can take steps to ensure they do not contribute to the demise of the wild orangutan.

If you have been troubled by what you have seen and would like to help BOS UK (Borneo Orangutan Survival), remember that we continue to sell our charity soap. Or you can visit the BOS website for information on how you can directly contribute towards their work to rescue and rehabilitate orphaned orangutans in Borneo.

Mother's Day Natural Soap Hampers

We've just uploaded some new goats milk soap gift hampers on to The Natural Soapworks website, which would make perfect Mother's Day gifts. Our new contemporary soap range will be added to the website in the coming weeks, and we're very pleased with them!

The botancial mini soaps, will be available in 2 sizes: 25g (these are the cute mini soaps which have been featured in our natural skincare gift sets for a while), and 40g (a new larger mini soap). These look fantastic in our elegant, hamper boxes.

We're particularly proud of our new contemporary soap slices, since they look beautiful but are also handmade using our new goats milk palm-free soap formulation. We first introduced this soap recipe when we launched 'Orang 2' (our charity soap, which supports Borneo Orangutan Survival - BOS UK). It will be the base formulation for our contemporary soap range, so is particularly suitable for anyone who wants to avoid using products which contain palm oil. This soap range will introduce several new soap fragrances, and the first six are: Springtime (a refreshing and uplifting blend with herbal and citrus notes), Rosebud (delicate, sweet rose notes), Hippy Rosie (rose geranium with patchouli), Exotic Flowers (rich sensual notes of ylang ylang and jasmine), Marigold (with lavender and chamomile), and an old favourite, Lavender.

These are being previewed in our Mother's Day hampers page on the website, and will soon be available as individual soaps. We hope you like them!

Goats milk soap stocks are improving!

It's been a busy few weeks at The Natural Soapworks....making lots of soap!

Christmas was so busy that we actually ran out of some of our most popular varieties, but rest assured we now have lots of lovely goats milk soap bars curing on our drying racks. But before they are ready, we still have lots of soap offers which will be available in the studio and on the Special offers page of The Natural Soapworks website during January.

The website also has a new soap (it usually sells out in the studio before we have time to add it to the website!) which is called Blue Lagoon. This is a really lovely soap with a deep evocative fragrance of ylang ylang blended with vetiver and citrus notes. It has a deep purple base layer with a thicker blue layer over the top and contains Monoi de Tahiti, which makes the lather really creamy. It's one of our most luxurious goats milk soaps, so catch it while you can, by visiting the goats milk soap page on our website: Blue Lagoon goats milk soap

We should also mention that we're having lots of fun developing some new goats milk and coconut milk soap varieties. These are for a new range of contemporary soaps which are on the way - they will be launched in time for Mother's Day... so watch this space!

Natural Soapworks New Years Resolutions

Happy New Year to all Natural Soapworks customers!

It's been lovely to hear back from so many people, regarding their Christmas orders - it sounds like your gift recipients loved our packaging and have had an enjoyable time trying out our skincare products too. Our thanks for the lovely feedback!

It's now that time of year, when we all make some resolutions. So as a responsible skin care business, we thought we'd share some of our resolutions for 2010 with our readers.

We resolve to:

1. Continue to only make skincare products containing natural fragrances from essential oils and natural colours.

2. Continue to source only the finest ingredients for our skincare products, taking care in selecting responsible, eco-friendly suppliers who are opposed to any form of animal testing.

3. Continue to only use sustainable palm oil in our goat's milk soaps - so our soap production never contributes to the destruction of the orangutan's habitat in Borneo.

4. Introduce a new range of soaps in 2010, which will not contain any palm oil within their formulation. Watch this space!

5. Continue to publicise and support the work of Borneo Orangutan Survival UK, and their wonderful work to save and rehabiliate orphaned orangutans.

6. Continue to only use paper, glass and plastic product packaging which can be recycled. Our gift packaging will also be recyclable (or be manufactured from recycled materials).

7. Continue to re-cycle boxes and packaging materials and ensure that used printer toners etc are donated to charitable causes.

8. Maintain our stance of refusing to use cosmetic ingredients containing parabens, SLS detergents, pthalates, PEG's, petroleum derived ingredients (including mineral oil) and other nasty ingredients in our products.

9. Continue to be perfectionists - whether it be taking extra care when we manufacture our handmade skincare products, or packaging them with care so they reach our mail order customers in perfect condition. This also means that we'll value and continue to listen to customer feedback, so we keep on improving The Natural Soapworks and Natroma product ranges.

10. Continue to offer our customers great value for money by selling concentrated natural products which last and genuinely work in harmony with the skin. We'll also increase the selection of items available to mail order from The Natural Soapworks website.

We'll review these at the end of 2010 to see how we've done!

So to start things off this year, we've made a few changes to The Natural Soapworks website. Sadly part of this is due to changes in our prices, due to the increase in VAT and raw material costs etc. But this is our first price rise since 2008, and we've done everything we can to keep our products as affordable as possible. We'll also be updating the special offers page regularly so website customers can benefit from extra savings throughout 2010. So remember to visit: http://www.naturalsoapworks.co.uk/Special.aspx

To end on a positive, we've also reviewed our website postage charges for 2010 - these used to be on a sliding scale which was dependent on the value of the order. But from today we're pleased to announce a flat rate approach for The Natural Soapworks website. Orders under £50 will now cost just £2.95 on postage, and if you spend over £50 then postage will be FREE!

Thanks for reading!