Workshop Saturdays (and Wednesdays!)

So its saturday again which means 1 thing- its a workshop day! We love holding workshops, not only is it great meeting new people, its a brilliant way to teach people a wide range of skills and impart useful information. Today is a big workshop day, that is, 3 hour Soap, Bath Bombs and Salts. We offer participants a staggering range of fragrances to choose from, usually about 75 to 100, so they can make their perfect product. The first hour is usuallytaken up just sniffing all of the scents to the soundtrack of 'ooh' 'aah and 'ewwww':D

Once they have made their selections, we introduce them to the soap colours, dried flowers and botanics, and most importantly, GLITTER! Even the men go gaga for our glitter range.

The first soap we make is a traditionally moulded soap in one of our fantastic Milky Way Soap Moulds. We love MW, their moulds are out of this word (geddit? See what we did there?!) With the added bonus of durability and toughness.Believe me, we really do punish our moulds. Poor things.

Second soap we make is a mini loaf usuing a technique we call the Marble Swirl. Want to know how to do it? Come to a workshop ;) This is a technique that baffles and dismays almost everyone that tries it. They pour the soap and then regard it with a puzzled, slightly disadisappointed expression, and they convince themselves it hasn't worked. Have faith! I say...

After that, wr move on to the bath bombs. Now, this is the point we get slightly nervous at. You never really know how this will turn out. The simple fact is, Bath Bombs are unpredictable, temperamental, but utterly glorious when they work! Luckily, we know the fragrance oils that are most likely to produce the best bath bombs so we steer our participants in the right direction to avoid heartbreak.

After a clean up (as Sam says, you've not had fun if you haven't made a mess) and a tea break, we crack on with the Bath Salts. By far the easiest of the 4 assignments, these are probably the most instantly gratifying. The colours are always stunning, no matter what. Joy!

Then we move on to the packaging. I'll let you in on a secret- Sam has a serious ribbon addiction. She can't just order 1 colour, she has to have 2 or 3 and of course they arrive in packs of 5 rolls with 500 meters on each... so when she says she has miles of ribbon, take it literally.

The most common comment we get from the workshop is 'wow, look at all the stuff we made! I had no idea we would make so much!' Swiftly followed by 'I had such a good time'. Its wonderful to be able toshare our passion with the public in such a hands on way, and to bring out the child like joy of discovering something totally new and previously mystical to so many people. Once we get into the new premises we will be able to do it so much better.

Have a great weekend Cauldronites! Xx
Www.thesoapycauldron.co.uk

Catchup and news!

Well! It's been absolutely ages since I last posted so, here is the news...

Its been almost 3 years since we opened the shop in Hove, and it has been an amazing period of tranformation for us. We are now running workshops and kids birthday parties, the wholesale site has kicked off massively. We've just taken delivery of 1.3 tonnes of dry ingredients for bath bombs which is an astonishing amount.

Probably the biggest change for us is that we are moving to larger premises at the end of April. We will be moving in to Bizspace in Hove which is ideal for our needs. The lady that runs it is an absolute sweetheart which is also a bonus! Best bit? More workshops, more birthdays, more new products!

Massive massive news for the cosmetics industry is that there is now, as of yesterday, a complete and total ban on Animal Testing within the EU. At last!! Its only taken 20 years... So what does it mean? Well, it means that any NEW product that has been tested on animals, or any ingredient or combination of ingredients that has been tested on animals since the 11th March 2013 is banned within the EU. They wont even be allowed to advertise it. Lets not forget that there will always be a heritage of animal testing within the cosmetics industry, and even the most innocent of products and ingredients will probably have been tested in the distant past, but the important thing is that it has stopped. Of course, one hopes that the rest of the world will follow suit, but only time will tell. So hooray to all of the people that campaigned, fought and begged for this to happen, and we pay tribute to all the poor animals that suffered and died so that we could look a little less rough and smell a little sweeter. Seems so pointless in comparison :(

More news soon, and pictures of the new home of The Cauldron xx
Www.thesoapycauldron.co.uk
Like us on Facebook! Facebook.com/TheSoapyCauldron

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!!

Party Planning?

Hello again! I recently hosted one of my Soapy Cauldron soap parties, and I was reminded just why I love doing them. I get to speak to people that have a specific interest in buying my products, and they genuinely want to know what the Cauldron is all about.

Of course, there are down sides. Lugging the kit about isn't fun- the consultants I have usually have a small kit unless they choose to top up of their own accord, but my kit? One at least of everything in the shop!! Remembering all the other bits to bring, catalogues, order forms, a calculator (or indeed remembering to buy a new one because you smashed the last one after dropping the cash box on it), a change float (see previous!), pens, bags, testers, plus bits for party games. But you know? It all adds to the build-up. I get incredibly nervous before I do a party. You'd think after 3 years of hosting them I'd have that bit beaten but no, it seems selling soap face to face in that environment still gets my nerves jangling. These are, of course, small downsides to what is essentially a very satisfying evening. Thankfully the products sell themselves, there is something about handmade soap and general pampering that appeals to women- and men for that matter! Bath bombs are always a fascination as well, and the touch test afterwards is popular as the water is so soft and silky.

I have this one consultant who is a veritable powerhouse of enthusiasm and ideas. We love her :D At 25% of party sales kept for herself (thats what our consultants earn) she's on a pretty penny there. To illustrate- the soap party I just did took £130. Thats with only 6 guests including the hostess. At 25% a consultant would have earned £32.50, we also got 2 more party bookings. The biggest single soap party I've hosted? 17 people and we took £315! Hard work but worth every moment.

