Merry Christmas from The Natural Soapworks

Well the last hamper was been wrapped, and the last order dispatched so at The Natural Soapworks we're all feeling a little weary!



We'd like to wish all of our customers a peaceful and restful Christmas, and thank you for your on-going support and custom during 2013.


As usual, we'll be taking an extended break over Christmas and New Year to re-charge the batteries! Our Stourbridge shop will be closed for the next few weeks, re-opening again on 14th January 2014.  But, behind the scenes our websites will continue to accept orders which will be processed in date order from 3rd January onwards.

Candlelit Shopping Evening at Ruskin Glass Centre!

The Candlelit Shopping Evening at the Ruskin Glass Centre is this Thursday 12th December 2013. 


This is a lovely evening event between 6pm and 9pm, where we'll turn down the normal Centre lighting, replacing it with candles, lanterns and fairy lights!  Last year everyone loved the festive atmosphere, enjoying a glass of mulled wine and mince pies while they indulged in a spot of Christmas retail therapy!

As usual we'll have some special offers which will be available for one night only! 

Last year we had so many people packed in our workshop, and queues at the till during the entire event.  It was the perfect way to purchase our ever popular Himalayan salt tea light holders since they were lit (each one is individually made, so you could see their beautiful colours and how they glow).

We expect this to be a lovely festive event - perfect for picking up last minute Christmas gifts.  We hope to see you there!

Telford Christmas Gift Fair

This weekend we're off to Telford to exhibit at the Christmas Gift Fair.  It's set up day today, so the workshop will be closing a little earlier than usual at 3.30pm, so we can go to set up our stand.

The workshop will be open as usual on Saturday, between 11am and 4.30pm.  There's still a good selection of gift ideas and natural skincare hampers available, and we're making as many Christmas decorations as we can - they're selling out fast!!

Fantastic Christmas Fairs!

Paul on our stand at the NEC, Festive Gift Fair 2013

We've had a wonderful few weeks attending the Festive Gift Fair at the NEC and the Frost Fair at Attingham Park.  Both events are very well organised, and we loved meeting so many customers old and new, to talk about the benefits of using aromatherapy and natural skincare products. 

It was wonderful to also receive so much positive feedback on our soaps, bathing and skincare items - ranging from regular customers who've been using our products for years to those who'd received a gift hamper last year and were so impressed they'd come to see us to purchase gifts for their friends! 

As a small company we're so grateful for this lovely feedback and praise (it makes our day!), and the way that our customers are taking it upon themselves to help to spread the word about how our gentle products can help people with troubled skin.  As we often tell customers, The Natural Soapworks was born because we also have skin problems ourselves, so it gives us a huge boost (particularly when we're feeling a bit weary at the end of a long day) to hear that our efforts are helping others! 

Thank you. 

We're at the Festive Gift Fair!

We're now exhibiting at the fantastic Festive Gift Fair at the NEC! 

This means our Stourbridge shop will be closed for most days this week (see the opening hours to the right).  Our websites will continue to accept orders, but we'll be unable to process them until we return.  We expect to begin shipping orders again from 26th November onwards, and they'll be  processed in the date order they arrived.

Thanks to everyone for your patience and sorry for any inconvenience!  We'll be posting updates on how we're getting on at the NEC on our Facebook page.

Christmas Events

It's the last weekend before we head off to our main Christmas events this year. 

Behind the scenes we've been busy working on loads of Christmas items (we're posting updates on our progress on our Facebook page this year).   Our thanks to our website customers for the increasing numbers of orders that are arriving - at the moment, we're still dispatching orders within 24 hours but this will become slower once we're away at Christmas events.

Our Stourbridge shop will be open today and tomorrow as normal, but after this we'll be closed for a few days while we attend:

 

The NEC event is lovely with a great Christmassy atmosphere!  We're on the stand B41 (same as last year), and are looking forward to meeting more website customers in the flesh again! 

