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Visionary Soap Bulletin - August 23-31, 2010
New Distributors Named
We are excited to announce that we have formalised distributor relationships with
Essential Trading Cooperative in Bristol and Suma Wholefoods in West Yorkshire. 
Both have placed initial orders and our products will be appearing in their
catalogues in September.  We have been working towards this for some time so
this is a great development for us!   Please drop us an email with any Visionary
Soap sightings in a shop near you!
Teaming Up With Ethical Superstore
We have been chosen by Ethical Superstore as the company they would like to
feature this autumn season.  Visionary Soap Company will appear on the front
cover of approximately 400,000 of their catalogues due to go out in September.   
Products will be available through the catalogue as well as online and their first
order went out this week.  This will be super exposure for us so please help
spread the word!
Introducing Township Trades' Nurture Range...
Another shipment of Fairtrade certified soap arrived this week from
Township Trades.  In a previous bulletin we announced that we were also ordering
an initial quantity of the group's award winning Nurture Range.   Well, two
varieties have now arrived, Freedom and Energy  As an introductory offer, order 
three bars of Nurture and get one bar FREE until August 31st.  No promo code is
necessary as we will automatically add this on to all qualifying orders. Let's show
these guys some great support as they are keen to see what our customers think
of their soap!
Do You Live In Brighton Or Canterbury?
We have teamed up with two Shared Earth shops in Brighton and Canterbury to
trial our products.   Our soaps, lip balms and gardener's hand salve will be on
offer starting this coming bank holiday weekend so if you live in the area, pop
into either of these great locations -
33 Burgate
Canterbury
CT1 2HA
20 Sydney Street
Brighton
BN1 4EN
Oxfam 'All Nighter' 
It was 'all hands on deck' to get our latest Oxfam order out these last couple of
weeks.  The Visionary Soap team put in a tremendous effort and we just managed
to get everything to Oxfam before it was due to go to their shops as well as
Oxfam Online.   Both soap and gift boxes were delayed from South Africa and
Nepal, but after pulling long hours and even an all nighter, we did it!   It all ended
with Rebecca and Monica loading several pallets onto a van with a dodgy tail lift,
over dosing on coffee and personally driving everything to Bicester.  So hey, if
you purchase our products this Christmas through Oxfam, you now have a story to
go along with them.  :)
Events & Donations
We will be at Emmanuel Ray's Socialite Evenings event this Thursday, August
26th in London.  Visionary Soap Company is sponsoring Emmanuel's goodie bags
at his events this year and will be collaborating with him on various projects (to
be announced).  We have also donated products to World Vision's Girls Night Out Event
on September 10th, the VIP Goodie Bags at the Fashion Lounge at London Fashion Week
on September 20th and the GUBA (Ghanaian UK Based Achievement) Awards on
October 27th.
 
Quick Reminder
 
Regular customers, please remember to take note of Promo Code - VSC2010.  This code is
good for 10% off every order with us, all the way through December 31, 2010.  Jot it down
and use it every time you place an order with us!

 
Visionary Soap Bulletin - August 2-8, 2010
Apologies for slipping off the radar lately!   Amongst a flurry of big sales presentations and
getting more and more orders out the door, time has become a very precious commodity.  
Some of us thought it wise to also sneak away on holiday before our busiest time of the y
ear - and by the looks of it, we are going to be very busy indeed!   Quite honestly, a weekly
bulletin was maybe a bit ambitious.  While most of you have appreciated the weekly updates,
some of you simply have not.  So hey, we realize we won't be able to please everyone ALL
the time so we will send these out as and when we can - sometimes weekly, sometimes not. 
We hope that sounds fair.  Incidentally, there is some exciting news to share this time, so
please read on...
New Packaging Has Arrived!
  
