Event Review: Soap With Vision

Bath & Body Oil

Lavender Body Butter

Tea Tree Soap

Here at The Fair Traders Co-operative we are proud to stock the fabulous Visionary Soap Company range, which includes luscious lip balms, superb soaps, and beautifully scented body oils and bath melts. These luxurious products are all crammed with vegan, organic and fair trade ingredients, a fact that has made them very popular and launched the Visionary Soap Company to the status of being the leading ethical body care company in the UK.  Imagine our delight then, when Monica Norley, Founder and CEO of the company, agreed to come and speak at The Fair Traders Co-operative during Fairtrade Fortnight this year about the development of her company, her personal journey and the positive impact that Visionary Soap products have on communities in some of the poorest parts of the world.

The evening was well attended, with our Community Room almost full with people keen to hear more about how Monica went from making soaps on her kitchen stove to sell at the local farmers’ market, to selling thousands of bars of soap each year and drawing in contracts from major high street retailers. Fairtrade wine was of course available for those who wanted it, helping to create a relaxed yet buzzing atmosphere.

Listening to Monica speak, it was clear that she really has developed her company through sheer hard work and determination, and an unwavering commitment to environmental values and to fair and ethical trade. She explained how her early career in the US Peace Corps and then later working for a voluntary sector group which supported the development of women’s co-operatives for immigrants to the US, furnished her with the skills, knowledge, passion and vision that led to the development of The Visionary Soap Company. One very successful women’s co-operative that she supported provided cleaning services using only chemical- free, environmentally friendly cleaning methods. This sparked a real interest in Monica in Earth- and body-friendly ingredients for cleaning and body care products, and prompted her to take a course in cold process natural soap-making.

Then, personal circumstances led to a huge life change for Monica – she moved from bustling San Francisco, to comparatively sleepy Hastings in the UK. It didn’t take her long to work out that there were going to be few available jobs that would utilise her skills and experience at the same time as allowing her to pursue her passions for human development, fair trade and environmental improvement – so she decided to do something of her own, that would allow her to combine all of these elements into her new life here in England.

And so The Visionary Soap Company was born. Whilst renovating her Victorian house, Monica hand-made luxury soaps containing fair trade and organic ingredients, using a make- shift stove in her crumbling kitchen. She sold these at local farmers markets, and found that demand for her products was growing all the time. What was unique at the time, and still marks Visionary Soaps out as different to other natural, organic and fair trade body care products, are the percentages of fair trade ingredients that Monica uses in her range. She explained in her presentation that her soaps tend to be about 60% fair trade ingredients, compared to the 2% required for Fairtrade certification. Some of the body butters in the Visionary Soap Company’s range are as high as 99-100% Fairtrade ingredients. At the time Monica set up her company, the Fairtrade Foundation hadn’t begun to certify body care products, and she described how she was one of the pioneers, who kept up the pressure to ensure that body care ingredients ultimately became Fairtrade certified. Her commitment to ethical trading meant that she was unearthing a growing number of fair trade ingredients, enabling her to develop The Visionary Soap Company’s product range, and ensuring that she became one of the most informed experts on fair trade body care in the country. She explained how this expertise, along with the understanding that comes from years spent hand-making the products she sells, led to some unique collaborations in the areas of the world where her ingredients are produced.

Many of Monica’s ingredients come from South Africa, and she showed a short film (available to view at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atlEvW6mIB8) which tells the story of The Visionary Soap Company’s Township Trades initiative. Through this project, The Visionary Soap Company supported the start-up of a social enterprise manufacturing soap in Khayelitsha Township in South Africa, using as many locally sourced, fairly traded ingredients as possible. The township has been devastated by AIDS/HIV, and many of the young people given the chance to gain skills through the project are AIDS orphans. Monica explained how cold process soap-making is an excellent business for areas of the world where resources are limited, as it requires only very small inputs of energy and water, and many of the ingredients are available locally.