 

We'll return from the NEC for a couple of days before heading off to the National Trust's Attingham Park (near Shrewsbury) for the Frost Fair.  We love attending this fantastic event, since there's always such a nice atmosphere and variety of things to buy.  This year it runs from 29th November to 1st December....and judging by the weather forecast it looks like it's going to live up to it's name again! 

 

Back at the Ruskin there's more going on with the popular Christmas Craft Fair running on the same weekend as the Frost Fair.  We're so grateful to our family helpers who will be opening the workshop while we're away!  On the 12th December there will also be another Candlelit Shopping Evening. 

 

Phew, after all this we're going to be shattered!

Busy with Christmas hampers!

It's been a busy few weeks at the Soapworks, as we get back into the swing of things.  At this time of year, it's all about making products for hampers since so many people love giving natural soaps and bathing items as fragrant Christmas gifts.  Our Stourbridge shop now has a lovely range of gift hampers ready to take away, and we're also busy working through the Christmas orders too.  As you can see, the Fizzing Butter Melts are coming along quite nicely!

We're also busy making loads of bath bombs too, since we know how many people love their Bath Crackers!  As usual these are available in 3 lovely fragrances:  Christmas Rose, Relax and De-Stress and  contain a standard bath bomb, a petal bath bomb, and an organic cocoa butter bath bomb.   They're a lovely small gift, and are great if you're having difficulty finding a suitable Secret Santa gift!    Again these are now available on-line and in our shop, and we'll be taking loads to the Festive Gift Fair (at the NEC) later this month...and possibly the Frost Fair at Attingham Park if we still have any left.

These types of bathing products are always at their best when they're really fresh.  So this is why we tend to leave the manufacture until quite close to Christmas - we think that newer bath bombs are really fizzy bath bombs!  So we hope that customers enjoy using them...and if our workshop is anything to go by, then bathrooms up and down the land are going to smell just lovely! 

Sad news

Due to a recent family bereavement, we'll be operating reduced opening hours this week in our Stourbridge shop.  We'll update our opening hours in the coming days, and apologise for any inconvenience.

Website orders may be slightly delayed but they will be processed as soon as possible, and we thank customers for their patience.

UPDATE 14th October 2013
During this coming week, our shop will be open most days apart from Friday when we'll be attending the funeral of Paul's Dad who sadly passed away last week.  Thank you again to everyone who's taken the time to contact us and express their condolences.  Your kind words and concern during this difficult time has been much appreciated.

Christmas is coming....

We released our Stourbridge Christmas Catalogue last week, so thanks to everyone who's popped in to the workshop to pick up a copy.   We have loads more for collection, and judging by the reaction to our new hampers it feels like we're going to be a little bit busy this year!!   Stourbridge customers can enjoy an extra 5% off workshop orders placed before 30th September .... so remember to get your order in quick!

Here's a sneaky peek at some of the 2013 hampers and gift ideas:

The Selection Box is back again for 2013, and this year it contains one of our new cute organic cracker goats milk soaps (in Christmas Spice), a hand decorated organic Frankincense and  Myrrh goats milk soap (these are taking ages to decorate, since the holly decoration is actually made from soap  - all moulded hand and then hand painted with shimmery cosmetic micas so it looks really pretty), a 10ml Christmas Spice essential oil blend (affectionately known as 'Christmas in a Bottle', since it is so perfect for creating that Christmassy smell in the home) and a Rosebud Fizzing Butter melt - for the long relaxing bath after all the cooking and preparations are done! 

We also have a new hessian gift bag, containing a bottle of our ever popular luxury bathing salts with a 100g goats milk soap and a bath scrunchie - this makes a lovely smaller gift for anyone who loves bathing and the little bag is quite handy to use afterwards too!

We've also introduced some lovely new recycled cardboard tube packaging to our range.  We love these since they're made from recycled materials so are very environmentally friendly, but look really elegant once we've added our trademark ribbons and pretty decorations!    They're going to be available in a few sizes, with hamper contents including our soaps and Natroma facial starter kits.

