Good Morning! Happy sunday everyone. I have an interesting tale to tell you...
Lavender. You either love it or hate it, but one thing is clear- it's healing powers are hugely underestimated. Not only does it help you sleep, it is also an excellent remedy for sunburn (cool bath with a few drops of well-dispersed Lavender essential oil- a bath bomb is ideal), Insect stings (maximum 3:20 ratio or 15% mix of essential oil to base oil applied directly), cuts and grazes (try our Boo-Boo Balm!) and all manner of first aid. Not just a pretty scent, and with so many varieties the choice can be somewhat bewilering! We use Lavandula angustifolia in our Soapy preparations and it is the most common essential oil you can find. however if you want to encourage bees and butterflies into the garden, Lavandula Stoechas is King purely for the flowers. Personally for my garden as well as Stoechas I grow Lavandula angustifolia Hidcote for the scent, and if I can ever get a decent price on it I'll be planting Imperial Gem. The colour is astonishing. However, I digress....
I'll tell you a story. My daughter (9) was stung by a brown tailed moth caterpillar yesterday. I've never seen the like. Within a few minutes a bumpy, nettle-like rash had appeared and I could tell it was very painful and hot. The moment we got home I gave her an antihisthamine and some paracetamol. An hour later- when nothing had touched it- I ran her a lukewarm bath into which I put a Laa-Di-Lavendaaar bath bomb (I knew there was a reason I'd had it a week and not used it! Not like me at all...). I helped her bathe the rash on her face, neck and hands and slowly the redness abated and the heat went out of the rash. It also helped her nod off at bedtime.This morning it looks like she fell into stinging nettles, poor love. She's asking for another Lavender bath though!
I hope you all manage to avoid these little nasties, they really are amazingly toxic. If you see them, please don't touch them unless your whole body is covered, and you are wearing a face mask (yes really- the hairs break off and become airborne meaning you can breathe them in instantly!). Good news is they are only a worry for another 4-5 weeks!
We're offering 20% off of our Lavender Shop today as a thank you to this humble herb, just click here for our range- Lavender Shop
Have a great sunday,
Saturday 7 May 2011
Happy Birthday Little Shop!
Yes, a whole year old. One can hardly believe we've been trading from Portland Road for a whole year! It's seen so much in that year. 3 employees, an NVQ2 in Retail for Ben (AKA Butterman- long story), a leaky loo, scary shelving, snow chaos and unutterable stress, soap making at gone 3am, 3 complete shop changearounds and 2 new printers. We're not so good with those...
Since we've opened one thing is clear- shoppers (especially internet shoppers) love it. Funny that it's made the internet site busier than it's ever been, one customer commented that 'it gives you credibility, I feel safer knowing that you have a proper shop'. I'll be honest and say that if the shop was the sole source of income, we wouldn't still be trading today as the traffic past the shop is low (we've seen 3 competitors close down because if this), but with the strength of our well established website we're doing great things.
One of our biggest stumbling blocks has been our despatch times, something recently we've improved on and I personally am very proud of that. A combination of different working patterns and practice, more raw materials in stock at any given time, a slimmed down product range (though no-one has really noticed!) and better stocked shelves in the shop have made this happen. One cannot ignore either the massive improvement Fedex has made to our shipping times either! Of course, mistakes do happen when picking and packing, but we always like to think that we recify mistakes promptly. We're only human after all :)
One thing we do know- our customers make us fantastic. Just the other day I was sat on the bus and I overheard a lady literally hopping about telling her friend about our little shop. She was shouting our praises from the top of her lungs bless her, that sort of praise really does mean the world and it spurs me on to make bigger, better and funkier products.
Lets be honest, we're in a recession, we're all sick of hearing about coalition cuts, austerity measures blah blah blah, so lets make one thing better. Lets have a truly awesome bath time with fabulous scent, maybe some petals, glitter, a few bubbles (yes, I know, I need to make a wider variety of bubbly bath bombs- eyes peeled!) but ultimately lets do it without paying ridiculous prices! Handmade shouldn't mean rip-off, but it should mean great service, top quality and brilliant creativity and individuality.