Throughout the presentation, Monica invited contributions and questions from the audience, which made for a lively evening and a great deal of interesting discussion. We are very grateful to Monica for travelling all the way from Hastings to join us during Fairtrade Fortnight, and for her open and engaging approach to sharing with us her passion for fair trade and her journey to becoming an ethical entrepreneur and fair trade pioneer. You can buy The Visionary Soap Company’s products in The Fair Traders Co-operative shop or through our online store. To find out more about The Visionary Soap products, see the range in our online shop.

From a vision to a reality

The amazing story of Fairtrade startup, The Visionary Soap Company’s pioneering work with communities in Africa and the UK.

In March The Fair Traders Co-operative will be hosting an inspirational evening led by the co-founder of one of our suppliers, The Visionary Soap Company, which is the UK’s leading Fairtrade body care and beauty company.  Based in Hastings, The Visionary Soap Company was established in 2005 and is recognised as one of the most successful Fairtrade body care companies in the country.

Rosemary & Lavender Gardener's Hand Salve

Its whole range carries the Fairtrade Mark, and its products are made using a very high percentage of certified Fairtrade ingredients and no synthetic chemicals – simply the finest vegetable oils, butters, essential oils and botanicals. What’s more, the range is safety assessed, Vegan Society approved and cruelty free. All packaging is as environmentally friendly as possible too,

The ‘Visionary Evening’ will be led by Visionary Soap Co-Founder, Monica Norley, and showcase the company’s pioneering work with communities in Africa and here in the UK. It will also provide an opportunity to hear the inspirational human stories behind their products. The Visionary Soap Company has made it its mission to improve livelihoods for disadvantaged communities both in Africa, and back home in Hastings. According to the company’s website, “the production of handcrafted soap presents several opportunities for supporting sustainable development, particularly in places such as Africa. Aside from the natural ingredients involved (often locally sourceable), there is a low barrier to entry in terms of equipment needed, water and energy usage is minimal – highly important in communities where these resources are often scarce – and it provides a relatively safe, holistic working environment for all involved. Production also requires a team effort and plenty of helping hands, thus the potential to create a lot of jobs in marginalised, isolated areas with high unemployment.”

Most recently, the company has launched new projects with two communities, one locally and one in the northeast Bolgatanga region of Ghana. Both projects involve training local women in soap making and management skills, so that ultimately jobs can be created through social enterprises which will aim to lift women and their families out of poverty. Hear more about these and other Visionary projects at The Fair Traders Co-operative on Friday 4th March.

Organic Lavender Soap

“It’s a real boon to The Fair Traders Co-operative and to Holmfirth that Monica has agreed to come all the way from Hastings to talk to us about the company and its super products” said Helen Robinson, Founder Director of The Fair Traders Co-operative. “Hearing about the people and communities who are producing the ingredients and products we sell is always fascinating, and The Visionary Soap Company has in many ways set the standard for relationships with their suppliers – it will be a very interesting evening.”

This event is being held as part of The Fair Traders Co-operative’s Fairtrade Fortnight programme and Monica Norley of Visionary Soap will also be involved on Saturday March 5^th, when we will be stringing up Fairtrade bunting on the shop and across the river in the centre of Holmfirth as part of a national record-breaking attempt. Groups around the country will be putting up bunting decorated with fair trade messages. These will be stitched together afterwards by the Fairtrade Foundation, which promotes Fairtrade Fortnight, in an attempt to break the world record for the longest continuous piece of bunting. Come along to our ‘design-a-bag’ workshops between 23^rd and 26^th February in the Community Room and as well as taking away a Fairtrade cotton bag with your own design on the front, you can decorate a piece of Fairtrade cotton bunting with your own fair trade message for adding to our bunting string.

The theme of Fairtrade Fortnight (28^th February – 13^th March) this year is ‘show off your label’, encouraging people to shout about their commitment to Fairtrade. All the products sold by The Fair Traders Co-operative are subject to a unique ‘sustainability assessment’, which results in a star rating allowing you to see at a glance the impact of your purchases on people, communities and the environment. A printed assessment label is available with every purchase – a great way to ‘show off your label’!