Pure Nuff Stuff

It must be nearly Christmas or something, we're all running about getting orders out, the workshop is busy as a busy thing (we've got two work experience kids with us at the minute too, what were we thinking?) and we've had to put some more shelves in the shop to cope with all the extra stock. So, in between painting the shelves, I'm gilding the Gold soaps for the Gold, Frankincence & Myrrh box seets and trying to keep the website updated.

Helen's been busy today making up all the gift boxes, with a bit of help from the teenagers, on top of getting all the Custom orders made. Dean's not too well at the moment, so we sent him home, I miss him! Doug's been down in the soap dungeon ever since he got in this morning, I suspect he's creating something new but I daren't go down and see to be honest, heaven knows what he's up to. If it turns out better than his soap on a rope experiment, I'll let you know :).

posted by Emily @ 14:43

click to add a comment

Saturday 13th December 2008

Christmas break

What do you mean you are having some time off...outrageous ;-) !!!! Thanks for getting my last 08 order to me suitably fast. Just really wanted to reiterate that the price rises are never nice but the reactions below seem quite extreme. Actually getting a little annoyed reading them...surely everybody knows that at the very least transportation costs will have doubled due to the price of oil????????? not to mention the plastic bottles which is recycled but fuel still needs to be used to make this etc. Anyway rant over now HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY...lots of love

posted by Heleng @ 09:35

click to add a comment

Friday 5th December 2008

What's happened to the prices?

Been thinking of ordering some goodies and finally thought i'd do it if I was to get them before Christmas, but today I discovered there is a bit of a big jump of the price of the cream dream, it was 5.95 last week, it's over £7 now :-( Comes as a bit of a shock. And not only the cream dream, but the shower gel and face wash I was thinking of getting.

posted by BG @ 19:05

click to add a comment

Friday 5th December 2008

Hi again :)

You must have been looking just as they were being changed! There's a note on the top page about that now, I did that last. Well, we wish we could give things away for free, but in the real world, the prices of all our base oils and packaging (not to mention transport) have all gone totally through the roof this year - some by as much as 125%, but as an average by 45%, our rise is very much lower than that - so with heavy hearts, we've been forced to raise our prices.

We do look after our customers by offering regular special offers and making sure that loyal customers are rewarded regularly too. We kept the rise to a minimum where we could and by offering larger sizes in things like the Squeaky Clean Gels, we've made sure that a bargain is still there to be had. In particular, we've kept the Mother & Baby range the same as we didn't want to penalise young families.

You might not realise it as I think you're new to the fold, but we've not put our prices up in over 3 years which is almost unheard of in any industry, let alone skincare which is generally considered a premium product. I think that shows we're still very much committed to staying affordable, but we can't ignore what's going on around us.

posted by Emily @ 19:48

click to add a comment

Saturday 6th December 2008

Aha

That would explain where the shower scrub salts were when I was trying to place my last 08 order yesterday lunch time...at the lower prices I may add, oh well order placed now. Anyway keep up the good work...I know there is a credit crunch but it is only money compared to health and you guys are still pretty cheap compared to many places out there.

posted by HelenG @ 09:41

click to add a comment

Monday 8th December 2008

Glad you understand Helen

We do keep an eye on where we sit in the general market and keeping that in mind, feel that we are still keeping very much true to our afforability pledge. It was never going to be a popular move I guess, but not having put up our prices in 3 years, it was long overdue. Cheers for being understanding.

posted by Emily @ 11:14

click to add a comment

Monday 8th December 2008

No Worries

Well if you think about it a pot of even standard face cream in the shops is around £10. I am probably in the minority at the moment but it is only money...I may feel differently if my budget was tighter though!!

posted by Helen G @ 12:55

click to add a comment

Friday 5th December 2008

....all on a level playing field!!!!