We're celebrating a whole year of shop trading with a week of competitions, prizes and special offers for the most important people to us- YOU. And we're starting today. So, any orders placed today will go into a draw to win the cost of their order back, no minimum, no maximum. We'll refund it straight back the way you paid, and we'll pick the winner using random.org, a random number generator (it's very clever I must say!). Of course, T&C's apply, we'll add those at the end of our post, so the only thing left to say is Be Lucky!
Thanks for your support, at the end of it all I'm just a mum, raising her kids and making soap as a way to make ends meet and to satisfy my creative impulses. I had dreamed I would have a shop and a huge customer base, but like most dreams it can seem out of reach. Guts, imagination and a little craziness all helped the cause!
Sam x
Competition rules-
1-Valid for individual purchases on the 8th May 2011 (00:01am-23.59pm) only.
2-The winner will be generated randomly on the 9th May using the Sequence Generator at random.org. The first number in that sequence is the winner.
3-The winner will receive the cost of their order in full (including P+P) back via the way they paid.
4-There is no minimum or maximum order amount to qualify.
5-Not valid for Consultants, family or employees of The Soapy Cauldron.
6-Only one purchase will receive the refund, we cannot combine several orders from one customer.
7-A list of customer names and website order numbers (format A. Smith 715) and entry numbers will be added to the blog and our facebook page, winners will be published in the same manner.
I think thats it. Have fun!!
Since we've opened one thing is clear- shoppers (especially internet shoppers) love it. Funny that it's made the internet site busier than it's ever been, one customer commented that 'it gives you credibility, I feel safer knowing that you have a proper shop'. I'll be honest and say that if the shop was the sole source of income, we wouldn't still be trading today as the traffic past the shop is low (we've seen 3 competitors close down because if this), but with the strength of our well established website we're doing great things.
One of our biggest stumbling blocks has been our despatch times, something recently we've improved on and I personally am very proud of that. A combination of different working patterns and practice, more raw materials in stock at any given time, a slimmed down product range (though no-one has really noticed!) and better stocked shelves in the shop have made this happen. One cannot ignore either the massive improvement Fedex has made to our shipping times either! Of course, mistakes do happen when picking and packing, but we always like to think that we recify mistakes promptly. We're only human after all :)
One thing we do know- our customers make us fantastic. Just the other day I was sat on the bus and I overheard a lady literally hopping about telling her friend about our little shop. She was shouting our praises from the top of her lungs bless her, that sort of praise really does mean the world and it spurs me on to make bigger, better and funkier products.
Lets be honest, we're in a recession, we're all sick of hearing about coalition cuts, austerity measures blah blah blah, so lets make one thing better. Lets have a truly awesome bath time with fabulous scent, maybe some petals, glitter, a few bubbles (yes, I know, I need to make a wider variety of bubbly bath bombs- eyes peeled!) but ultimately lets do it without paying ridiculous prices! Handmade shouldn't mean rip-off, but it should mean great service, top quality and brilliant creativity and individuality.
We're celebrating a whole year of shop trading with a week of competitions, prizes and special offers for the most important people to us- YOU. And we're starting today. So, any orders placed today will go into a draw to win the cost of their order back, no minimum, no maximum. We'll refund it straight back the way you paid, and we'll pick the winner using random.org, a random number generator (it's very clever I must say!). Of course, T&C's apply, we'll add those at the end of our post, so the only thing left to say is Be Lucky!
Thanks for your support, at the end of it all I'm just a mum, raising her kids and making soap as a way to make ends meet and to satisfy my creative impulses. I had dreamed I would have a shop and a huge customer base, but like most dreams it can seem out of reach. Guts, imagination and a little craziness all helped the cause!
Sam x
Competition rules-
1-Valid for individual purchases on the 8th May 2011 (00:01am-23.59pm) only.
2-The winner will be generated randomly on the 9th May using the Sequence Generator at random.org. The first number in that sequence is the winner.
3-The winner will receive the cost of their order in full (including P+P) back via the way they paid.
4-There is no minimum or maximum order amount to qualify.
5-Not valid for Consultants, family or employees of The Soapy Cauldron.
6-Only one purchase will receive the refund, we cannot combine several orders from one customer.
7-A list of customer names and website order numbers (format A. Smith 715) and entry numbers will be added to the blog and our facebook page, winners will be published in the same manner.
I think thats it. Have fun!!