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 
info@visionarysoap.co.uk.
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 hasbeen 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, 
Lemongrass, Cinnamon Orange Clove, Lavender and our Gardener's Soap 
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!
  
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.                                                                               
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