I fully understand why your prices have gone up and appreciate that it is a difficult time for small businesses and large alike. and do not have a problem with this price increase. However, not wanting to sound to too callous on this point - the credit crunch has affected us all -single, couples, families with children and the retired. So why keep the Mother & Baby prices the same? In effect, the rest of us are subsidizing this product price disparity. Your thoughts on this would be much appreciated.

posted by PNS Fan @ 20:53

click to add a comment

Saturday 6th December 2008

I'm totally with you on that one

I don't have kids myself and my other half is a builder so times are tight for all us singles too. But we're not actually subsidising familes here, each product range has it's own cost parameters and has to live within them. The cream dreams however, just to use an example, use premium oils while the mother a baby range use simpler oils, so we've been able to keep them the same - hope this explains the difference.

posted by Emily @ 11:59

click to add a comment

Saturday 6th December 2008

Yes, but

... the foaming baby wash and foaming face wash use the same ingredients, or so it seems, however there is £1 difference. I wonder if I could use the baby wash on my face? I was also looking the the nappy cream, that has some yummy oils in like avocado and cocoa butter, not that much different than the shea and apricot oil in the cream dream.

posted by BG @ 20:56

click to add a comment

Monday 8th December 2008

Baby products

Of course you could use the Baby Wash on your face, it's quite gentle enough - and the same goes for the Happy Nappy cream of course too. In fact, I often use that myself as I really like the smell. The oils are quite a bit heavier than the ones we normally use in the face products though, so they are quite different, but it doesn't do any harm to experiment.

posted by Emily @ 11:19

click to add a comment

Saturday 6th December 2008

Premium oils vs simpler oils

Thanks for your explanation, Emily. I can understand that you have a specific budget set aside for each range. However, this topic made me look more carefully at the contents of the Mother and Baby products compared to your other products and I can understand where BG is coming from regarding some of the ingredients. However, just out of interest what is the difference between a simple oil and a premium one? Anyway, on to something else! Everyone seems to be giving you lots of ideas for new products - so, here's another one. I currently use your lip balm which is great - I keep it on my bedside table and blob a bit on every night. However, I was wondering whether you could make one like Lypsyl (lipstick type) that could be used more easily in the daytime. Also, could you make it using vegetable wax rather than beeswax. I'm not veggie but vegtable wax just seems more appealing - or would it make the product too soft?

posted by PNS Fan @ 23:42

click to add a comment

Monday 8th December 2008

Oils (and using different ranges)

Hi again :) as I've mentioned to BG above, there's nothing at all to stop you using Baby Range products on adult skin, they're great products and I love the smell of them, so go for it by all means. The simple vs premium oils thing is partly about the amount of processing each one of the base oils take before it gets to us, which affects the cost, and partly about how it's got to be treated in order to make it into a cream, some things take longer and more manpower to produce so are costed accordingly.

As for using vegetable wax in the lip balms, well we could, but it would as you say make them softer (and more suceptible to changes in termperature, so it could melt in your pocket) so we'd have to use something else to stiffen them. But beeswax is also one of the things we can buy locally, the quality of that particular beekeepers' output is utterly out of this world, so we like to support his work (franky, we're lucky to get it, he's very picky about who he supplies, he turned down a number of other companies before he agreed to sell to us). And as for the other lipstick-type shape for the balm, that would mean buying in more packaging and it's only available as a plastic, which is why we went for the more easily recyclable aluminium.

posted by Emily @ 11:46

click to add a comment

Monday 8th December 2008

More questions.......

Hi Emily, Thanks for your explanation. I just want to make it clear that I don't have a problem with your price rise, in fact, I have been expecting it for a while as I know that you haven't put up your prices for the 18+ months that I have been using your products. However, I am a very principled person and a have a strong belief in fairness for all - hence my questions regarding price disparities. Putting all of that aside though, I am still interested in the oil issue (not from a pricing prespective). So are you saying that, for example, avocado oil can be bought by you in different processed forms and thus used for different products i.e Baby stuff versus Face range products and if so what are the different properties of each form that differentiate them from each other and thus make one suitable for one product and not another? Or have I got hold of the wrong end of the stick? Hope you don't mind me asking such long drawn out questions but I am just really interested.

posted by PNS Han @ 14:19

click to add a comment

Monday 8th December 2008

I don't mind at all :)

Thanks for your understanding about the price change, it had to happen to keep us in business basically, there was only so long we could go on absorbing all the price rises in every one of our ingredients and we reached terminal capacity. But I think I may have confused you about the processing thing, we don't get in different grades of the same oil to use in different products (like a virgin pressing to use in face products and a 4th pressing for others for example) but some oils take more processing by the supplier, so cost more. This refers to both the base oils and the essential ones - the amount of rose petals it takes to extract the essential oil makes it a pricey item for example, whereas cocoa butter is more plentiful and as a result of being widely farmed for the chocolate industry is more reasonably priced.