This year's organic Natroma Christmas goats milk soaps are:  Christmas Spice and Frankincense & Myrrh (we'd have a riot if these weren't available!) and the special edition is Christmas Rose.  This contains a lovely blend of rosy scented essential oils with the addition of musky frankincense - lovely!

These hampers, and many more will be appearing on the Natroma and Natural Soapworks websites very soon.

Soap making classes will return in 2014!

We haven't run any soap making or natural cosmetics making classes since 2010, but we've continued to receive lots of enquiries.  So the wait is finally over - we've decided to run a small number of courses during the early part of 2014! 

The 2014 classes are currently being uploaded to The Natural Soapworks website. Places will be very limited, since we only allow a maximum of 8 people on our courses - so it's first come, first served on bookings! We think that smaller class sizes are better for participants since it allows more one-to-one tuition and gives participants the chance to ask more questions.  The courses are always lots of fun and are offer a mixture of tuition and practical sessions during the day.  Course participants will need to walk up about 20 steps to reach the classroom area, which is upstairs in our workshop. All equipment, protective clothing, tuition and materials are included as part of the course fee, and participants will keep the items that are made during the practical sessions. 

Soap Making Courses
This is a  comprehensive one day course for anyone who wants to safely make cold-process soap as a hobby. It includes: selecting the right soap making equipment and ingredients, the chemistry of soap making, understanding SAP values and lye calculations, safety issues and equipment, using natural colourants and fragrances with an introduction to essential oil blending. The course is led by our Clinical Aromatherapist who has over 10 years expertise in natural soap making, and it's always a fun day which balances theory with practical work. By the end of the day, you will have created your first batch of cold process soap (8 bars) which we'll cure, cut and post out to you once it's ready. You'll receive a soap making booklet on the day of your course and a personalised letter when your soap is posted to you offering feedback on your soap with suggestions for the future.  Due to the nature of cold process soap making, this course is not suitable for anyone who is under 16 years old.

Bath Bomb Making Courses
Spend a half day with us, learning how to make great bath bombs.  The course includes sessions on: selecting the correct ingredients and equipment, safety issues, successful mixing and moulding, using botanicals, colourants and fragrances with an introduction to essential oil blending.   The course is led by our company’s bath bomb expert, and is a fun and informative class which balances theory with lots of practical work.  By the end of the morning you will have created your first bath bombs which you’ll be able to take home with you.  (We find that class attendees make lots of bath bombs during the practical session!)  You'll receive a bath bomb making information booklet on the day of your course. Participants under the age of 16 must be accompanied by a fee paying adult. 

Introduction to Aromatherapy Courses
Spend a half day with our Clinical Aromatherapist, learning about the safe use of essential oils around the home or for well-being.  Includes sessions on: essential oil safety and storage, usage and profiles of 10 of the most common essential oils, practical tips and ideas for using essential oils with an introduction to essential oil blending. The course is a fun starter course in aromatherapy, and balances some theory with practical sessions.  By the end of the morning, you will have created your first 10ml essential oil blend which you’ll be able to use around the home or for well-being.  You’ll also receive a starter kit of 6 aromatherapy grade essential oils worth over £25* (these are supplied in 10ml bottles, and we’ll help you select the right ones for you on the day), a blending bottle and some fragrance blending strips. Participants under the age of 16 must be accompanied by a fee paying adult.  *Please note that we carry a large variety of aromatherapy grade essential oils, but some are very expensive so there will be an additional charge if these oils are used.  

Course participants will have the chance to purchase soap and bath bomb making materials and ingredients, and essential oils on the day of their course.  We’re also pleased to be able to offer a 10% discount off natural soaps and skincare products purchased from our shop on the day of the course. 

We'd stress that these courses are intended for anyone who wants to have a fun day learning more about soap making, cosmetics or aromatherapy as a hobby. They aren't suitable for anyone who intends to sell cosmetic products. If this is the sort of training that you need, you'll find that there are a number of other courses advertised on the internet that provide the legislative training that is required.

