The Great Palm Oil Debate

Palm oil is something of a buzz subject at the moment, and we are regularly contacted by members of the public asking why on earth we are still using Palm Oil.

The simple answer is that Palm Oil is a great ingredient. It's the production and farming methods that are not. Most of us know about the plight of the Sumatran Orang-utans in the face of slash-and-burn deforestation to name just one environmental crisis. So, when we choose products and ingredients with Palm oil or one of it's derivatives, we actively seek out and exclusively use suppliers that are using 100% RSPO Certified Segregated Sustainable Palm Oil and Palm Kernel Oils. RSPO is a not-for-profit association that unites stakeholders from seven sectors of the palm oil industry – oil palm producers, palm oil processors or traders, consumer goods manufacturers, retailers, banks and investors, environmental or nature conservation NGOs and social or developmental NGOs – to develop and implement global standards for sustainable palm oil with the objective of promoting the growth and use of sustainable palm oil.


We also choose surfactants (bubbling agents) that are made from organic Coconut oil- SLSA, Cocamidopropyl Betaine and even our Polysorbate 20!

Palm oil is everywhere. Literally. Even when you think it isn't, it is. Palm oil is found mostly in foods such as ice cream, biscuits and cookies, instant noodles, most pre-packed ready meals, chocolate, margarine and bakery fat, and also in most cosmetics that contain SLS (Sodium Lauryl Sulphate), SLES, or Stearic Acid. Also plastics, lubricants, textiles, animal feed and in pharmaceutical products. Even an innocent Vitamin E capsule could have traces of Palm.

So what is the answer? Give in to it? Boycott it totally? We think the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Choose products that are farmed in accordance with RSPO. Research for yourself. Know that Palm oil itself is a superior ingredient both as a foodstuff and in the cosmetics, plastics, metalworks and pharmaceutical industries, not to mention and amazing resource for the farmers that produce it. As the saying goes- don't throw the baby out with the bath water...

How Can I Make A Natural Face Pack?

'How Can I Make A Natural Face Pack?'
It's easier than you may think! Using the simple ingredients you can find in your kitchen, you can make your very own natural face packs. You can even make them for your own skin type!

First, a couple of ground rules.
1- Always avoid your eyes. It hurts, it can cause damage, just avoid!
2- NEVER store unused face pack for use later. It will go off and it can harbour some seriously scary bacteria, one of which can cause blindness. Just make enough for one use and put the rest on the compost heap!

Okay, scary stuff aside, lets look at some great base recipes. The method is the same throughout unless stated- mix to the right consistency and slap it on for 5-10 minutes, rinse off well and pat your face dry.

Porridge Chops. Probably the simplest and gentlest is Oats and Milk. Yep. Porridge. Oatmeal is a long-held natural wonder for skin, and when you use it on your face you'll see why. Milk is fabulous to mush it all up and bind it. If you like, you can add Honey and/or brown sugar as well. One heaped tablespoon of dry porridge oats is enough for one face, add the rest of the ingredients until you have a paste. Perfect for sensitive and over-dry skin.

Banana (Wo)Man. As above- start with Porridge Oats, but this time mash half a banana into it along with a squeeze of lemon juice and then your milk etc. Over-ripe banana's are perfect for this! Great for Oily Skin.

Avocado Mash-up. Over-ripe Avocado? No Problem. Mash that bad-boy up, add some natural yogurt and a squeeze of lemon and slather it on. This is good for Combination skin!

Kiwi Ap-Peel. If you want a chemical peel at home, simply take one ripe Kiwi, remove the skin and blitz it in a blender. Spread the resulting runny pulp onto your skin (avoiding the eyes ;) ) and leave for a maximum of 5 minutes. The acids in the Kiwi give you a chemical peel without the scary chemicals. We would not advise this for sensitive skin!

Scrub me Sugar! Need a quick but effective sugar scrub? Simply mix one teaspoon of brown sugar (Demerara works best) with a drizzle of regular Olive Oil and use as a gentle scrub on your face for amazing results. Best done last thing at night to really see the effects the following morning! Perfect for those of us blessed with flaky patches...

I hope you enjoy trying these out! Let us know how you get on...

How Can I Treat Eczema Naturally?

'How Can I Treat Eczema Naturally?' is one of the most common questions I get asked here at TSC. Often it's an exasperated parent that has exhausted the knowledge of the NHS and their child is no better than when they started. Now, I would never advise anyone to go against a Doctor or prescription, so these anecdotal tips are all things that work perfectly well alongside conventional medicine.

First- eliminate unnecessary chemicals from your child's skincare and bathing routine. This may sound obvious to some, but does your 3 year old really need chemically packed commercial shampoo's, conditioners and bubble baths? The level of SLS in some products is on a par with washing up liquid, and will do nothing positive for anyone's skin. If you really must use a bath additive, seek out something with far gentler ingredients. Avoid SLS (Sodium Lauryl Sulphate), SLES (Sodum Laureth Sulphate) and both Cocamide DEA and Cocamide MEA all of which are surfactants (SURFace ACTiveAgeNTS- clever ;) ). Also Monopropylene Glycols and Parabens used as preservatives are harsh on the skin. Good and gentle alternatives are Cocamidoproyl Betaine, Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate (sounds the same as SLS huh? This is actually derived from coconuts and is incredibly gentle), Disodium Lauryl Sulfoccinate. There are many gentle alternatives to regular soaps, look for an SLS-Free alternative!

Second- find an excellent moisturiser that doesn't contain Mineral Oils. Mineral oils-AKA Paraffin oil- is a by-product of the petroleum industry, it is made from Crude Oil and it incredibly cheap to buy. Cheaper than disposing of it even. This is, of course, a finite resource: when it's gone, it's gone. Many people have reported to me and others in the cosmetics industry that Mineral Oil is marvellous in the short term for moisturising, but after a while it simply stops working. I have never heard this about natural oils and butters such as Shea Butter, Cocoa Butter, Coconut oil, Sweet Almond Oil and Vitamin E oil, to name a few. From my own personal experience I can report much better results from using Shea Butter on my childrens skin than mineral oil-based creams and emollients. Try it- smooth on some regular Olive Oil after a bath and see how much nicer your skin feels in the morning. Best of all, natural plant-based oils wash out of fabrics easily. Mineral oil takes a lot of work and a LOT of chemicals to remove!

Third- Keep an eye on foods and flare-ups. Sometimes a food will cause a flare up. Now, this isn't always the case but it really can be as simple as that, especially if you are mystified by the cause. Eczema can be part of the body's response to a sensitivity. I'm not talking food allergies, these are something else entirely and you will KNOW when your child is allergic; it's an immuno-response and while Eczema can also be a result of a food allergy, you'll see the allergy before you see the eczema!

We at The Soapy Cauldron specialise in sensitive skin care with the emphasis on bringing fun back to boring bath times. Why not give us a call on 01273 416479 or visit our website at www.thesoapycauldron.co.uk for more information, advice, or a good old nosey.

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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
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Never Underestimate Lavender...

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!!