I'm just working on producing a whole load of information on why specific oils are used in certain products though, that will be a new feature of the site in the ingredients section of each product (it will show why the ingredient is in the product, where we get it from how it's sourced, either organic or fairly traded) and this will be published before Christmas. But if you have any specific questions about base or essential oils, I'd be happy to answer them of course.

posted by Emily @ 17:58

click to add a comment

Monday 8th December 2008

hmmm, not quite convinced

Of course you have the right to do what you like with your prices, I don't demand justification, i was a little surprised of the sudden jump. At the end of the day, you make the products, so you decide what you sell them for. But i am not convinced that the oils used in each range are the reason for it. The face wash was one example, absolutely identical ingredients with the baby wash. As for the ingredients of the nappy cream, you use avocado oil in the face cleanser, you also use jojoba oil throughout the range, coconut and cocoa butter are also used in all your other 'adult' products. I believe it has more to do with what people are prepared to pay more for, and face products are a prime example of that, whereas baby's bottom may be at the bottom of the list of some not so well off parent and rising the price of that product will most likely make it hard to sell.

posted by BG @ 22:47

click to add a comment

Wednesday 10th December 2008

Hello again BG

It's sad to hear that you're not "convinced". But I'm sure you'll agree that, unless you're in the business yourself, we're probably in a better position to actually know the world prices of oils and packaging rather than simply to guess at them. And you can see the ingredients on the labels, but you don't know the formulations, and it's this that drove the price rise. This is a worldwide phenomenon, BG, not just a whim on our part. As for your rather cynical assertion that we're simply charging more for face products because we believe we can get more for them; if that were true, I think that we'd have had more than one price rise in three years. We have a long tradition of honesty with our customers, this isn't going to change.

posted by Emily @ 11:37

click to add a comment

Wednesday 10th December 2008

Sad but a fact

It's true, I am not in the business so I can't possibly know the world prices of oils and packaging. However, if the price of the ingredients used throughout the range - same in baby and adult products, as per with my previous post - as well as packaging costs have risen, then all prices should go up. Also, I would imagine quite a lot more oils go in the heavier nappy cream, compared to a lighter face cream.The jars are the same, and so are the bottles. A honest increase should in my opinion include everything.

posted by BG @ 20:04

click to add a comment

Wednesday 10th December 2008

Hello again

You're entitled to your opinion BG. At the end of the day, we're still one of the cheapest brands in the business, and the way that we structure our prices, while pretty transparent, is very much a business decision, but thanks for your input.

posted by Emily @ 20:52

click to add a comment

Wednesday 10th December 2008

I usually just lurk.....

....but I've been following this thread with interest and am wondering why you are so tenacious about this price issue. You say that you're not in the same business and yet presume to know better than these guys when it comes to running their business. From what I've read it seems your question has been answered a number of times, so if you are still not satisfied, and with respect, wouldn't it be easier if you simply bought your products from another company, who's pricing policy fits with your own? To be honest I was a little shocked myself by the recent increases, but having emailed PNS to express that, I won't be questioning the reasoning behind it over and over again.

posted by scaredy bot @ 21:39

click to add a comment

Thursday 4th December 2008

new product ideas!

Hi Em! Was wondering if it would be possible for you guys to do a natural nail polish remover? I can't use the usual smelly ones so Im trying a natural one from Sante just now. It would be cool if you could make/sell it for less than £7.50 (price of sante one!). Also a hand ointment with a similar consistency to your lip balm would be fab. I have really dry hands and currently use the lip balm on my hands because I find the hand cream just isnt moisturising enough! love to you and Helen

posted by Moragx @ 22:49

click to add a comment

Friday 5th December 2008

Hello you!!

First of all, thanks so much for your card, how kind of you to remember us! Helen opened it and got covered in the first round of glitter, then brought it into the shop and rubbed all over my hair to make sure I wasn't left out :) thanks so much xx

I might have to disappoint you on the nail varnish remover at the moment though, we've not go any plans to start on that, sorry.