Dudley Mayor and Mayoress visit The Natural Soapworks

Yesterday we were delighted to welcome the Mayor and Mayoress of Dudley to The Natural Soapworks!

 

We're supporting the new Recycle for Dudley scheme so they called in to see us, and we explained how we make our luxury soaps and natural skincare products.  As you can see from the picture, the Mayor seemed pretty impressed by the rich, creamy lather of our soaps!

 

We'd like to thank them both for spending time with us on a lovely visit, and hope that Dudley Council residents sign up to the new recycling scheme.

Feeling hot, hot, hot...

Visitors to the workshop this week, will have noticed that we're struggling with the heat.  Unfortunately our workshop has such a large expanse of roof, that it absorbs lots of heat from the sun during hot weather making the workshop feel very warm.  So we've spent the last few days moving our products and ingredients into cool places, and we'll be operating reduced shop opening hours during the next few days.

But even though our shop will be temporarily closed, it's business as normal!   (Behind the scenes, we're busy working on our Christmas gift range which will be launched during August). Customers can still contact us by e-mail and website orders will be processed as normal.  Stourbridge shop customers can contact us by e-mail or phone, and we'll make special arrangements for collections of products and orders.  Fingers crossed we'll be open again very soon, and in the meantime we're sorry for any inconvenience.

Enjoy the sunshine everyone, and see you soon!

UPDATE:  Thanks to everyone who popped in to see us last week, and tolerated the heat in the workshop!  The weather is still causing problems, so we'll be opening our shop (whilst processing website orders), at various times but these opening hours may be subject to change at short notice.  Thanks again to everyone for their support, and understanding and we hope that things will return to normal again soon.

We're supporting recycling in Dudley!

We're very pleased to announce that we're supporting Dudley Council's improved recycling scheme.  There's a new website, which contains lots of information on the new recycling service, collection details and other ways to reduce waste.  This will enable Dudley borough residents to recycle even more materials, including plastic bottles and cardboard.  Dudley borough residents who sign up to the scheme can also access an incentives page on the website, where local businesses like our own are offering discounts and special offers as a thank you to those families that "do their bit" for the environment. 

We've always been passionate about environmental issues, and take great care when selecting packaging materials for our products since we dislike unnecessary and wasteful packaging.

• Our hamper boxes are either made from recycled materials, or are made from card that can recycled or composted.  (Although we know that many of our hamper boxes are re-used again or kept as keepsake boxes!)
• The packaging for our goats milk soaps is deliberately simple.  There's no need for a wasteful box, so we just use a paper wrapper and bio-degradable cellophane hygiene cover (this special eco-film will completely disintegrate in 1-2 years).
• Our bathing products are packaged in cellulose bags - this allows them to be composted.
• We always try to use PET and recyclable plastic containers for liquid products, with a preference for supplying products in either glass or aluminium wherever possible.
• We only use paper tissue in our hamper boxes, and paper carrier bags in our Stourbridge shop.
• We re-use any packaging or cardboard boxes received from our suppliers, and only purchase bio-degradable loose fill packaging and bubble wrap. 
• We encourage the use of re-usable items such as our washable muslin cloths, bathing mitts and scrunchies and offer a range of re-usable shopping bags in our shop.  Even our fragrant decorations will last indefinitely if they're periodically topped up with essential oils!  (More natural and far better for the environment than spray or plug in air fresheners).  
• We actively encourage the idea of customers re-using their glass packaging (discounts are available), by offering a refill service for certain items on our Natroma website.  Stourbridge shop customers can obtain refills on many items including hydrolats, facial oil serums, botanical oils, essential oils, balms, and crystal deodorants.  

All of these actions often mean that we have to pay more for our packaging but we think it's the right thing to do, since it supports the environment and minimises waste.   We're really pleased that Dudley Council has been able to widen the scope of the items that can be placed in the black recycling bins, and hope this improved recycling scheme has a significant impact on reducing the amount of waste that ends up in landfill. 

