Here we grow again!
Posted: 19/02/2013 Filed under: Business, Design, SW101, SWCP, SWCustomerContributions, SWeco, SWevents, SWHeel, SWhowto, SWLL, SWmain, SWpress, SWProducts, SWpromotions, SWsoak, SWstores, Uses for Soak 2 CommentsWe are hiring. You may have seen our teaser post on Facebook, or heard it through the grapevine. We are growing and we need you!
Job Title: Central Intelligence, a.k.a. office support, customer expert, assistant to everyone.
At Soak Wash Inc., we develop and market leading products for laundry and skin care. Soak, our primary product, is modern care for the laundry you love. Our office environment is fun, fast-paced and friendly. The role of Central Intelligence will be filled be someone who is always on top of business. They are the hub of information on customer needs, Soak production and inventory.
We’re looking for a candidate that can gracefully manage the administrative and book-keeping functions of our fun-spirited fast-paced office and (no pressure) interact positively with customers, suppliers and current employees. The ideal candidate will have an interest in customer service (a positive, professional and outgoing personality) as well as a desire to grow with the organization.
This position is part-time. 3 days per week. M, W, Th. at our lovely Mississauga office. 
Ongoing duties include:
• General office support, with attention to detail
• Provide exceptional customer service for current and new customers
• Meticulous database management for customers and orders
• Basic bookkeeping including A/R, A/P, collections, invoicing, etc. using QuickBooks software (a must for the job)
• Salesforce.com data entry
• Overseeing consumer orders
• Preparing expense reports
• Shipping and customs documentation for inbound/ outbound freight
• Preparing orders for shipping
• Overseeing the flow of the office and its supplies
• Greeting couriers, customers and callers with grace
Must-haves:
• Excellent working experience with QuickBooks
• Excellent working experience with Microsoft Office, Acrobat
• Ability to multitask with grace and ease
• Strong English written and verbal skills
• High level of attention to detail
• Independent working habits
Wishful thinking:
• French language skills (or another second language)
• Experience in sales or customer service
• An interest in knitting, quilting and/ or fashion
• Experience with shipping software, brokers or the likes
• The keen ability and interest to work on other office/ warehouse tasks as needed
Please visit our website soakwash.com to learn about our company and products before applying for the position. We are all as passionate about our products as we are our jobs. If filled by the perfect candidate, this position has the potential to evolve into full-time employment.
Please submit CV with a letter of intent outlining how both your experience and personality are ideal for our fast-paced, fun, growing environment. Please also include your favorite thing about Soak.
We appreciate your interest in this position, however, only the candidates selected for an interview will be contacted. Send intent to: hireme@soakwash.com No phone calls, please.
Thank you for choosing Soak. Have a lovely day.
Happy New Year with Labels of Love
Posted: 03/01/2013 Filed under: Craft, Knitting, Soak Fragrances, SWLL, SWpromotions 2 CommentsHappy New Year Soak friends!
We are all well rested from our break over the holidays and are settling back into our routines at the office. The chocolates are being rationed for mid-morning tea breaks and we are bundled up in new hats and mitts. Good thing, as Toronto has been hit with a fair amount of snow over the last week. It isn’t as much snow as some places, but there is certainly no denying that winter has arrived.
One of the best things about coming back from the holidays this year is hearing from customers who gave or recieved Soakboxes in the last few weeks. It is such a great gift!
January is an exciting time for knitters. Suddenly the knitting list has shortened, the calendar has opened up, and we can knit for ourselves. Provided of course that the knitter in question finished all the gifts that need to be made! I know of at least one member of our office who gave 1 fingerless mitten and a card that said “IOU: one fingerless mitten”. Ahem.
So unlike our local knitter, there is suddenly time to knit for the most important person in your life: YOU! To celebrate our favourite knitters, we are running a promotion for everyone who didn’t find a Soakbox under their trees this year. If you buy a Soakbox online from us in the month of January, you will receive a pack of Labels of Love as well. There is no code, no extra work to be done. Simply place your order and we will do the rest!
Happy New Year, from all of us here at Soak!
Soakboxes: knit-a-longs, magazines and manicures
Posted: 10/10/2012 Filed under: Craft, Knitting, Soak Worthy People, SW101, SWCustomerContributions, SWhowto, SWLL, SWmain, SWProducts, SWpromotions, SWsoak, SWstores, Testimonials | Tags: fiona ellis, hand cream, Knitting, lornas laces, soak, soakbox 2 CommentsWorking on something special this fall? How are those hands holding up? It’s time to put down your needles and pick up a Soakbox. What’s that you ask?