However, I can help on the hand balm.... would you be prepared to test out something I've been working on please?

Love to both you and Heidi from both Helen and I xx

posted by Emily @ 20:05

click to add a comment

Friday 5th December 2008

yep!

Hi Em Yep Im up for testing hand stuff (as long as you think its ok for my yucky dry flaky eczema skin!). Glad you and Helen liked your card.and the glitter! My mum was moaning about the glitter today as my dad had opened their card and the glitter ended up all over the house!! hee hee! I told her it was a bit christmas sparkle to share!!!! love mx

posted by moragx @ 21:44

click to add a comment

Wednesday 3rd December 2008

New Product Ideas

Have you guys thought about the possibility of doing a leg waxing kit, probably a sugaring type thing would be most practical...hope all the christmassy stuff is going well, will be placing my final 08 order soon!!

posted by Helen G @ 10:49

click to add a comment

Thursday 4th December 2008

I've been counting.....

And you're not the first person to ask us for this, it's closer to 30, counting PNSF as well, so we'll have to do something. Tell you what, we'll get the Christmas rush out of the way and get on it in the New Year, how does that sound? And, erm this is the tricky bit, would you be willing to test out the results for us please? It can be a long process to get a product right, so we may have to go back and forth with it a bit, but are you up for that?

posted by Emily @ 18:56

click to add a comment

Friday 5th December 2008

Oh Alright Then

Of course I will try it out...I do have an epilator but that just takes too long to do the job properly. It would be good to get something that is faster!

posted by Heleng @ 10:54

click to add a comment

Wednesday 3rd December 2008

Great minds think alike.....

Yes, thought about that one myself, Helen - would be a good idea - glad you've highlighted it. We've started a petition! Emily - would love to hear about the soap on a rope story.

posted by PNS Fan @ 13:14

click to add a comment

Thursday 4th December 2008

Doug and Experimenting

Well it's something he does on a regular basis actually, every so often he trundles off down to the soap dungeon with a few bottles of essential oil and look of concentration, oh, and that notebook we're not allowed to see. Helen and I rarely go down and disturb him while he's "creating" - only because he's usually so excited that we end up getting caught up and helping him rather than doing what we're supposed to. Have a look at the new Kasbah box to see what great things he comes up with when left to his own devices, generally speaking.

So, after he's left for the day, we go down and have a look at what he's been up to, a measure of how nosey we are I guess. Having seen him pop down there with a length of rope under his arm, we were intrigued. We finally found them, a dozen or so amorphous blobs on ropes sitting on top of one of the drying racks looking sad as you like. Getting them out of the moulds without breaking them up obviously hadn't gone quite to plan. He's trying to work out a way of being able to produce them in large amounts, trickier than you might imagine. He'll get there I'm sure. But in the meantime, they've become a bit of a standing joke here, Doug and his Strange Fruit.

Nowhere near as bad as my own soap experiment a while back though. There's a traditional Saffron bun here in Cornwall, and we thought it'd be a bit of fun to make a Saffron soap. So, having added a few strands to a pan of soap and watched it go a beautiful colour and come to trace perfectly, I was hopeful. Then it started to bubble nastily at me. And then it just grew, that's the only way I can describe it, it was like a volcano - within seconds I was faced with a 3 foot high mass of hot orange froth that was spilling out over the edge of the pan and making the worktop its own - and I swear it was hissing. I thought it would never stop. I had to just leave it, raw soap is dangerous stuff, hot oil and caustic basically, so I just came back upstairs looking a bit traumatised, Helen immediately ran down to take a picture of course. It's now the benchmark for how badly wrong soap experiments can go - and it took about 2 hours to chisel it off the counter eventually, it went rock hard and it went everywhere. Not my finest hour :)

posted by Emily @ 19:39

click to add a comment

Friday 5th December 2008

JK Rowling - eat your heart out!!!

Wow - you had be hooked. My knees were knocking, my heart was pounding, the sweat was pouring from my brow - Oh no, I thought - what will they find in the dungeon....MALFORMED SOAP ON A STRING.....BUBBLING COULDRONS OF SOAP.... Will this be the next best selling block-buster? I'm in a daft mood as you have probably gathered but thanks for the story. Still on the subject of soap - why have you changed the soap to a circular shape? I know I'm a traditional old fuddy duddy but I'm still trying to get used to it.

posted by PNS Fan @ 17:39

click to add a comment

Friday 5th December 2008

:) Did I go on a wee bit there then?

