Recommended Suppliers for the UK

As promised on another thread, I am starting this thread so that those of us in the UK can share our favourite suppliers and hopefully make some great discoveries.

My favourite online shops for all things soapy are Gracefruit, The Soap Kitchen and Plush Folly. Oh, and Naturally Thinking for essential oils and flower waters. There are others, and I'll add them later.

robosqu1d found unrefined palm oil in Asda.

nframe said "I am in the UK too and a very good supplier of essential oils is Fresh Skin (Freshskin Beauty | Invigorate your mind, body and soul). Postage is free in the UK."

Rowan said "Another company that could be tried for soap supplies in the UK, is soapmakers store. Unfortunately I can't do a link, but if you do a search on the name it will come up. They don't have as large a stock as soap kitchen, but they are cheaper on most products. It's still expensive for shipping though. " I think this is the one: Soap Making Supplies & Ingredients | Soapmakers Store UK

Please, share your secrets!!

This is another of my favourites - Of a Simple Nature. Unfortunately they often close down for a while to catch up on orders, but if you catch them open they have a fantastic stock of unusual oils and butters, postage starts at £3.75, and when I used them they were very fast indeed.


Talking about speed of delivery, The Soap Kitchen has a rather weird policy which amounts to 'if you don't pay for express shipping you'll get it when we get around to it', which really annoys me, but the only time I have placed a non-express order I did receive it very quickly. They do give an up-to-date estimate of how long it will take them to dispatch, but then add that that might change between you placing the order and them sending it!

Hello! I am from Finland, but I have been buying from the soapmakers store and the costumer service is great, and at the moment they have very cheap cocnut oil... something like 3,6 £ per kg or something... i like also their FG cocoa butter...
Another great uk shop is fresholi, i think that the CS is great there also.
I am also buying from manske-shop.com in germany, the cs is poor when you call them, I mean the lady might get a little bit weird ... i do not know... i think that she is not directly a very mild girl, but they sheep pretty decently fast, the shipping fees are not high and they have a large range of good price soap making oils, nice FO; EO ,moulds etc.. pretty much everything one needs in this bussines...

Thanks Acornsky, this will be a great help in locating supplies. Someone else recommended www.u-makeitup.com for mica's, unfortunately I can't find that person's name. They seem reasonable in price and she said her colours stayed true. Has anyone else used them?

Does anyone know of a good place to find a good silicone log mould like brambleberry's 10" mould? I must admit to the odd drool or two when looking at their supplies too!

I really envy the supplies you can get in USA, I too , are looking for micas . Haven't used them yet, so I'll look at the web you suggest. At the moment I use
Just a soap
Soap posh
Soap makers store
Bonymans for lye

Guild of craft soap and toiletry makers http://www.gcstm.co.uk has a good web site, with advice on regulatory aspects if you plan to sell.

Rowan said:

Thanks Acornsky, this will be a great help in locating supplies. Someone else recommended www.u-makeitup.com for mica's, unfortunately I can't find that person's name. They seem reasonable in price and she said her colours stayed true. Has anyone else used them?

Does anyone know of a good place to find a good silicone log mould like brambleberry's 10" mould? I must admit to the odd drool or two when looking at their supplies too!

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I have just bought some mica powders from U-makeitup.com. It is a UK company based in Spain. The micas look lovely but I have not tried them yet.

I have used most of the UK-based shops mentioned in the various threads. Another one I have used is in France. Here is their link: http://www.aroma-zone.com/. Postage to the UK is free if your order is over 59 euros (which is very easy to achieve). As for the Bramleberry log mould, I found it (in Holland this time), at http://www.youwish.nl/. Unfortunately, postage is not free and it is quite expensive.

Another very cheap shop for coconut oil and palm oil in the UK is http://www.hfoster.co.uk/online-shop. They cost £1.95 a kilo but postage is not free!

As somebody said, the Americans are lucky, they have so many suppliers. One of them (Essential Depot) have told me that they are going to open a shop in the UK in October so... let's keep our fingers crossed!

I bought Micas from u make it up.com. They are the best I've found so far, they are really strong vibrant colours and go a long way. You only need the tiniest bit. All the ones I've tried so far have been stable in CP soap. The titanium dioxide and other oxides were reasonably priced too.

AcornSky said:

nframe said "I am in the UK too and a very good supplier of essential oils is Fresh Skin (http://www.freshskin.co.uk/). Postage is free in the UK."

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I second that about Fresh Skin, they are pretty amazing when it comes to essential oils, carrier oils and various other luxury oils (think jojoba, rosehip oil, etc).
Another fantastic supplier is Mystic Moments, despite the cheesy name they have great cosmetic clays and butters on hand, and use free first class shipping.

Also KTC is the brand to go for coconut oil. They sell gigantic 10 liter vats of it on Amazon, but you can always find 250 ml bottles or 500 ml jars of it in little ethnic shops.

Oh - I've used Mystic Moments on Amazon, but I have Prime and not all their stock is available on Prime, so I have been limited. Thanks for that!

(Edited to add that now I've explored it I do recognise their website, but I had been put off by the fact that all the items are listed at £0.00 - I thought it was unfinished. I see now that you need to look at the item and choose a size before you see the price. Thanks for making me do that!)

AcornSky said:

Oh - I've used Mystic Moments on Amazon, but I have Prime and not all their stock is available on Prime, so I have been limited. Thanks for that!

(Edited to add that now I've explored it I do recognise their website, but I had been put off by the fact that all the items are listed at £0.00 - I thought it was unfinished. I see now that you need to look at the item and choose a size before you see the price. Thanks for making me do that!)