2013 Soap Sale!

Regular customers to our Stourbridge shop will know that we sometimes have a basket of bargain soaps for sale.  These are usually older goats milk soaps that may have weird shapes (we hand trim each block, to ensure that our full sized soaps have regular shapes).  These soap mis-shapes are always very popular since the soaps are still lovely to use, and have a hard, long lasting texture with a rich creamy lather.  They're perfect as guest soaps or for use in the kitchen/second bathroom etc.  We sell these soaps at a lower price by weight (each soap is individually priced), compared to our standard bars, and they tend to sell out quickly, so we never have time to add them to our websites!

But every few years we have a massive soap sale, to clear our curing space and soap store.  This year we've had a massive stock review to make room for all of the 2013 Christmas soaps, so this will be our biggest soap sale for quite a few years.

 

This year website customers can enjoy some soapy bargains too, and some sale soaps have been uploaded to the Natroma website.  Discounts range from between 25-50% off, so if you don't mind using weird shaped soaps, half bars or older soaps with a reduced fragrance, then this is a great opportunity to stock up on lovely mild, goats milk soap at a bargain price.

Catch these while you can...we know they're going to sell out fast!

 

We'll also be having a Summer Sale in our Stourbridge shop starting on Saturday 8th June 2013.  Many sale items are one offs (so won't be available on-line) and will include a clearance of soaps, older bathing products, candles, small gifts and some items of jewellery. 

Holistic Therapy Spring Offer!

We really enjoyed meeting so many people last weekend, at the Stourbridge Open Studios event.   Everyone seemed to have a great time, and it was good to have a chat and advise on our various natural skincare products.  So thanks to everyone who called in to see us, and we hope you enjoy using your products.

This week we're nearly back to normal on our Stourbridge shop opening hours, with a slightly later start today (Tuesday we'll be opening at 12.30pm).

We're accepting holistic therapy bookings again now, so remember that there's only another couple of weeks left on our Treatment Spring Offer - 20% off Paul's Swedish, Sports and Lava Shell holistic therapy treatments.  The diary is filling up quickly so catch it while you can!  Treatments needed to be booked by the end of May (but can be taken during the next few weeks) to qualify for this special offer. 

Beautiful Things

Visitors to our Stourbridge shop are always commenting on how it contains lots of beautiful things.  Many people linger for a while taking in the beautiful aroma coming from our soaps and skincare, having a chat and checking out the many items that would make lovely gifts. 


Gemstone chip necklace



Chakra Hanging Crystal

It's great feedback, since we pride ourselves on having a shop that's a little bit different.  We're always on the look out for unusual or pretty products to complement our own - and more often than not, we hand select items that we'd like to own ourselves!

So finally (we always seem to be too busy to photograph things and upload the product information) we're pleased to be able to add a few items onto our Natroma website....on the Beautiful Things page.



Natroma Chakra Crystal Bookmarks



Over the coming weeks we'll try to add some more items, but for starters there are some lovely natural gemstone inspired gifts - crystal necklaces, handmade chakra bookmarks and hanging light-catcher crystals.  There are also some fair trade hand-crafted floating candles and orchid tea-lights and incense gifts which are really pretty and smell wonderful.

We hope that our website customers like our Beautiful Things, and that these new products help when you're looking for an unusual gift. 

New! Organic Facial Oils

Visitors to our Stourbridge shop, will be familiar with our organic botanical oils.  We introduced them several months ago, since we felt that customers with certain skin conditions would benefit from adding these oils to their skincare regime.  Using these oils in small amounts as a facial serum can be very helpful with certain skin-types, so we're pleased to now have Argan, Jojoba, Rosehip and Tamanu available on the Natroma website, listed under Botanical Oils.  These are certified organic oils (and Leaping Bunny approved too) supplied in 10ml blue glass bottles with a pipette attachment.