We know that one of our biggest issues previously was our turnaround time, sometimes it would take 3+ weeks to get orders out which I knew wasn't good enough. We've worked so hard to change that now that we have the shop and now the maximum we'd expect anyone to wait is 10 working days. Obviously sometimes this isn't achievable but we'll always keep people in the loop as much as possible.

Do you fancy trying consultancy? This time of year is ideal, as the build up for Christmas is approaching. Not just family and friend gifts either, don't forget teachers, the milkman (they love the detox bath bombs, helps ward off their colds!), postie... Take a look here- http://www.thesoapycauldron.co.uk/index.php?main_page=page&id=4

Wow, it's been ages... ♥

Yep, absolutely ages since we last updated our Blog. So much has happened that it's hard to know where to begin really! So I'll take up where we left off...

So I signed the lease on the 24th April, and things really kicked off. I had a date for opening- 8th of May- and nothing was going to stand in my way! Not the electricity people ('Yes madam, we'll be along on the 11th May to put the fuse in'), not BT ('Ooh, this might actually shatter the whole window...'), not even Ikea selling us the wrong size doors for the cabinets!

I've never put so much flat-pack furniture together in one go either. Ye gods, my hands were a mess! If it wasn't for our newly-made Whipped Shea Butter I'd have been sunk. I did everything, I even wired lights up. The only thing that was beyond my remit was plumbing in a new sink and re-routing an electric socket, so a million thanks go to Tor.

The moment the fascia went up I wept like a baby. It is stunning. More than I wanted to pay but then the 'handy' man that took the letting agents sign down absolutely ruined the existing fascia boards, so it was unavoidable. Who cares though, it's bright, clean, eye-catching and 100% what we were supposed to have!

After that it was a race to get ready, stock into the shop, gaps to be filled, and plenty to make pretty. We opened and the first person through the door was a charming gentleman that wanted an organic soap. He then proceeded to tell us all about saponification, did we realise that that is what makes soap (ya think he he)? Yes, and he's been in 4 times since then and said the exact same thing each time. We love local colour :)

The first day was brilliant, exhausting but absolutely wonderful. Since then we've gone from strength to strength. Even the news of soap shops in the neighbouring town hasn't worried us as we sell completely different products, plus customers love to see the open work area where we make it, it's fascinating for them. Our 2 websites, www.thesoapycauldron.co.uk and www.wholesale.thesoapycauldron.co.uk have increased in traffic as well, we think it's because customers can see the shop.

Our latest additions are soap cakes- they've made a massive comeback! Also Lip Balms and a fabulous product called Pout Polish which is a sugar and Shea scrub for your lips.

Well, I think that's all for now, we'll be sure to update you more often from now on!

Good shop news at last...

Hooray! On friday I signed the lease on my new shop (pictured left). I'm so excited I can't sleep properly, well, excitement and a good dose of what Lily Allen terms 'The Fear'. The to do list is seemingly endless, thankfully I already have some pretty big stuff sorted such as customers, products etc (LOL). Also sorted is the PDQ machine for taking cards (this also means being able to take payments over the phone, something we're increasingly asked if we can facilitate), shop fittings- just gotta fit it together which could be easier said than done, staff, insurance...

Still to do? Fascia, cleaning and decorating, populating the shop, advertising (though my gob alone would probably do it he he), fitting a stainless steel sink to replace the miniscule hand basin that currently resides, shifting the 4 draw steel filing cabinet... Thats a job in itself!

All while keeping up with orders. We're getting through them much faster now that the storage unit is housing the shop fittings- previously it was sat in the middle of my workroom taking up valuable space, hence the long delays getting stuff out. Nightmare!

Well! Next job in the shop is cleaning and painting. The latter doesn't really need doing but I feel a splash of colour will really lift the whole place (again, not that it needs it but I love colour and can't live and work in Kansas, Toto, take me to the Emerald City ;) ). The unit has been empty for a whopping 2 years which I find hard to understand, it's a lovely unit, good decorative state, beautiful lighting with recessed spotlights in the ceiling and floor! Laminate wood floor, heck it even has a fitting in the bay window that I've got a lovely light for...

Advertising and SEO on the two websites continues with a lot of focus being put back on the retail site, www.thesoapycauldron.co.uk , as our wholesale cosmetics site now is quiet and we anticipate it being so until about july/august when our stockists start thinking about Christmas. There, I said it! Yes, we are planning that far ahead. As my Nan used to say, fail to plan, plan to fail :) We'll be pushing our gift baskets heavily this year within the shop, and we'll have a gift wrap service available all year round for a nominal fee. We offer 2 types of basket finish- shrink-wrapped (top pic, Rhubarb and Custard Gift Basket) and cellophane fronds (middle pic, Bath Bomb Selection Basket). The latter is stunning and great for dressing up an otherwise uninspiring basket (mostly this doesn't happen, but occasionally you'll get a basket request and feel it needs jazzing up a bit). The former lets the baskets beauty shine through and is fantastic for baskets with a good assortment of items and colours, and for smaller baskets. At Christmas we'll be adding metallic wire edged ribbon for extra pizzazz among other things for a lovely festive feel.

Back to today, I can't do anything about the shop (probably a good thing) so I'll be doing mundane housework, lovely playing with kids and a spot of shea butter whipping with soap making and a wholesale order to finish on the agenda for this evening...

Busy, just as I like it :)