Soak, Handmaid luxury hand creme, nail polish and custom dyed to match yarn. Who could ask for anything more? Ask for them by name, get one at your LYS. They’re everywhere! (or have your LYS get in touch with us if they don’t stock them yet)
We’ve got some great things brewing related to our Soakboxes this holiday season. Watch for knit-a-longs, tutorials, give-aways and Ravelry updates about each design.
If you spot someone knitting Soakboxes, do let us know. We’re gathering images, feedback and manicure shots!
Looking for more about Soakboxes? Want to blog yourself? Here are some fun links. Check out Annie’s blog. Meet Natalie. Hello Knitty! They are also featured in the holiday issue of Knit Simple magazine (we’re super proud)
Our website is stacked wtih new products for all your holiday needs. From stocking stuffers (Handmaid anyone?) to full bottles of Soak, we’ve got your holiday gift giving all sorted out.
As for Soakboxes, here are some holiday ideas to start you off. There’s still time to knit before the holiday season!
- Knit up the knits and put them back in the box for a great gift for the non-knitter in your life (if you can resist them yourself!)
- Host a manicure & knit night with friends. Bring some bubbly and knit all night long.
- Have your LYS host a class around Soakboxes.
Have you knit all four yet?
Keeping a secret, part 3: Planning the big reveal
Posted: 24/05/2012 Filed under: SW101, SWCustomerContributions, SWHeel, SWLL, SWmain, SWpress, SWProducts, SWpromotions, SWstores 8 CommentsWhat a week we’ve had. The suspense, the drama, the shipping of media samples! Alas, here it is. The final story in the beginning of a great new collection of products. We’re certain these Soakboxes will be here to stay.
Conceptually we were sorted and the designing began. We finalized our new 3oz bottles. They’re 100% post-consumer resin and super cute. Flight friendly and environmentally friendly. We created mini versions of our new labels for Soak 3oz and branded the new and now in high demand Handmaid.
We finalized our yarn colours, to match our Soak fragrances, of course, and Fiona finalized patterns.
As Fiona pointed out, “four colour-ways were selected to encompass both fashion-forward shades and the classics. In my classes when looking at colour selection I point out how each hue has its own personality and provokes a response in us. So I based the designs for each pair of mitts on this theory, designing the patterns to fit with the mood of each colour and Soak fragrance.”
Fiona loves the detail in each pattern. Her words describe them best:
Clark Cable: reds are considered warm, passionate and powerful. This is a classic dark red so the cable design for this colour-way is dramatic and suitable for evening wear. The cables open up to create a saucy little hole for the thumb.
Double Pointe Pink: lights or pastels feel young, delicate and soft. Pale pink is very feminine and reminds me of ballet slippers. So this design has cables to look like the lacing of the ribbons and also includes my signature I-cord trim.
Lace Kelly: this shade is an on-trend combination somewhere between blue & green. Both are thought of as cool, tranquil and calming. The eyelet lace is wonderfully ladylike and is my homage to the demure beauty of the style icon whose name we riffed on to name our colour.
Cuff au Lait: browns, the colour of earth, are comfortable, rustic and fertile, darks shades are opulent, light shades make me think of edibles: milk chocolate, caramel and of course cappuccino. The polish is something that you can wear with just about anything and so the design for this one has a “wear it every day” feel, the fold over ribbed cuff makes it cozy and casual.
As we worked through the packaging, we scheduled photo shoots and naming parties to bring it all together. When we started receiving bits and pieces at our warehouse, it became harder and harder to keep the project quiet. We even invited hand models from our local knit scene to assist in the photo shoot, trading secrecy for first access to the new designs.
In summary, each Soakbox includes a bottle of Soak and Handmaid luxury creme, in matching scents, stylishly coordinated to premium nail polish and matching Lorna’s Laces custom designed yarn.
We’re all really excited about this project. While it’s still the start of summer, think towards knitting on the beach, cozy fall projects and holiday as this is the perfect gift, for yourself and those who knit. They’ll hit stores starting in June. Ask for them by name. In fact, print out this post and take it to your LYS (or gift store) and have them contact me to order them for you.
Images are available here. Feel free to share them, comment, blog and repost. Please be sure to link back to our website or this blog, so that our great team can be credited for their hard work. The products are live on our site as well, although as mentioned, they won’t ship until sometime in June. If you have any questions (purchasing, selling, promoting or just sending lovely feedback) related to this or other Soak projects, please be in touch! We would love to hear from you.
“It is always exciting to see a project that begins as just a bright idea come to fruition but when it exceeds your own imaginings it is doubly so.” Fiona Ellis.
Keeping a secret, part 2: Assembling a sneaky team
Posted: 23/05/2012 Filed under: Knitting, Soak Worthy People, SWHeel, SWLL, SWmain, SWProducts, SWstores 10 CommentsThis one’s for Fiona Ellis, who has been going crazy being sneaky!