We can't make any specific claims about these oils, but have included a little information about each one on the Natroma website and would encourage customers to research each oil's properties.  We've always loved all of these oils so they regularly appear in our products, and we're not surprised that they've become popular with quite a few well know celebs just lately.

For best results use the pipette to dispense between 1-3 drops onto the palm of the hand, then warm the oil by rubbing the palms together.  Apply the oil to the skin in soft patting/massage strokes, and the idea is to only apply sufficient oil that's needed (you'd need more on very dry skin, and less on a combination/oily complexion), so the skin absorbs the oil within a couple minutes.  As we often say "less is more", and definitely try to avoid getting an oil slick on the face!

These oils are also perfect to use if you wish to try a little facial massage.  You'll need to apply a few more drops to allow the fingertips to glide over the skin (it's important that you don't feel like your fingertips are dragging or stretching the delicate skin on the face), and you should aim to massage for a few minutes using gentle circular movements.   The idea is to gently stimulate the skin, and we'd recommend that you do this regularly followed by one of our Natroma Clay Mask treatments.

You can also try adding a drop of your chosen oil to our Natroma moisturiser each day.  We developed the formulation of this cream so it could be enriched and adapted to suit different times of the year, so the extra drop of oil will make the application feel slightly richer than usual.  This is particularly good when the skin is dry and is feeling tight or uncomfortable (perhaps after spending too much time in the sun, or when the weather is very cold).

We hope you enjoy using these oils, and would welcome customer feedback on how they're working!

Stourbridge Open Studios

Dates for the diary!  Visit the Stourbridge Open Studios event at the Ruskin Glass Centre on 18th and 19th May 2013.  It's going to be a great way to meet the artists and makers at the centre, to watch them at work and have a chat about their latest designs and projects.  Looking forward to a fantastic weekend!

Getting back to normal....

We're very pleased to be able to mention that the member of our family who was taken ill a couple of weeks ago, is now recovering well.  Thanks for all of the best wishes, we've received from customers.

The good news is that we're now expecting to be able to operate our usual shop opening hours again, as things get back to normal.  The only changes to our opening hours may be if we have to visit the hospital for appointments, but we'll make sure that any changes that have to be made to shop hours are posted here.

During this difficult time, we're pleased to be able to report that all of our internet orders were processed on time, so website customers will have received their orders promptly.  Thanks again for everyone's support and good wishes!

UPDATE:  Just as we thought things were going to be ok, we're back in the wars again.  Earlier this week another family member had an accident, which means we'll be spending more time at the hospital.  All internet orders have been processed as normal, but our Stourbridge shop will be closed on Friday. We're very sorry but this is all beyond our control and as a very understanding customer said earlier this week, family has to come first.  We will be open again tomorrow (Saturday), so if Stourbridge customers have urgent needs, please e-mail us at enquiries@naturalsoapworks.co.uk so we can advise on the best time to collect items.  Internet orders will continue to be processed as normal.  Once again, sorry for any inconvenience.  

Opening hours during w/c 8th April 2013

As we mentioned previously, a member of our close family was taken ill last week so it means that we're spending lots of time at the hospital.  

We've decided that in the coming week we'll try to open our Stourbridge shop whenever we can, but it's likely that we'll operate reduced opening hours each day and we may have to close at short notice.  We'll update our opening hours on this blog each day, in the hope that local customers won't visit the Ruskin Glass Centre only to find us closed. For urgent orders, we'd advise local customers to drop us an e-mail (at enquiries@naturalsoapworks.co.uk), so we can advise on likely timescales for manufacturing items / preparing hampers etc, and we may be able to make arrangements for certain items to be available for collection.

We're very sorry that all holistic therapy appointments have been cancelled for this week.  Our thanks to all of our clients for being so understanding, and we'll get in contact with new appointments as soon as possible.

Our websites will continue to accept orders, and these will be processed as normal.