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I always just buy from them on eBay but I linked it to their website in my post. Good to know it led to some positive results for you though!

Oh and Mistral Chemicals sell lab grade lye in large quantities, and last I ordered, were offering free shipping on any purchase. They have other stuff as well (vegetable glycerin, dyes, fragrances, various other chemicals).

http://www.freshskin.co.uk

These are good for essential oils, they also have an ebay store.

I usually use Eo s for soap and such, but want to try some FO,s . I've tried some in the past from several suppliers and some smell is cheap and nasty. I don't mind paying a bit more for something joe Malone, (if you get my meaning). Any suggestions as I've got a draw full of FO,s that I need to throw away. The makes I don't like are gracefrui.

JAS is ok on some fragrences but they don't do the scent that I'm looking for.
Thanks in anticipation

I use Mystic Moments for EOs,Just a Soap for bulk oils and packaging, Gracefruit for various chemicals including preservatives and Soap Kitchen is good too. I found it useful to make a spreadsheet with the ingredients I order mist and compare prices for all the suppliers. I live in the Highlands so postage is often a major factor in what suppliers I use.

Dormex looks good for a range of packaging but they don't have prices on the website and you cant order oine, which is a drawback for me as I also have a fulltime job and put through orders in the evening. Maybe if I was a bit more organised I could do some email correspondence with them...!

nframe said:

I have just bought some mica powders from U-makeitup.com. It is a UK company based in Spain. The micas look lovely but I have not tried them yet.

I have used most of the UK-based shops mentioned in the various threads. Another one I have used is in France. Here is their link: http://www.aroma-zone.com/. Postage to the UK is free if your order is over 59 euros (which is very easy to achieve). As for the Bramleberry log mould, I found it (in Holland this time), at http://www.youwish.nl/. Unfortunately, postage is not free and it is quite expensive.

Another very cheap shop for coconut oil and palm oil in the UK is http://www.hfoster.co.uk/online-shop. They cost £1.95 a kilo but postage is not free!

As somebody said, the Americans are lucky, they have so many suppliers. One of them (Essential Depot) have told me that they are going to open a shop in the UK in October so... let's keep our fingers crossed!

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Thanks nframe, I looked up the brambleberry mould in uwish. You were right, the postage did make it very expensive......sigh!

That's really great news about Essential Depot..... I will definitely keep my fingers crossed. Can't wait to see what they will be selling!

Loved the link for hfoster. Great prices. I would be really tempted to order a larger amount of oils and freeze what I can!

nframe said:

Another very cheap shop for coconut oil and palm oil in the UK is http://www.hfoster.co.uk/online-shop.

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Many thanks nframe (you are so much better than google!) I've just ordered shea butter, coconut oil and palm oil from H Foster - good prices even with the delivery cost.

Hi, I am in Ireland and it is so hard to get supplies here. Mine come mostly from the UK.

Just to let everyone know I have found a fantastic company for pots, tubs ect. I ordered a lot of 50ml mushroom pots, very good price. Anyway I was having trouble getting lotion tubes. I ordered a couple of times from of a simple nature but she never had enough. So I rang the company I got the mushroom pots from and explained what I needed. Within a week they had not only sourced them, sent me a sample but also delivered 200 to me at a very very good price! They are called The Plastic Bottles Company and are based in Cumbria.

The customer service is fantastic and if it isn't on the website is well worth giving them a ring or email.

Thanks Sally, that's really useful

I'm running a Dutch Soap Forum; and the first "sticky" under the "shopping/business" forum is "Suppliers"

Here is our list:

Suppliers

UK
ARO Aromantic aka "The Swedish Gentleman"
GF Gracefruit
JAS Just A Soap
NT Naturally Thinking also standard packaging
OASN Of A SImple Nature
SBC Sheabutter Cottage
SK Soap Kitchen
SP Sensory Perfection
SQN Soap Queen Nederland/On line zeepwinkel

Frankrijk
AZ Aromazone

Nederland
AC Avantgarde Cosmetics
Jan De Hekserij
KK K&K-Kenk Kruidenshop
Lab Labstuff
YW You Wish

Duitsland
BHW Behawe
Gisella Gisella Manske
kosmoKosmo
Alexmo
Aliacura
Hongarije packaging supermarkt bottles, airless suspensers etc.now redirected automatically to the UK site

When you have an addition, please let me know.

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Acornsky said:

Talking about speed of delivery, The Soap Kitchen has a rather weird policy which amounts to 'if you don't pay for express shipping you'll get it when we get around to it'

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I'm from the Netherlands; SK usually processes my order the same day, or the next day when I order in the evening. Exception maybe during Xmas-madness.

Shipping cost becomes an issue as soon as your parcel has to cross "the pond"; even within the EU...
Especially smaller suppliers don't have lucrative deals with couriers.

Anyone could help me with a supplier of shrink-wrap bags (UK is fine) and clear transparant round labels (for laserprinter)?

Thx all for the mentioning of suppliers I didn't know yet.

Forgot to mention for those who are looking for (silicone) moulds in the UK/EU to check out
this site
enjoy

Any one know of a soap cutter in uk to buy? Not enough money to spend on most of the ones on line, £60 plus seems a lot to me for a bit of wood, don't mind a single cheese slicer type one, but the one I have is too flimsy and the wire is always coming loose. Thanks.

http://www.summernaturals.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=92&products_id=634

I saw this the other day but haven't used it myself so couldn't vouch for how effective it is.