Glad you liked it anyway, we do love our jobs here, it must be said, but not every day goes quite to plan...

And the round soaps are out of different moulds, it makes a much larger scale production possible, but we do make both still in every batch. If you really like the square ones, then pop a note into the special instructions section and we'll do our best to make sure you get them.

posted by Emily @ 20:01

click to add a comment

Friday 5th December 2008

Oh Dear

LOL that sounds like some of the strangely unexpected errors we have in the lab, only more colourful! One day I managed to cover my entire fume hood and all the contents in a sugar and acetic acid mixture which took me all day to remove. It is never funny at the time but boy does it make other people laugh!

posted by Helen G @ 11:01

click to add a comment

Friday 5th December 2008

Aren't people cruel?

There you are, doing your best and what do they do? Point and mock.... disgraceful. Helen snarfled for ages after the volcano incident every time I mentioned I was making soap, there's just no respect these days eh?

What were you trying to do with the sugar and acetic then?

posted by Emily @ 19:56

click to add a comment

Saturday 6th December 2008

sugar

I was trying to protect the alcohols in the sugar so that we can stick another sugar molecule on the end thus making potential drug targets!! Quite simple really!!!!! Just love the chemistry when it goes wrong!!

posted by Helen G @ 09:46

click to add a comment

Saturday 6th December 2008

Chemistry can be quite scary!

I did physical and organic chemistry as subsidary subjects at uni - we had no choice! The organic practical sessions used to scare the living daylights out of me - bubbling solutions that looked as though they were about to explode and all done in glass flasks that were connected up via glass tubes and if my memory serves me right the joints were sealed with vaseline. The whole set up seemed very precarious. I'm much happier with cell / tissue culture and molecular biology these days!

posted by PNS Fan @ 23:55

click to add a comment

Sunday 7th December 2008

Oh no way

I am way too scared of getting bugs and diseases to consider that side of science...at uni I used to have to leave biology labs and go straight home to shower!! Each to their own huh!

posted by Helen G @ 09:29

click to add a comment

Monday 8th December 2008

...so brave!!!

...well, I think that you're very brave doing all those types of experiments. I'd rather have an agar plate of E.coli, blood and tissue samples and radioactive tumour cells than chemistry. But like you say - each to their own. I'm off to bed now - I'll be having nightmares about chemistry practicals!!!

posted by PNS Fan @ 00:46

click to add a comment

Monday 8th December 2008

*shudders*

e coli, blood, glass vials and fire, I'll definately stick to soap making, it sounds positively easy compared to all this lot!