After months of liaising with designers and printers and most critically, finding money to
invest in new packaging in the first place, our new look is finally here.  We have started with
our best selling varieties of soap (Geranium Rose, Cinnamon Orange Clove, Lemongrass,
existing products (and some new ones) will be phased in shortly.  Feedback has been
tremendously positive so far.  The new packaging has been absolutely critical to the success
of our recent sales drive - so money well spent, we think!  Thanks again to all of you for your
long standing support and patience.  The days of printing & sticking labels in house are
almost behind us and boy oh boy does that feel good!
Fairtrade Certified Soap From Township Trades Has Arrived!
Despite labour strikes at the Port of Cape Town, our first shipment of Fairtrade certified soap
made by Township Trades has finally arrived.  Destined mostly for Oxfam and Traidcraft, we
are relieved to receive it!   The quality of soap the group is making for us is absolutely superb
and we are very proud of their efforts.  More Fairtrade certified soap is now on its way to us
(as well as initial quantities of Township Trades' signature Nurture Range).  Due to increasing
demand for Visionary's soaps, we have recently placed larger orders with them.  We have
ordered an additional 25,000 bars within the last month and are doing all that we can to offer
support as times have been particularly challenging for Township Trades lately.  Your
continued support, as always, is most appreciated and ultimately, what keeps this endeavour
rolling on.  Those of you waiting for your first bar of Fairtrade certified soaps from our promo
a while back, these will be with you shortly.  Speaking of Township Trades...
Director of The Fairtrade Foundation Visits Township Trades 
Harriet Lamb, Director of The Fairtrade Foundation, made a trip to South Africa in June to visit
various projects there and we are honoured to announce that she paid a special visit to
Township Trades.  You can read all about her visit to the group here.  A poignant experience
that mirrors our own when we have visited, this is a must read and vital support for what V
isionary Soap and Township Trades are trying to do!
 
  
 
Shea Butter Bath Melts Now Carry The Fairtrade Mark -This Week's Special Offer 
 
We have been using Fairtrade certified shea butter from Akoma Cooperative Multipurpose Society
in Ghana in all of our shea butter bath melts for months now but have just now found the time
to officially certify them Fairtrade.  Starting with Geranium Rose, Lavender and Lemongrass,
these now carry the Fairtrade Mark, with remaining varieties to be phased in shortly. 
Incredibly moisturising and luxurious, if you haven't yet tried these, we definitely recommend
doing so.  Spend a mimimum order of £20 this week and get a bag of six for free (retail value
£8.99).  No need for a promo code as this will automatically be added to all qualifying orders. 
This offer is exclusive of postage cost and good for Aug 2-8, 2010 only.
 
On The Sales Front...
 
We are eager to share some exciting sales news but all will be revealed in a couple of weeks'
time.  Suffice it to say that Monica and Rebecca have been hitting the sales front quite hard
and we are proud of what they have accomplished.   Across the UK, more and more people
are wanting to know where they can find our products.  We hope to soon deliver on that
demand!
 
Recent Reviews/Media
 
We met Catherine and Genevieve of Frost Magazine at Emmanuel Ray's Socialite Evenings in
July, as Visionary Soap Company is sponsoring his goody bags this year.   Both women were
keen to sample and review our products, which you can read here.  We particularly love how
our lip balms have been referred to as 'little pots of ethical heaven.'  Fantastic! 

Visionary Soap Weekly Bulletin - June 28-July 4, 2010

Announcing Our Partnership With Socialite Evenings!
Visionary Soap Company has been selected by London Socialite
and Fashionisto, Emmanuel Ray, as the brand he would like to
endorse at his Socialite Evenings events in 2010/11!  Impressed by
our ethics and depth of commitment to Fairtrade, as well as the 
Township Trades video, we will sponsor the goody bags at all of
Emmanuel's events this year.  We officially launch our partnership at
the Super Summer Showcase on July 1st at the Millennium
Knightbridge Hotel.  We will be presenting the Visionary Soap story
in a special speech to those in attendance on the evening and doing
product sampling as well.  And hey, we also get to glam ourselves up
a bit (much easier for the rest of the team than Monica!) and have some
fun as well!  For a full press release, please email us at
Update On Our Fairtrade Certified Soap Arriving From South Africa
Several of you have been in contact about our first shipment of
Fairtrade certified soap arriving from Township Trades as we know
you are excited to get your hands on it!  Unfortunately, there has
been a delay due to labour strikes at the Port of Cape Town and this
has held things up a bit.  The soap is now in transit and we will keep
you informed!  Oh, the joys of international logistics!
New Products On The Horizon
We are developing new products that we plan to launch in the
coming months.  Stay tuned for lovely sugar scrubs made with
Fairtrade certified sugar from Malawi, olive oil from Palestine and
various others scrumptious ingredients.   We are also considering
bath salts and a face cream.  New and improved versions of our bath
& body oils will follow shortly as well.  Marula and baobab oils are
both in the process of becoming Fairtrade certified and we plan on
incorporating these oils from these new suppliers, if at all possible.
Donation News
Thanks to all of you who have given us names of worthy organisations
that would welcome donations of soap offcuts.   We have an ever
growing pile of offcuts and never let them go to waste!  In addition to
donating these to a local women's refuge, we would like to hear from
you!  If you know of an organisation in your area, whether it be a 
homeless shelter, women's refuge, refugee center, church outreach
progamme, etc., and are happy to cover the shipping cost, do get in
touch and we'll see what we can do.  Confidentiality is often key for
these organisations so rest assured, utmost discretion will be used!
This Week's Special Offer
Our special this week are our Rooibos & Shea Butter and Melon & Ginger soaps
Order any two bars of either variety and get one FREE!   No promo code needed -
we know what to do! Offer good this week - June 28 through July 4, 2010.  Retail
orders only.
Also, regular customers, please take note of Promo Code - VSC2010.  This code
is good for 10% off every order with us, all the way through December 31, 2010. 
Jot it down and remember to use it every time you place an order with us!
Until Next Week...The Visionary Soap Team 

