It's busy at The Natural Soapworks again!

Sorry it's been a while since we last posted, but it's been a little busy at The Natural Soapworks just lately! Anyone who's spotted our page on Facebook, will have seen that Paul recently achieved his Level 4 in Advanced Sports Massage. It's a fantastic achievement since this is a very challenging level of study, and means that we can now offer remedial and preventative sports massage therapy in our on-site treatment room. We have no doubts that Paul is going to be very busy, and he'll be happy to discuss treatment options with prospective new clients.

We've also been busy manufacturing lots of natural skincare too, and we're delighted to welcome the return of some old favourites! The first is Blue Lagoon, our gorgeous exotic soap that's enriched with Monoi de Tahiti which started life as a special edition soap but became so popular that we had to keep on making it. We decided to give it a facelift since we weren't happy with the depth of colour of the bar (it used to be striped), so it now has a lovely blue colour with a purple swirl. Blue Lagoon has a deep, sweet and exotic aroma which is heavy with ylang ylang and vetiver, lifted with citrus notes. Blue Lagoon is available in our shop and on The Natural Soapworks website.

We're also re-releasing our rhassoul clays masks! Regular users will remember that these were withdrawn earlier in the year, after we received feedback that the mask was becoming too thick for the airless pump packaging and the nozzle was becoming blocked. But we had so many requests for them to return, that we had to find a solution. These masks have always been a favourite with us, since they were specifically developed to support break outs and gently deep-cleanse the skin (use once or twice each week). They have a lovely creamy texture so will not set on the skin, making them lovely to use and easily removed with a muslin cloth after a facial treatment. The masks are available in Rose and Orange Blossom fragrances, and have been repackaged into glass jars. Jars aren't our favourite method of packaging cosmetics since it's so easy for fingers to contaminate the product, so we'd suggest that the mask is removed with a spatula. These are available on the Natroma website, and we hope everyone enjoys using these again!

Finally we wanted to mention that we'll be closed between Friday 15th - Monday 18th July inclusive, since we'll be attending a National Trust Summer Fair at Attingham Park in Shropshire. Last year it was a lovely event, so we're really looking forward to attending again.

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!

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!

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!