posted by Emily @ 18:04

click to add a comment

2010/06/24 - Pure Nuff Pirate Punch
2010/06/03 - Lafe's deodorants - why our stock is currently on sale
2010/05/07 - Are you a bit bored?
2010/04/23 - Ethical Consumer Magazine BEST BUY
2010/04/14 - Things we liked at the Natural & Organics Show last weekend
2010/03/23 - Heaps of things....
2010/02/25 - Palm Oil
2010/02/17 - Sunscreen Lotion, why it's not on the site any longer
2010/02/11 - Our Rowing Boys have made it half way!
2010/01/18 - Good news for us geeks...
2010/01/04 - Happy New Year
2009/12/22 - Happy Christmas to you ALL
2009/12/03 - PNS and Makeup
2009/11/11 - Our rowing boys are close to going - wish them luck!
2009/11/03 - Facebook, we now have a page
2009/10/29 - Don't throw away pumpkin pieces
2009/10/24 - Are you ready for the clock to go back yet? No? We're not either....
2009/09/21 - I've been reading again
2009/09/10 - MEEP! We're getting excited!
2009/09/09 - Autumn is in the air here
2009/09/01 - Magazines
2009/08/21 - Home pedicures, like a day at a spa, but without the weight loss in the pocket...
2009/08/20 - It's been a while again, holidays and all that
2009/08/04 - PNS and the Fish Mish
2009/07/20 - Sorry it's been a touch quiet on the blog front...
2009/07/13 - We have a new brochure
2009/07/06 - Our interests are hitting the mainstream press, well I never...
2009/06/24 - We've had fun, very, very silly fun
2009/06/19 - We have produced a TON of this beautiful stuff this year :)
2009/06/15 - Perhaps it's just Monday, but I'm a little cross
2009/06/05 - I've been having a clear out today
2009/06/03 - Last Friday Kevin arrived, today we rescued Steven Seagull
2009/06/01 - Glamour and more glamour
2009/05/29 - We have a new member of the PNS team
2009/05/28 - Back from Gardening Leave
2009/05/22 - How We Are!!!!!!!!!!!
2009/05/14 - Essential Oils
2009/05/13 - PNS perfumes, possibly
2009/05/06 - We now have a "Home" section on the site
2009/04/27 - "She smells of lemons!"
2009/04/21 - What are your thoughts on natural deodorants?
2009/04/07 - We've just come back from the Natural & Organic Exhibition at Olympia
2009/03/30 - Botanicals - Do you think it's safe to Grow Your Own Drugs like the telly programme says?
2009/03/26 - Our Big Announcement - PNS has won a Natural Health Magazine Award
2009/03/26 - Our Big Announcement - PNS has won a Natural Health Magazine Award
2009/03/18 - The Kasbah Box
2009/03/13 - We've made some big changes in the soaps
2009/03/10 - Grow your own drugs - did you see that on telly last night?
2009/03/05 - If you've ever had trouble getting to sleep, read this.
2009/03/02 - A day in the life of a whiteboard....
2009/02/23 - Twitter, we have succumbed
2009/02/18 - Goodness, it's been a while
2009/02/10 - Mobile phones, I'm now properly scared
2009/02/05 - Good reference books on the subject of vile chemicals in toiletries
2009/01/29 - Hormone disrupting
2009/01/22 - That didn't take long....
2009/01/05 - Happy New Year!!!
2008/12/23 - Happy Christmas to everyone
2008/12/19 - Quick hello and apologies for recent quietness
2008/12/10 - Exfoliation. Did anyone see Horizon last night?
2008/12/02 - We're doing our elf impressions now
2008/11/27 - Two local men doing a trans-Atlantic row
2008/11/25 - Our mums approve
2008/11/20 - Green is now mainstream - it's official
2008/11/16 - The links page has been updated
2008/11/11 - Back to the natural cleaning discussion again
2008/11/04 - So what do you think of the new site please?
2008/10/24 - Are you ever tempted to get false nails put on?
2008/10/22 - Meep! We just had a famous person in the shop, we're all starstruck
2008/10/20 - Borax a RESOUNDING success - I have finally banished bleach from the house forever!!
2008/10/09 - Onward and upward now, an explanation of why we hate phthalates
2008/10/07 - We're a bit sad at the moment
2008/09/29 - All this has got me thinking again...
2008/09/16 - Another question
2008/09/10 - I feel like Jesse from the Fast Show,
2008/09/04 - Conditioner, Creams and Christmas
2008/08/29 - So, what about nail varnish then?
2008/08/23 - I am not ignoring the blog, I promise
2008/08/12 - Update on the Washing Question
2008/08/04 - Another washing question
2008/07/31 - Green Fatigue
2008/07/28 - What do you use to wash your clothes with?
2008/07/16 - Natural Toothpastes
2008/07/15 - We're just ordering some new brushes and scrubby things
2008/07/07 - Oh we love summer
2008/06/26 - We have sand in our toes and ice cream on our faces
2008/06/25 - I'm all alone :(
2008/06/20 - Friday and we're shattered
2008/06/16 - A Blip
2008/06/02 - Well THAT was fun!!
2008/05/28 - Well how exciting....
2008/05/21 - Animal Testing of Cosmetics - PLEASE HELP
2008/05/12 - Organic companies finding thier teeth
2008/05/08 - Channel 4 - Dispatches, The truth about Beauty Creams I think the programme's called
2008/04/30 - Today we are mostly smelling of frankincense....
2008/04/25 - Baby Wipes
2008/04/22 - Tuesday and we have our brains back again
2008/04/21 - Mondayitis
2008/04/14 - An exciting phase
2008/04/08 - Hello and Welcome, oh, and spots