 


May 2010 Visionary Soap News - It's Our Birthday!
Apologies for not getting a newsletter out in April!  Things are gathering at
such a frantic pace at Visionary Soap Company and all of us at Hastings
HQ are not only trying to keep up with all the enquiries and orders we are r
eceiving but also trying to push forward some big projects!  Thanks again
for all of your continued support!  We are truly lucky to have such great
customers!Visionary Soap Company was officially founded on May 26, 2005 so hey,its
our fifth birthday! Its quite hard for us to believe as the journey has
been such a roller coaster ride - always manic and challenging but also
exciting, stimulating and certainly led first and foremost by a passion for fair
trade and social and economic justice!   Big developments are under way
at VSC as we enter our sixth year and it must be said, not much has been
easy with this venture!  There have been many challenges in the last couple
of months especially as we manouver the company through a rather large
growth phase.  Probably one of the biggest challenges has been the typical
scenario of an entrepreneur struggling to let go of certain tasks and transfer
information.   Monica is painfully learning the art of delegating but luckily,
she has a very supportive and understanding team who can deal with her
moments of angst!   From starting the company literally on our kitchen stove
5 years ago, things are certainly evolving much faster now and although it
presents many challenges, we are very excited about the future indeed!  To
give you a taster, we will be launching exciting new packaging and products
very soon, upgrading our internal systems to help process your orders more
efficiently and also hopefully allow you to see our products increasingly on
Britain's high streets!
 
Many of you will be interested to know that Rebecca, our Operations
Manager, returned from her month in South Africa and working with
Township Trades.  For those of you who missed our big news back in
February, Visionary Soap received official approval from the
Fairtrade Foundation to add Township Trades to our supply chain for our
Fairtrade certified cosmetic products, starting with our organic range of
soaps!  We see this as an incredibly groundbreaking achievement within
our industry and we are pleased to announce that Rebecca was there to
oversee our first bars of Fairtrade certified soap being made by the team.  
An approximate 9,000 bars of our best selling varieties - Geranium Rose,
have been made so far with more being produced shortly.  We expect this
soap to be shipped within the next 2-3 weeks and we will let you know once
it arrives.  The plan is to increasingly hand over our soap production to
Township Trades as well as explore production of other products.  Through
your purchases, not only do you support our various Fairtrade ingredient s
uppliers but also allow us to support job creation for Township Trades'
members!   Rebecca had a fantastic time working with the group and she
has put together a slideshow especially so you can see our first bars of 
Fairtrade certified soap being made in South Africa!  Please have a look!
 
We talk a lot about Township Trades so we also want to give exposure to
some of our Fairtrade ingredient suppliers.  We just received word that 1
000 liters of olive oil that we ordered directly from the
Palestinian Fair Trade Producers Company has now arrived at the Port of
Cape Town, ready for delivery to Township Trades.  1000kg of shea butter
from Akoma Cooperative Multipurpose Society in Ghana is waiting to be
loaded on a ship destined for Cape Town as well.  The logistics for getting
1000kg of cocoa butter from Conacado in the Dominican Republic continue
to challenge us but we think we are almost there.  And a very exciting bit of
news - 2000kg of coconut oil from Fair Trade Alliance Kerala in India
(along with ground cinnamon, ginger and turmeric) is currently being
arranged for shipment as well.  Fairtrade certified coconut oil has just come
on board as a certified ingredient and we are quite possibly the first
Fairtrade certified company to incorporate this into our products.  Across
our entire range, our products contain a very high percentage of Fairtrade
ingredients, much more than the minimum requirement for certification.  The
minimum percentage for a wash off product is 2% and prior to incorporating
Fairtrade certified coconut oil into our soaps, they contain on average
27% Fairtrade ingredients.  Since coconut oil makes up 30% of our soap
formulation, this will now allow us to produce our soaps containing 57%
Fairtrade certified ingredients.  We challenge you to find anyone else in our
industry in the UK that compares to that!
 