Thanks to everyone for their patience and good wishes!

Due to unforseen circumstances....

Unfortunately due to an unexpected family illness, we're going to be closed for the next day or so.  We're sorry for any inconvenience caused, and hope to re-open our Stourbridge shop again as soon as possible.   For very urgent enquiries, please send us an e-mail to enquiries@naturalsoapworks.co.uk and we'll try to respond within 24 hours.

Our internet shops will continue to accept orders, and these will be processed as soon as we return to work.   Thank you for your patience.

A day in the life of The Soapworks

We haven't had time to post on the blog, Facebook and Twitter just lately - sorry, but it's because we've been so busy!   Mother's Day orders definitely kept us on our toes this year, and we're very pleased that everything went out quickly and the feedback has been so positive.  Thank you for taking the time to get in contact!

Lots of customers often ask us what it's like to work at the Soapworks, so we thought it might be interesting to give an insight into what goes on behind the scenes.  This is what we were up to yesterday....

It was an early start, to continue working on the re-design of the Natroma range.  Workshop customers have already spotted that we're changing the Natroma soap labels.  It involves lots of re-design work to change over each individual label, but we're trying to get it done asap.  Next it's onto answering e-mails and dealing with queries from wholesale customers. It's going to be a busy day since we have to get a large order of hampers ready, so help is on hand from a family member....always much appreciated!

Oops!  Is that the time....11am, so must open the shop.  Quickly turn on all the lights and discover that we already have a few customers waiting outside.  Spend some time advising them about which soaps to choose, and help some lovely ladies select some dowsers (we're expanding our range of natural crystals in our Stourbridge shop).  Then it's onto wrapping a hamper for another customer followed by some sales of bath bombs and one of the lovely new humming birds (just in, beautiful Swarovski crystal enhanced light catchers which we'll be adding to the Natroma website).

In the middle of serving customers, a delivery arrives so I have to man-handle a very large, heavy box out of the way....will have to check that everything's arrived ok later on!  Back to customers again and I'm wrapping another hamper with pretty Easter colours.  At last there's a break in shop customers, so I can switch to looking at the internet orders that have arrived so far today.  Thankfully everything's in stock, so it's just a matter of packaging everything up and printing out the dispatch labels.  Behind the scenes it's a hive of activity with freshly made fizzing butter melts being packaged, and soaps being labelled for the hamper order.

We have a visit from our Ruskin Glasshouse College students.  It's their last day of term so they've popped in to say goodbye, and we wish them well over the Easter break.  They've worked really hard and have enjoyed their work experience with us, and will be back again after the Easter break. 

Phew, where has the day gone?  It's 1.45pm and we haven't had lunch yet!  So there's just time for a quick sandwich before some more customers come into the shop.  I have a lovely conversation with some customers about using the soap, and then help another with selecting some nice essential oils to use around the house.   Another customer chooses some of our new fair trade floating candles (again these are new items that have just arrived, that will be added to the Natroma website soon), since they're lovely as small gifts.   Then it's back to preparing those hampers for the order that has to go out tonight....running out of time, don't panic!

Just as we're catching up on the hampers, more customers come into the shop.  Spend a little time advising about the Natroma skincare range and then it's back to finalising the internet orders.  Finally have everything done, so Paul heads off to the Post Office and we continue adding ribbons to those hampers!  It's 5pm, and at last the hampers are ready, so Paul returns and packages them into a shipping box.  He then heads off again for a journey into Shropshire to deliver the hampers.  We wouldn't usually personally deliver orders ourselves, but it's a lovely customer and the Bank Holiday meant we can't use a courier.  So since the hampers have to be there by Good Friday, it's time for the personal touch to make sure they arrive on time!

Back in the workshop, there's just time to place a last minute order for some items we'll need next week, and then we have a quick tidy before finally closing the shop.  I never did get around to checking off that order, so it'll have to be done in the morning.  It's now time to go home since it's after 7pm and there are some hungry cats waiting for their dinner!! 

