Christmas Gifts and Postage Changes

We're pleased to be able to report that some of our Christmas gift hampers have now been uploaded to The Natural Soapworks web site.  This year we have a lovely selection of natural goats milk soap and bathing hampers, all at very affordable prices ranging from just £2.75 upwards!

At the same time as uploading some of the Christmas items, we've also reviewed our website postage.  We've been monitoring the average cost of posting out orders, and have decided to make a few changes to The Natural Soapworks site to help with Christmas orders.  The big news is that our standard postage cost has been reduced to just £3.00 per order!  This is for orders dispatched on a Standard 5-7 day Second Class Royal Mail service.  Customers will then have the option to upgrade to a Priority 2-3 day First Class service for an additional 75p.  We think this is the fairest way to calculate the postage costs, since it gives more customer choice.  In addition to these Royal Mail services, we've also introduced a courier option for an additional £5.50 which is excellent value for money on a next day signed for service.   We hope the courier option will be helpful for urgent or larger orders as Christmas approaches.

All that customers need to do is visit the postage page  on The Natural Soapworks site to add on any postage surcharges they may require for their orders.  Otherwise the Standard postage of £3.00,  will be automatically be added on by the Paypal checkout as usual.  Similar postage options will be added to the Natroma website in the coming weeks.  We hope these changes help to make this years Christmas orders just a little more affordable!

Christmas is coming!

What a fantastic few weeks it's been!  Our congratulations to the wonderful athletes and everyone involved in the Paralympics - it's been an inspirational and moving experience that we'll never forget and we're so proud of your achievements!

We've been watching loads of sport during the last few weeks, but behind the scenes at the Soapworks there's also been a festive aroma in the air!  Yes, 'that time of year' is rapidly approaching again and we've been busy making lots of festive soaps, and developing new hamper packaging etc.

So we just wanted to warn Stourbridge customers that our Christmas catalogue is already out (this is for orders that will be collected from the workshop).  For website customers, we hope to have the the Christmas gift and hamper range uploaded to the websites in the coming weeks.  

Fantastic Glass Festival!

We just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who visited us during the International Festival of Glass!  We intended to add a few words to the blog over the weekend, but we were so busy we never found the time in the end.  It was lovely to meet so many new and returning customers, and we're delighted that our special edition Festival soaps, bath bombs, home fragrancing and Glassmakers Balm (a lavender balm infused with sea buckthorn that would be perfect for supporting the skin with minor burns) proved to be so popular.  We still have a few of these left, so catch them while you can!

Wasn't the Glass Festival fantastic?  Over the weekend thousands visited the Ruskin Glass Centre and the new Glasshouse Arts Centre and Webb Corbett Visitor Centre.  Despite the weather, people flocked to see the many exhibitions, took part in workshops, watched live glass blowing/craftspeople at work, saw the completed Portland Vase (really gorgeous!) and sampled the excellent food and drink before popping in for some retail therapy.  The atmosphere was wonderful all weekend, and on the final evening it was amazing to see so many people packed into the Glass Centre for the glass auction!

We think the Festival has been a huge success, and the renovated building looks fantastic and is the perfect venue for the British Glass Biennale exhibition (as usual the craftsmanship is stunning).  So if you get the chance to visit the exhibition (it's open until 15th September 2012) and new visitor facilities, we'd highly recommend a visit!  For now, we're taking a well earned rest today (Tuesday 28th) and will be open again tomorrow, so see you soon!

Back to work!

After a lovely relaxing summer break, the workshop is open again from today.  Our thanks to the many customers who have ordered off our websites while we've been away. We'll be working around the clock to process these (with your free gifts), so your patience is greatly appreciated!

It's been a fantastic couple of weeks, and didn't Team GB do well at the Olympics!!  We were lucky enough to experience it first hand at the tennis, and echo what everyone has said about the wonderful organisation and atmosphere in London.  So to everyone involved, we'd just like to add our own congratulations - you did us proud!!   

Visitors to the workshop will see that we still have our bunting and flags out - we're now looking forward to the Paralympics!  So to round off a fantastic Summer, we'll continue to offer our special edition Celebration bathing products for another few weeks in the workshop.  We're also looking forward to the International Glass Festival which will be celebrated at the Ruskin Glass Centre and other Stoubridge venues over the August Bank Holiday weekend. Phew - we're going to be busy again!

 

Soapworks and Natroma Summer Holiday

Phew!  It's been such a busy year so far that we've decided to take a break during the next few weeks, to re-charge the batteries before things get really busy in the Autumn and to enjoy the Olympics of course!  This means that our Stourbridge shop will be closed for 2 weeks, re-opening again on Wednesday 15th August 2012. 

During this time our websites will continue to accept orders, but we'll be unable to process them until after we return to work.  Orders will then be dealt with in the date order they arrived.  We apologise if this causes any inconvenience, and look forward to seeing customers again soon!

We have a new soap offer on the Natroma and Natural Soapworks websites, for customers ordering over £25 for delivery within the UK!

These are lovely well matured palm-free coconut milk soaps, which have a wonderful creamy lather.  Catch these while you can since we're discontinuing this range, to make way for some new organic goats milk Natroma soaps which should be ready for launch in August.

May Monoi Offer!

We love Mono de Tahiti!  It's such a wonderfully user-friendly botanical oil that's suitable for use on all skin types.  It appears in many of our products, but it's also lovely on its own.

Try using it as a wonderful melting massage or bathing oil, or to smooth dry patches of skin, as a complete hot oil hair treatment (or applied to just the ends to tame frizzy hair), or perhaps as a light pre-moisturing facial oil, or as a natural alternative to night creams...the list seems endless!  Since it's made from coconut oil it's even suitable for use on oily, acne-prone skin types since it's absorbed into the skin without leaving any oily residue.  But we've also seen good results on drier, more mature skin, sensitive skin and on troubled skin conditions. 

But best of all Monoi de Tahiti smells just heavenly!!  It's made by macerating Tiare flowers in pure coconut oil, so smells like gardenia blossoms.

So as a special treat for customers during May, we'll add a FREE rollerball of Monoi to any UK orders placed on the Natroma or Natural Soapworks websites valued at over £25!  There's no need to quote any offer codes at the checkout, we'll automatically add your free gift to your order.  We hope you enjoy using your Monoi!