We also want to mention Get Paper Industry in Nepal as they have just
completed a 4000 unit handmade gift box order for us which is leaving
Nepal this week.  GPI produces gorgeous paper products of amazing
quality and we have worked with them before.  Since Oxfam UK has
selected us as their gift range for cosmetic products for Christmas 2010,
do look for our gift box sets in an Oxfam shop near you in the coming
months!
 
We want to remind local residents of our very supportive Hastings/St
Leonards stockists.  A beautiful new shop on George Street in Hastings
Old Town, called Soak, is now stocking most of our products.  Made in
Hastings on Old Town Hasting High Street, Bio-Five-O on Court House
Street, Eco Magpie on Queens Road and Trinity Wholefoods on Trinity
Street have all been loyal carriers of our products for some time.  And of
course, Swan House in the Old Town puts our soaps in their lovely B&B
and has done so for several years now!
 

Help us celebrate our 5 years of being in business - place any

online order now through the end of May and be guaranteed a free

bar of Fairtrade certified soap made by Township Trades once it

arrives in the UK.  Also, regular customers, please take note of Promo

Code - VSC2010.  This code is good for 10% off every order with us, all the

way through December 31, 2010.  Jot it down and remember to use it every

time you place an order with us!

 


Fairtrade Fortnight Press Release - 22 February 2010

Visionary Soap and Township Trades Team Up to Produce Fairtrade Certified Soap

Visionary Soap Company is very proud to announce that we have received official approval from the

Fairtrade Foundation to add Township Trades to our supply chain for our Fairtrade certified cosmetic

products, starting with our organic range of soaps!  We see this as an incredibly groundbreaking achievement

within our industry and for the past year we have been really pushing to make this happen. Being a 100% fair

trade-dedicated company, the 'vision' for us has always been to take fair trade into the manufacturing arena and

create further jobs and training opportunities for our suppliers.

Township Trades is a not for profit community enterprise serving Khayelitsha township, in South Africa. Their mission to

is lift young adults out of poverty by providing them with real jobs and business skills to become independent through trade.

Township Trades boasts the largest handmade soap production facility in southern Africa and aside from producing their

own range of award-winning soaps, will now increasingly be producing Visionary Soap Company's Fairtrade certified

soaps.

We have been telling the story of our relationship with Township Trades for nearly two years now.  There have been many ups

and downs, of course, and grassroots development, along with the increased demands of producing a handcrafted item en

masse (and with various Fairtrade ingredients involved), is a huge enough challenge.  Combine that with the task of having our

products appeal commercially in the highly competitive cosmetics industry, achieving economies of scale as a small but rapidly growing

company, constantly having to adapt to the needs and demands of our ever growing customer base AND simultaneously working

tirelessly to get the word out about what we are trying to achieve and how that makes us different...Well, you can probably imagine

that it can feel quite daunting at times!   We have worked very hard to establish our partnership with Township Trades, just as

we have with all of our other fair trade suppliers, and this has been one of the the biggest challenges that we would have ever

imagined to experience on both a personal and company level. We take great pride in being able to share this with our customers!

 

Township Trades Photos 213Township Trades Photos 204


Press Release - 12 November 2009

Visionary Soap Founder to Present Fair Trade Case Study at Sustainable Cosmetics Summit

Monica Norley, founder of Visionary Soap Company, will be speaking

at the Sustainable Cosmetics Summit (16th – 17th November 2009) in

Frankfurt, Germany. The company has become a leading Fairtrade certified

soap and body care company, with all of its products now carrying the Fairtrade

Mark. A range of Fairtrade certified ingredients in the finished products are

sourced from producers in Palestine, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Sri Lanka, Nicaragua,

The Dominican Republic and South Africa.



Monica started Visionary Soap Company as a dedicated fair trade enterprise

in 2005. Her vision has always been for the company to take Fairtrade one

step further through its manufacturing processes and has therefore been the

driving force behind establishing a fair trade partnership with an inspiring

social enterprise in South Africa, called Township Trades.



Monica will present a Fairtrade Case Study of Visionary Soap Company and

discuss the potential to use Fairtrade ingredients in Visionary’s products, what

ingredients and what sources, the opportunities and challenges and will review

the impact of using certified ingredients in Visionary products on third world producers.

To learn more about the summit,
visit http://www.sustainablecosmeticssummit.com/.

To learn more about Fairtrade Beauty, visit www.fairtrade.org.uk/beauty.


Recent Media/Articles/Newsletters

Ethics Girls Fairtrade Office Christmas Party Article

Ethics Girls - From Bedroom to Big Time

Ethical Consumer

Natural Products Online

Green My Style

Ethics Girls - First Fairtrade Marked Beauty Products

All Voices

TriodosNews - Spring 2009


 
 
 
 

 
 
 
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