Email: Still Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Please remember that email is a rough beast at best and not the perfect mode of communication we were all promised by Bill Gates (or some such person). Sometimes your emails to us don't arrive. Even more frequently our emails to you are apparently mistaken for spam and summarily dismissed before they reach your inbox.

If you write and don't hear back from us, please re-send or try us through some alternate route. Our phone number here in Portland is on every label and we are always happy to hear from you.

Finally, all domestic and international orders through June 22 have been shipped.

Pirates and Birthdays (and Shipping)

A few things:

Firstly, all domestic and international orders through June 21 have shipped.

Also, here's a not-that-recent review of 2 of our soaps from a very fine piratical website: Bilgemunky

Finally, a tip of the hat to one Miss Juliana Lufkin, who only yesterday reached the venerable age of 15. Or possibly 16. Anyway, happy birthday to a young lady of indeterminate age with an unarguable nose for scent.

Shipping

All domestic and international orders through June 15 have been packed and shipped out with love and light.

Well, with love, anyway. ;)

Questions? Write to us at sales@arcanasoaps.com.

Sale and Shipping Updates

Our products are currently on sale at Gorey Details, an excellent source for mountains of cool stuff, including all things related to Edward Gorey. We don't know how long the sale will last, so hurry over-- Julia and Russ will take good care of you!

After consulting our Gashlycrumb Tinies calender, we're fatally happy to report that all domestic and international orders through June 12th have been shipped.

New places to find Arcana

If you're in historic Freighthouse Square in Tacoma, Washington, be sure to stop by our newest retailer:

Crescent Moon Gifts
440 East 25th St, Suite 46
Tacoma, WA 98421
(253) 572-8339

You don't know how hard it was to write that without making Furnace Room Lullaby references. OK, OK, it's a dusty old jewel in the south Puget Sound.

Speaking of which, why is it that the ONE month we didn't advertise in Venus magazine they had Neko Case on the cover? Of course all their cover subjects are fabulous (Amy Sedaris!), but... Neko Case.

Anyway, retailers. Very soon our friendly neighbors to the north will be able to find Arcana's goods in Kustom Kulture in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Shipping Update

As of June 16th, all domestic and international orders up to (and including) June 10th have shipped.

Limited Editions

As predicted below, Butterfly Gardenia has sold out. Although we normally make limiteds in multiple large batches, for various reasons Butterfly Gardenia had to be made in smaller quantities. We had hoped there would be enough to last the summer, but instead it went prematurely into that good night.

In happier LE news, Espionage and Grasshopper should be with us through the end of summer.

Gathering Day is a different story. Included in its ingredients is an aged rosewood essential oil which we had a finite amount of and which cannot be replaced. If we used a newer rosewood and continued to make this, it truly wouldn't smell the same. Besides this, rosewood is endangered. As such, it's one of the ingredients we are gradually weeding out of our repertoire. The upshot of this is that whenever Gathering Day sells out (I'm guessing in a month or two), it will be gone for good.

Shipping updates will be posted later today.

Flirting with the USPS

Oodles of recycled styrofoam peanuts and several hardcore flirtations with postal employees later, we are happy to say:

As of Tuesday, June 13th, all domestic and international orders through June 7th have shipped.

Once again, the only exceptions to these dates are some international e-check payments which Paypal has not yet cleared.

Update

As of today, June 12, all domestic and international orders up to (and including) June 4th have shipped.

The only exceptions are some e-check payments which Paypal has not yet cleared. These will ship once cleared.

Send questions and confessions to: sales@arcanasoaps.com

Shipping Schedule

Arcana Soaps' recent sale resulted in a profusion of orders. Thanks to our obsessive devotion to packing, shipping, and excitement-laced trips to the post office, many of these orders have already been lovingly packed up and mailed out. However, many more remain. Despite our best efforts, Arcana's normal turnaround time (5 business days) will probably stretch to approximately 6 or 7 business days until we get through the bulk of these.

From now on, we'll be updating you here as to where we are in the order sequence.

As of Thursday, June 8th, all domestic orders up to June 2nd have shipped. Almost all international orders up to June 2nd have also shipped, while the remaining June 2nd international orders will ship June 9th.

On a different note, Butterfly Gardenia soap is already low and I predict it will sell out soon. Once sold out, it will be gone for good. We don't normally expect limiteds to sell through so quickly, but this one surprised us. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes.

Free Shipping Ends Tonight

Just a reminder that free shipping for domestic orders (15% off for international orders) ends tonight at midnight PST.

Also, witness our newest creations--the charming Gathering Day and the effervescent Grasshopper--posing here for your enjoyment. Pet them and tell them they look pretty.

Questions? Write to: sales@arcanasoaps.com

The Shopping Cart Cometh

Hello to all of you lovely Arcana customers out there. We've recently added a few improvements and additions to the site. Although arcanasoaps.com is still delightfully rudimentary, an actual shopping cart has materialized, Brigadoon-like, out of the mist.

The cart will tally domestic shipping (via USPS Priority or First Class) as follows:

$.01 to $11 = $2.50
$11.01 to $18 = $4.50
$18.01 to $40 = $6.50
$40.01 to $74.99 = $8.50
$75 and up = free!

For the time being, our beloved international customers are still in the unenviable Van Johnson role, and, as such, are not able to use this sterling example of Paypal-esque technology. This means that those of you outside the U.S. will still have to email with your orders and addresses. We will reply with brief-yet-affectionate emails detailing shipping quotes, totals and payment instructions. Eventually, Arcana Soaps will have a site which will include a more advanced cart with the ability to tally international shipping automatically. For now, however, this is it.

Due to the rising costs of our absurdly extravagant ingredients, most Arcana products have experienced small price increases. Samples are now $2, although they can now be ordered one at a time, rather than in sets of 5. Soap samples have increased in size and are now at least 1 oz each.

Sampler packs (e.g. 5 samples for $7.50) are no longer available.

Oh, did we forget to mention the sale?

All domestic orders will receive free shipping from now until Monday, June 5th at midnight PST (3 AM EST). No secret handshake is needed-- the cart will automatically list shipping as $0.

We wish we could offer free shipping internationally, but we were haunted by visions of hours spent at the P.O., clutching huge piles of boxes addressed to Outer Mongolia (with the requisite sky-high Outer Mongolian postal fees) in our shaking hands. Therefore, instead of free shipping, we offer the following:

All international orders will receive 15% off of the pre-shipping total. This applies to international customers only. This offer is available from now until Monday, June 5th at midnight PST (3 AM EST). No secret handshake is needed-- the discount will be manually deducted from all international orders.

Finally, our current turnaround time is 5 business days, which means that it will generally take 5 business days not including weekends or transit time for your order to arrive.

Questions? Post them here or write to us at sales@arcanasoaps.com.