Soak, on the Shopping Channel! Watch it now.
Posted: 25/07/2012 Filed under: Business, Craft, SWCP, SWhowto, SWmain, SWpress, SWProducts, SWpromotions, SWstores | Tags: bags, blocking, Bra, delicates, hand washing, Jacqueline Sava, knitting and crochet blog week, laundry, lingerie, marketing, shopping channel, soak, soakwash, travel, washing lingerie, yoga Leave a commentWe’ve been busy, and a bit out of touch with the blog. Thankfully it has been all in the name of good things and lots of work! We’ll be more on top of this moving forward.
Yesterday, as you may already know, we had our debut on the Shopping Channel! It was a very exciting day, full of new friends, new activities and selling Soak!
Jacqueline was the guest on-air, and Chris watched the numbers and helped from the sidelines. When experiencing such new and exciting adventures, it helps not to be alone!
We are very pleased to share with you the link to the great gift set we made, exclusively for them (you have to click to see it), as well as some awesome photos of the television that Chris took in the green room (the nice place where guests wait when they aren’t on air) and Jacqueline’s Dad took from home (the nice place where parents watch proudly as their children sell stuff on TV). We love the grainy look of the shots, combined with the TV buying information. All scents are available online, so get them now! Thanks for watching. We’ll let you know our next air date as soon as we have it.
Oh, and did we mention, you can even watch the video of our on-air episode too! (you have to click on the video link above the image on the Shopping Channel page selling Soak…)
Check it out! Thanks again for choosing Soak. We wouldn’t be where we are today, without you.
Keeping a secret, part 1: How to come up with a good secret.
Posted: 22/05/2012 Filed under: Business, Design, Soak Worthy People, SW101, SWHeel, SWhowto, SWmain, SWProducts, SWstores | Tags: Jacqueline Sava, Knitting, laundry, lornas laces, soak, soakwash, yarn 2 CommentsJacqueline has been brewing up at storm of new products for fall. She’s not always the best at keeping a secret, but sometimes, you have to do, what you have to do. She’s about to spill the beans!
New product development is my favorite job at Soak. Not only is it what I was trained to do (with my industrial design background), but it’s also really quite fun. So, when the stars aligned last year and I was introduced to a great idea, I got straight to work. It has been hard to keep this project under wraps, but it has been worth it. In true Soak style, we’ve been able to design and deliver a unique product with great friends.
Following the creation of successful gift packs such as our travel packs and Heel/ Solemate boxes, we wanted to create a permanent collection of gift items, from Soak. That’s how the Soakbox was born. It’s a unique concept, filled with new products, unique items (like, say, custom hand-dyed yarn) and retail-worthy packaging. Watch in the coming days for more details on the new product.
2011 Update
Posted: 23/03/2011 Filed under: Food | Tags: birthdays, Jacqueline Sava Leave a commentIt’s only March and we’ve had an eventful first few months of 2011. Here’s a brief update on what we’ve been working on.
January was full of travels. We attended TNNA and Vogue Knitting Live where we were greeted with friendly eager customers who couldn’t get enough of our newest product, Heel. This was the first Vogue Knitting Live show and we loved meeting our New Yorker Soak users. We also met some friendly people who travelled from Canada and even California to participate in the fun.
February was full of cake and icing. With both Jacqueline and Chris celebrating birthdays last month, as well as brightly coloured Valentine’s day cupcakes, our sweet teeth have thoroughly been satisfied. I also learned how much butter and sugar actually goes into a bowl of delicious butter cream icing. This is one fact that I probably could have gone my whole life without knowing, and have been happier. 
Even knowing what was in the icing, it didn’t stop me from licking the bowl.
For month’s now, we’ve been diligently working on making our website more user-friendly and appealing. There has been vast improvement so far compared to our old site and we’re still working hard on continuing to improve it. Here’s a sneak peek as the new layout and design that we’ve been working on. 
Visit soakwash.com and give us your thoughts on our progress thus far. I’ve looked at this page everyday for the past 3 months and I’m sure a fresh pair of eyes can offer some much needed feedback.
