Arcana Soaps

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Location: Portland, Oregon, United States

The fevered minds behind Arcana Soaps have been selling lavish distillations and ablutions since 2003. Our focus is on unparalleled skincare, exotic ingredients and delectable hand-blended scents.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

All Shipped!

As of yesterday, when the last of the August 16th orders went out, all domestic and international orders have been shipped. Godspeed to the USPS.

I'm long overdue in letting you all know how much Will and I treasure your sweet cards, notes and emails, reminding us to get some rest during the break, giving various blends the thumbs up, reassuring us that you aren't mad about refunded LfW orders, and generally being the supportive darlings that you are. I really do think we have the nicest customers & friends in the world!

Kisses,
Julia

Friday, August 25, 2006

Shipping Update

All domestic and international orders through August 15th have been shipped.

All the refunds for Lost for Words have now been issued. If you think you should have received a refund and did not receive one, please email us at sales@arcanasoaps.com. If you ordered Lost for Words and don't know what this is all about, please see the post below this one.

If You Ordered Lost for Words

I'll cut right to the chase. We simply underestimated the interest in Lost for Words. What was initially considered to be a 3 month supply of this perfume wound up selling out in about a week. Unfortunately, some of the orders which were placed for LfW cannot be filled.

We are processing orders based on strict chronology, without regard to size of order, whether the buyer is domestic or international, or any other criteria except the following: first come, first served. Currently it looks as if we will get through the orders placed early in the day on August 15th before we run out. If you ordered after that, expect the Lost for Words portion of your order to be refunded.

We're very sorry about this. Arcana Soaps is growing so rapidly that sometimes things are hard to gauge correctly in advance. I realize it would be preferable to have a product listed as sold out (as we normally do) rather than allowing orders to be placed and then refunding money later. However, since the business is in the midst of moving, things are jumbled right now. Sorry guys, but this one got away from us.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Thursday Shipping Updates

All domestic and international orders through August 13th have been shipped. Which means we are catching up. Yes, it's a veritable orgy of shipping here at Arcana HQ.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Shipping

All domestic and international orders through August 8th have been shipped.

Friday, August 18, 2006

If You're Expecting a Globe Bottle

When your globe bottle arrives, please be sure to uncork it gently so as to avoid breaking the little corksie.

Also, the pouches that the globe bottles come in are faux suede. They would never be real suede. Apparently they feel shocked and even a bit lost by the very notion of being confused with animal skin.

If you see a few black specks in your Lost for Words, those are from vanilla beans and will not harm you.

Finally, after 3 days of nonstop tapegun wielding, the last of the 8/7/06 orders went out earlier today (Friday). We'll be packing orders all weekend and expect to finish shipping the 8/8/06 orders on Monday. But don't cry for us, Argentina, we're very fortunate to be doing what we love.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Shipping

All domestic and international orders through August 6th have been shipped.

The Long Goodbye

Our site will be going down Wednesday, August 16th at 9 PM PST (midnight EST).

Again, all orders received before closing time will be processed & shipped before our break.

Officially we'll be back by October 1st, but the plan is to try to make it sooner than that. We miss you already!

A shipping update will be posted later today.

Friday, August 11, 2006

Shipping Etc.

As of today, all domestic and international orders through August 3rd have been shipped.

Due to a formidable number of orders (thank you!) received during our recent update, the usual turnaround time of 5-7 business days may extend to 8-9 business days.

I still don't have an exact date and time for the site's closure, but I think we're looking at sometime Tuesday, August 15th. I will let you know when I know.

Until then:

Orders will be accepted up until the site goes down. All orders placed before the site goes down will be processed and shipped before our break.

Monday, August 07, 2006

Get Your Update News Here



From now until 8 PM PST on Tuesday, 8/8, orders of $50 or more will receive an adorable 3.6 ml cork-stoppered globe bottle for FREE in your choice of the following scents:

Anodyne
Chocolate LN
Lost for Words
Mutiny
Queen Crossbones

Please write your choice of scent in the comments section of the cart. And remember, orders over $75 receive free shipping and an adorable bottle of scent.