New Spring Gift Hampers!

We've just uploaded some lovely new gift hampers onto the Natroma website.

Cherry Blossom Hamper by Natroma

Inspired by Spring, these bright and colourful gift hampers are wrapped in luxurious patterned organza or lace ribbons, and are finished with delicate cherry blossom flowers.  We've made sure they contain some of our most popular handmade goats milk soap and bathing products: hand decorated natural goats milk mini soap slices, pretty petal bath bombs and of course our ever popular organic fizzing butter melts! 

We've also included some Lip Silk organic lip balm in our Cherry Blossom Hamper - invaluable at this time of year, when lips are still feeling sore due to the colder weather.



Springtime Hamper by Natroma

We hope that the Relax, De-Stress and Exotic Rose themed hamper contents will offer gift recipients some much needed relaxation.  Other options include a new Exotic Hamper containing products enriched with Monoi de Tahiti and exotic essential oils including Ylang Ylang, Frankincense and Patchouli.  We think these hampers would be great for Mother's Day or perhaps as thoughtful calorie-free Easter gifts. 

The reaction from customers in our Stourbridge shop is that they look too pretty to open, but fingers crossed the products will be used...eventually!

Busy with some great gift ideas!

The Soapworks has returned back to normal now, and we've been really busy making loads of soap and trying to re-stock our Stourbridge shop!  It seems like everyone is running out of their favourite bathing or skincare products at the same time, so it's been lovely to see so many customers again and have a nice chat....but apologies if we sometimes have empty spots on the shelves!

Behind the scenes we've also been busy working on some new hampers for Mother's Day and the spring.  After all the reds and golds of Christmas, it's been lovely to work on some new hampers with bright Spring colours which would also be great low calorie gift ideas for Easter too!  More information will follow, once the new hampers have been photographed and uploaded to the websites.

Stourbridge customers will also be interested to know that we have some lovely new crystal pieces, tumblestones and jewellery available.  As usual these are hand picked one-off pieces, so we hope that you like them.

Sorry - closed due to the weather

Following heavy snowfall in the West Midlands today, we have been advised that the Ruskin Glass Centre will be closed on Saturday 19th January 2013.  The Centre car park has a covering of snow, and it won't be possible to clear the car park and driveway so it can be gritted to safely allow vehicle access.

We were unable to open today, so we have taken the decision to be closed during the coming days until conditions improve.   We will review our opening hours for the coming week on Monday 21st January, and will post the information here on our blog to ensure customers do not make unnecessary journeys to Stourbridge.  We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

A number of website orders were posted today, but we were advised by Royal Mail that there won't be any postal collections from the Birmingham area until Monday.   This means that all orders that were placed on our websites by 2pm on Thursday 17th January have been dispatched, but it is likely these orders may take an extra couple of days to arrive due to the disruptions to postal collections in our area.  Our thanks to website customers for your patience.

Fingers crossed everything will return to normal again, early next week!

UPDATE:  w/c 21st January 2013, we'll be opening our shop a little later than usual this week.  See the information on the right, for times for each day.

Thanks for all the good wishes over Christmas!

We're finally back to work after an extended Christmas break this year.  Phew! what a busy year 2012 was, and we really needed a little longer to recover.

So we just wanted to say thank you to everyone who's contacted us since Christmas to wish us well, say thanks and pass on lovely feedback about how gift recipients raved about their natural skincare goodies!  It's so lovely to hear that people appreciate what we do, so thank you so much for taking the time to write to us, or pop in for a chat now that we're open again.

Stourbridge customers who call in will see that our shop is looking very depleted at the moment....we're re-stocking and manufacturing as quickly as we can!  So if customers need anything urgently please don't hesitate to get in contact since we'll be happy to advise on product availablity and timescales for items that need to be made.

We also wanted to remind everyone that now that it's quieter, we'll be returning to our usual shop opening hours - 11am to 4.30pm Tuesday to Saturday.