We’ve decided to take part in the 365 photo a day project. It’s been a team effort with each one of us submitting photos and it’s been interesting to see what each of us sees in our daily lives outside of the Soak office. With warmer weather just around the corner, I’m excited to see more nature
and outdoor photographs. If you search 365 in Flickr, you’ll see many photos taken by people around the world who are participating.
How to: Block a hat
Posted: 21/10/2010 Filed under: videos | Tags: blocking, hand washing, how to, Jacqueline Sava, Knitting, soak wash, soakwash, Video, wash 2 CommentsWe were tweeted by one of our friendly customers who had just finished knitting her very first hat and had no idea how to block it. We thought that answering her question would be a great way to start off what we hope to be a series of helpful videos about caring for the items you cherish most.
If you have any questions, requests or suggestions for videos, we’d love to hear them! Send your thoughts to ngoc@soakwash.com.
Business is cool | Design Strategy Part 2
Posted: 15/10/2010 Filed under: Business, school | Tags: business, Jacqueline Sava, marketing 1 CommentAuthor: Jacqueline
Everyone thinks that if you just make a better mouse trap, you’ll be rich. Each business discipline has its own priorities in terms of mouse trap function and profit. As designers, we want to understand it all.
Sales thinks… that without them, there is no business- your mouse trap is nothing, if I don’t sell it.
Marketing thinks… if nobody knows there’s a new mouse trap, who cares?
Finance/business thinks… if it’s just about the bottom line, the trap isn’t important.
Designer thinks… if I design a better mouse trap, it will sell.
Design must be all encompassing. One must understand all aspects and priorities in order to create useful products.
In the second part of the design strategy course, we dive into marketing. We talk about marketing as part of the strategic mix, not to become professional marketers, but to be able to understand what marketing is all about when in a business or client meeting.
We skim the surface of famed marketing terms such as the 4 P’s, (Product, Price, Place, Promotion), we look at types of products (core, functional, augmented, potential) and try to define the ‘true’ solution a consumer is seeking when they look at goods or services. We stop for a while on pricing products, understanding how value compares with price (why starbucks can charge 4x more for coffee than say, Tim Horton’s or the local gas station) and why people pay more for certain things. We close off understanding how to define consumer needs and target markets. When we move towards the world of understanding brands, we look at product lifecycles, adoption curves and a few other marketing fundamentals.
It’s important to note that this marketing research is done in the context of the business strategy (which we learned how to analyze in the first part of the course). If we don’t have context, all the marketing research in the world won’t help our products succeed. That’s just my opinion, based on lots and lots of experience.
You might have the same glazed over look my students did this week in class as you read over these topics. I’m okay with that. It’s not that our designer/ students need to master brand strategy. If they did, they’d go get degrees in Marketing. They need to be familiar with the concepts and terms, so they can work well alongside marketers and agencies collaborating on client projects.
Should you feel the need to understand these points further, I would direct you towards our course text book, my favorite marketing book for non-marketing majors, ‘Marketing a roadmap to Success’ by Ajay K. Sirsi. Professor Sirsi was one of my MBA Profs at Schulich School of Business and he wrote this book to help simplify marketing terminology for us mere mortals, who don’t have the time for four inch thick text books. Happy reading.
Business’S cool- The Context of Business
Posted: 08/10/2010 Filed under: Craft | Tags: business, george brown, Jacqueline Sava, marketing Leave a commentAuthor: Jacqueline
The Design Strategy course at George Brown is neatly divided into three sections. First, we look at the context of business, then we get into the details of marketing and finally we end with integrating the design process into the business process.
This week we’re going to talk about the context of business. We all interact with a variety of businesses on a daily basis. Whether you pick up your morning coffee at a Starbucks, local independent coffee shop or by fresh beans at the grocery store to brew at home, by 9am, you have interacted with a wide variety of businesses. Someone made the coffee maker, someone pays rent and hires people at the coffee shop and someone hooked up the electrical outlets in your home. Each of those functions comes from a different business and each business has a history, vision, strategy, core competencies and operational plans. Each business is also affected by what is happening in its specific industry, the economy and the external environment.