I'm sorry, but this offer is not available for orders consisting only of samples.

When making your purchase, please remember our upcoming break, as discussed below. While you are welcome to purchase samples, you won't receive them in time to purchase full sizes before we close. In the case of certain limited editions, they may be gone by the time we reopen, so please order with this in mind.

A few thoughts on the new scents:

Queen Crossbones has Egyptian musk in it, but it's different than our layering note Egyptian musk. Where our layering note E-musk is darker and drier, Queen Crossbones' E-musk is warm and sweet with an almost foody quality, yet it's still very intense. Another prominent note in this is wild honey. Oh yes.

Anodyne is my new addiction. The vivid blue coloration is caused by the azulene in our high grade chamomile essential oil. Why use real German blue chamomile in $10 perfume oil? Easy, because there's absolutely nothing like it. Incidentally, if you ever buy German chamomile which is brown in color, that's a sure sign it has passed its prime. It should be outrageously deep blue.

Speaking of which, for some reason everything is blue. Will kept saying we didn't have enough blue things, and apparently I took that to heart. Anodyne is blue. Revival soap is light blue with brown swirls. Queen Crossbones soap is very dark blue. Mutiny soap is ecru with navy blue swirls (though the perfume oil is dark red from the patchouli). I don't know. It's our blue period or something.

I'll leave the rest for you to discover. Feel free to ask any questions.

Edited to say: Never fear, Ganesh is still coming back!

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Announcements

Now that we've stopped unintentionally flashing you with the new scents and soaps, let's get down to brass tacks.

First of all, Gathering Day perfume and soap will come down when the update goes up, which should be around 9 AM PST.

Secondly, having received a number of reports of Spitfire perfume burning, hurting and generally molesting the sensitive-skinned, we are removing it. However, since I realize that many people already love this scent and are able to use it with nary a whimper, it will still be available via special order in 5 and 10 ml bottles only (no samples). My hope is that this will discourage the innocent and unsuspecting from buying Spitfire and possibly hurting themselves, while still keeping it accessible for you cinnamon-loving adrenaline junkies out there who already use it. To purchase Spitfire perfume, you can simply place any other scent in your cart and put a note in the comments section of your order saying: "Please replace the 5 ml of _____ in my order with a 5 ml of Spitfire. Danger is my middle name." OK, you don't have to include that last part. Comments will be enabled in the cart shortly.

Spitfire soap is still available.

Also, Grasshopper finally earned its wings and will be moving into the permanent line-up in the update.

Finally, we are taking a much-needed break. In approximately 1 week, the retail site will be shutting down for an extended vacation. We will be back up in mid to late September. I realize some of you might feel as if you've only just found us and here we are going away already, but please keep in mind that we've actually been going full throttle for 3 years now without stopping. So it's time for some R & R. However, we will not only spend our time lying around with cold compresses on our foreheads babbling unintelligibly about sweet myrrh, Australian clays and priority tracking numbers. Not at all. We will also be moving Arcana Soaps into a much larger production space, completely redesigning the website, and putting the finishing touches on some devastatingly fabulous new items.

I'm sorry, but during our break, no retail orders will be accepted via email. Our wholesale business will continue, but processing may be slightly slower than normal. We will still be answering your emails, and will gladly try to fix any problems you might have, but, again, responses may be slightly delayed (remember the cold compress thing?). We heartily encourage you to visit the many wonderful shops and e-commerce sites which carry our wares. You might even see some new Arcana offerings.

You will hear more from us about our exact closing date and time very soon. We're sorry for any inconvenience or disappointment this announcement might cause.

Whoops!

Our extremely hard-working and conscientious web guy put the update up a little early and things aren't quite ready. Therefore, it is coming down until first thing Monday morning.

For those who already placed orders, never fear. Your orders will still be processed. However, if you would like to have them refunded, just email sales@arcanasoaps.com and I will get right on that.

In other news, we are currently shipped through July 31. This refers to all domestic orders and all international orders. All of 'em.

Thank you so much for your patience! We do appreciate it!