I first met designer extraordinaire Fiona Ellis last summer, over an outdoor movie and coffee featuring Mary Poppins. Fiona had recently had an interesting observation, which she shared with great enthusiasm. “I work with my hands all the time and so it is important to me that they are well cared for. And because I used to work in cosmetic formulation (in what I call my former life) I have, over time, developed a fancy for having my nails match my current knitting.”
She continued, “when Julia Grunau (of Patternfish fame) showed me a newly completed pair of fingerless mitts I told her I knew exactly which polish she should wear with them….in that moment an idea was born. How cool would it be to have yarn dyed to match your favourite polish?” As Fiona declared her passion for nail polish, the collaboration with Soak was initiated. Her seed of an idea was expanded upon, thanks to my love of product development, to become an even more exciting package. And, I got to go nail polish shopping, how could I turn that down?
Polish with matching yarn? A bit out of the box, indeed. As a designer at heart, I knew I could make that happen. Accessing premium nail polish was hard to do, not to mention choosing Soakworthy colors. Coincidentally, we were just in the beginning stages of developing our new hand crème, Handmaid. It seemed like the perfect fit. Of course we already have Soak, now we just needed some yarn.
Enter Beth, owner of Lorna’s Laces. As Beth recalls it, “A couple of months ago, Jacqueline called and asked if we’d be interested in collaborating with Soak and Fiona Ellis on a super-secret project that involved Soak, Handmaid, nail polish and an exclusive pattern. Interested? Ummmm…..YES!”
(I feel a bit like now is the perfect time to share one of my favorite photos from this project. It’s jumping ahead a bit, in terms of my “big reveal”, but it’s so lovely, I just can’t keep it in any more. I also feel like I have to make a poster of this image for the Lorna’s Laces office, it’s just that pretty.)
Beth continued, “we picked Shepherd Sport for this project. It’s soft, machine washable (always use Soak) and a nice weight for mitts. And you can get a pair out of just one skein! The whole idea of creating color ways to coordinate with nail polish seemed like a total win. Even better, Jacqueline offered to come down to Chicago and play in the dye pots with me to make it happen! We spent two lovely days up to our elbows in dye.”
As we began to plan the Soakboxes, Fiona worked on the patterns (tech edited by the lovely and talented Kate Atherley),and we, at Soak, worked on the rest. Labels, packaging and the new bottles. It was all a work in progress, for what seemed like an eternity.
It was pretty exciting to spend a few days at Lorna’s Laces. We watched other colorways being created, and I learned how to mix and dye yarn.
By the time we were done, we were so excited to have yarn to match our polishes, we couldn’t wait to get back to work on the rest of the project and to share the new colours with Fiona. She had some serious pattern design work to do. Did I mention? There’s a unique pattern designed for each colour, in the Soakbox! There are 4 in total. More tomorrow.
Let’s talk turkey, with a holiday gift set giveaway from Soak and Lorna’s Laces!
Posted: 23/11/2011 Filed under: Craft, Knitting, Soak Fragrances, Soak Stockists, SWHeel, SWLL, SWmain, SWProducts, SWpromotions 142 CommentsFor those of us in Canada, this Thursday is just another fantastic day at the office. We’re long past the days of turkey, eaten more apple pie than should be eaten and are well focused on our holiday shopping. In an effort to support our American friends and the start of their weekend feasting and holiday season, we’re offering a couple of our new Lorna’s Laces + Heel holiday gift sets for you! We’ve shipped an abundant amount of gift sets to local yarn shops around the world.
We were packing,
then they were packing.
While the gals at Lorna’s Laces are focused on Turkey fixings like cranberry sauce or gravy, we prefer to ponder the likes of apple pie vs pumpkin pie. We’re giving away one of each of the following sets: Beverly with Peppermint and Purple Club with Scentless.
So the great task? Tell us in a comment whether you prefer apple pie, or pumpkin pie with your Thanksgiving dinner (or any time for that matter) and we’ll choose a random winner for each gift set. You have all weekend to eat pie and ponder your choice. We’ll keep the contest open until Sunday night at midnight. The winners will be announced Monday and the prizes will ship shortly thereafter.
For a chance to win the other two sets, visit http://lornaslaces.blogspot.com/ and follow the instructions there.
If you aren’t one of our lucky winners, you can buy one for yourself or a loved one at your LYS or we have a limited number for sale at www.soakwash.com. Follow us on facebook, twitter and Ravelry.com. Share the Soak love and good luck!
Happy Turkey, from all of us at Soak.
soakworthy.com 