We start with giving the students an understanding of how businesses operate and why they operate the way they do. We look at the driving forces of the organization. Then, we look at the businesses strategy, core competencies and operational functions. From there, we analyze the internal strengths and weaknesses, relative to the above mentioned strategic plan. Finally, we explore the external forces affecting business- the economy (how many of you buy less coffee on the go since the recession?), the environment and other social and regulatory factors affect and influence the business.
Essentially, we can all go on designing stuff, based on client briefs, because our bosses told us to, or because we just feel like creating new products. If we take the time to understand the business environment of our client, our industry or our own company, we bring an entirely new perspective to the design process. We not only design, but design in relation to the functioning business which gives us greater capacity, knowledge and insight that ever before. If we work from the corporate vision, focusing down through the organization and then widening back to the industry and external environment we can get an all encompassing view of what is really going on in business, allowing us to produce and manage stronger designs.
101 things to do with Soak | 034 Wool is wool.
Posted: 05/10/2010 Filed under: Uses for Soak | Tags: 101, cleaning, hand washing, Jacqueline Sava, rug, soak wash, soakwash, wash Leave a commentAuthor: Jacqueline
We often get questions related to the effects of using Soak on less common textiles. These requests usually come in the form of ‘well, I’ll try, I’ve got nothing to lose and if it doesn’t work, it was ruined/ old/ garbage anyhow…’. Sometimes it’s ‘can I soak the veil from my grandmother’s wedding gown? It’s old and yellow, and if it doesn’t’ work, it’s garbage anyhow’. Fortunately, these letters are often followed by raving success stories of lovely weddings including gramma’s veil, or otherwise destitute fabrics getting a second life.
This week, I had my very own ‘I might as well try Soak, or I throw it out anyhow’ moment with our spare room carpet. The artistically inclined teenager moved out and left a myriad of purple spotted stains on my favourite throw rug. I knew I was taking a risk leaving the rug in the room, but I neither had anywhere else to put it, nor wanted to move it from its destined home. Plus, she liked the rug, and it’s just a rug.
Luckily I had taken a bottle of Unleash from the ‘friends and family‘ shelf just the other day. So, I got down on my hands and knees, well, sort of, as I am still with a broken ankle and cast, so it was more of a sideways sit and started to scrub. I put some Soak on a scotch brite pad, and off I went. To my shock and pleasure, the agitation caused by the scrubbing was just enough to gently open the fibers, squeeze in some Soak and release the ‘purple spots’, whatever they were, from the rug. I used a damp cloth to blot the spot, gave it a quick rub to restore the threads and was off to the next spot.
I didn’t rinse it out or work it for very long- just long enough to saturate the fibers in question and loosen the stain right on out. Who knew? Wool is wool after all, and Soak worked just as well on my carpet, as it does on my favourite sweaters.
Yippee! My carpet looks newer than new.
Send us your Soak ‘who knew it would work’ stories. We’ve got a favourite from a friend’s mom who Soaked her living room curtains new again. Sadly she forgot to take the before and after photos, so don’t forget those when you send in your submissions! We look forwarding to sharing your stories too.
Business’S cool. Week 1.
Posted: 01/10/2010 Filed under: Business, Design, school | Tags: business, Jacqueline Sava, school, soakwash 2 CommentsThis Friday we are shaking things up. It’s time to put away our summer bags for a school bag fit for fall. We’re trading silk for leather, cotton for vinyl and soft sacs for sturdy back packs. Join us each Friday for Business’S cool.
Stories to inspire and educate, from owner and founder Jacqueline Sava.
Tuesday mornings you won’t find me at the Soak office. I’ll be held up in an interior classroom at George Brown College’s School of Design. My philosophies and practices combining design and business led me right to the Design Management program at George Brown. In class you ask? Well, I’m not taking classes, I’m teaching a class called Design Strategy. Essentially, I teach designers how to think and work like/with business people. I believe (and as a trained designer, I feel comfortable saying this) that designers should learn, at some point or another, that there is a whole world out there that doesn’t understand, speak or think design. More importantly, if we designers want to live in the real world, we need to learn to communicate, work and live in unison with business people.
Most of the students have, like I do, undergraduate degrees in various design disciplines. They all want to work as design managers, design directors or key players in the corporate world, bringing design to the masses, or at least management. Each week (or so) I’ll bring you insights from the classroom. A sneak preview at what we are working on, great books to read, insights from students, and experiences from the Soak office. It is shockingly true, that nothing is more valuable than experience, and these days, we are getting more than our fair share.
This photo was taken at one of our branding sessions.
Education is a core value here at Soak. We not only educate our consumers on best practices with our product, but also continue to learn at the office as well. We are always seeking to improve, share and develop ourselves, as we develop the business. Feel free to send thoughts and ask questions. Sharing knowledge is my passion and I hope you can learn new things here, to apply to your work and life.
Enjoy.
Back to the design school, and a little bit of history on myself and the program:
The School of Design features many award-winning programs. Design Management draws international students together with diverse backgrounds such as Industrial Design, Fashion, Graphic Design, Advertising, Architecture, Interior Design etc. All students have work experience, ranging from one to several years, in various disciplines and countries. The richness of cultures, experiences and insights is staggering. There is nothing more rewarding than learning while you teach. This is my second year working with the brilliant faculty at the School of Design. In the past I’ve taught at Humber College (in both the Industrial Design department and the School of Fashion Business) as well as done lecture series with various business organizations. My background combining an undergraduate degree industrial design from an art college (RISD) and an MBA in strategy and marketing from SSB (York University) offers a unique combination of art and business, design and strategy. When I speak I try to bridge design and business enabling easy and enthusiastic communication from both perspectives.
Next week, let the games begin. I’ve got my school bag ready. Do you have yours?
101 things to do with Soak | 031 Canning tomatoes.
Posted: 14/09/2010 Filed under: Food, Uses for Soak | Tags: 101, hand washing, Jacqueline Sava, soak wash, soakwash, wash Leave a commentAuthor: Jacqueline
Sometimes you just have too many tomatos.
While making our third batch of sauce we finally ran out of pots. Mini-Carrie came to the rescue storing chopped tomatos and basil pre-cooking. Yum. The Carries and Phils are non-toxic and food safe, so cook away!
It’s Friday and I’m bagged. Week 29. This bag is Magic
Posted: 27/08/2010 Filed under: Business | Tags: bags, Jacqueline Sava, Magic tradeshow Leave a commentAuthor: Jacqueline
Grab a coffee or tea and join us each Friday, to learn how these Soak worthy bags came to be. Are you bagged? Send us your favorite bag. If we feature it here, we’ll send you a Soak gift pack, in a pretty bag, of course!
Last week Soak exhibited at Magic in Las Vegas. We had a great show, welcoming several new Soak accounts such as Lucy B Lingerie, and Apricot Lane as well as seeing old friends like My Philosophy, and Anne van Hauwaert, While seeing friends was the highlight of the show, there were some pretty spectacular bags walking around.
The most coveted one featured Hello Kitty and Elmo, crazy I know. Jane from Itty Bitty Bra scored one of those.
There were several other shows going on during Magic, such as Workroom, which happened to boast my favourite bag of the week. Sorry Karyn I couldn’t snag you one, I tried. They were for buyers only.
The Kersh bag was the most functional, soft cotton, pretty and stylish- definitely a bag that might have use in real life.
The Playboy bag was the shiniest bag, no surprise, but I can’t quite figure out where I’d use it post-show.
I brought home a few other bags to add to our office stash. We use them for post office runs, store visits and taking work home on the weekends. I wonder of I’d get to cut the line at the post office with a playboy bag? I’ll keep you posted.
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