Royal Mail Strikes Suspended

We are very pleased that both Royal Mail and the CWU have come to an arrangement where the current strikes scheduled for Friday 06/11/2009 and Monday 09/11/2009 have been called off. Furthermore they have agreed a 'period of calm' through to the end of the year to allow for negotiations to continue to come to a final settlement.

We would like to congratulate both Royal Mail and the CWU on reaching this sensible agreement and urge them to reach a permanent settlement as soon as possible.

Winter Skin Body Therapy

Not only is the skin on your face effected by the change of climate, but the skin on your body can change too. Your skin might start to feel dry, scaly and flaky especially after bathing or showering. We can recommend several products to use in our Dermalogica Body Therapy range.

To begin when you are washing your skin in the bath or shower the Dermalogica Conditioning Body Wash is not only invigorating in the way it smells, but it is also very therapeutic for your skin because it is soap free and contains an alternative ingredient which is very effective at cleansing your skin. It also contains many essential oils to purify and soothe your skin that will also moisturise and hydrate your skin. Conditioning Body Wash is also great to use with the Dermalogica Ultimate Buffing Cloth. It is a long, slim cloth which will gently exfoliate your skin while your washing. All you need to do is wet the cloth and then apply just one pump of the body wash, work up a foam and massage the cloth over your entire body. The shape of the cloth is brilliant to wash your back with, which usually gets missed. You will also use much less product when using with the cloth so your product will last twice as long.

It is also great for your skin to follow our 3 minute rule. When you have bathed or showered pat your skin dry and while your skin is still damp, quickly apply your body cream or lotion. When your skin is still damp it will absorb the moisturiser more efficiently and will also lock in the moisture.

If your skin isn't sensitive and isn't particularly dry the Dermalogica Body Hydrating Cream will be the best one for you. This product contains a special hydroxy and lactic acid complex to gently exfoliate, which will smooth and tone your skin. It is non greasy and absorbs extremely quickly into the skin and very effectively nourishes your too.

If your skin is very dry or sensitive the Dermalogica Ultra Rich Body Cream is the most suitable for you. It has a lovely rich and creamy texture which is very soothing when applied to the skin. It has a unique long lasting formula so your skin will feel soft and smooth all day. It also contains healing ingredients that are great to alleviate any sensitive or irritated areas. Always try and patch test any new product before using all over your body. Samples are available for all of our products which is enough to patch test with.

To use these products on a daily basis will dramatically improve the texture and tone of your skin or will also prevent your skin from becoming dry and uncomfortable. Try and remeber that prevention is always better than cure.

How to beat the Royal Mail Strikes

During the pending Royal Mail strikes we are going to be doing all we can to mitigate any problems caused. We are going to be processing and sending your orders as quickly as you have come to expect from us to ensure we get them to you as soon as we can.

We know that a lot of friends, family and work colleagues order their Dermalogica products from us. We would recommend that during this time, until the problems at Royal Mail are resolved, that you try and order together to increase the size of your orders and benefit from our offer of Special Delivery if over £100.00. You may not receive it Next Day as promised but Royal Mail will still be handling and processing these parcels with priority.

We have been asked many times why we continue to use Royal Mail to send our parcels and why we don't use a courier. We can assure you that we have had quotes from every national courier in the country and they are all about the same price. This would mean that we would have to charge each of our customers about £5.00 for delivery which simply would not be worth it. Further more customers in some areas of Scotland, Northern Ireland and some areas of Wales would be charged a premium to buy from us. We think this is simply unfair. Royal Mail have to offer a universal service and they are our National Postal Service and we believe strongly that we should support them.

Royal Mail Strikes 2009

Winter Skin

We are fast approaching winter and already the weather has turned much colder, especially in the mornings and evenings. I'm sure most of you have switched on your central heating which over a period of time will start to have quite a dramatic effect on our skin. Your skin will probably start to feel tighter, dryer and may even develop dry, flaky patches. Your lips may also start to crack and become quite sore. If you are suffering from any of these problems I would suggest some adjustments to your daily skin care routine.

If you are happy with your Dermalogica Moisturiser instead of changing to a richer one you could try using the Dermalogica Skin Hydrating Booster. You can use this twice a day before applying your moisturiser by dispensing approximately 7-10 drops into one hand, massaging slightly between both hands and then pressing into your skin all over your face and neck. You can then apply your moisturiser over the top.

You could also introducing one of the Dermalogica Masques.

If your skin feels tighter than normal it is more dehydrated, so our Dermalogica Skin Hydrating Masque is perfect. It is a gel in consistency so feels wonderfully cooling and can be applied all over the face and neck and right around the eye area. Leave on for about 15 minutes and then remove by rinsing well with plenty of warm water.

If your skin is feeling very dry then our Dermalogica Intensive Moisture Masque is ideal. It has a lovely rich, creamy texture and can be used all over the face and neck and quite close beneath the eyes but not over the eyelid. Leave on for approx 15-20 minutes and then remove by rinsing well with plenty of warm water.

If your skin feels tight and dry and you are concerned with ageing our Dermalogica Multivitamin Power Recovery Masque is an excellent choice. You can use all over the face and neck and around the entire eye area. The longer the masque is left on the skin the better results you will see. You can even use this as an overnight treatment. It should be removed by thoroughly cleansing in the morning.

All of the above masks can be used once or twice a week.

Royal Mail Strikes

We are afraid that there has been an escalation in the number and frequency of strikes carried out by members of the CWU at Royal Mail. This is causing an inevitable backlog on deliveries and therefore extended delays in delivery times.

We would like to re-assure our customers that we are still processing and sending your products as quickly as always, and that we have not changed our internal processes and procedures in any way. If historically parcels we have sent to you have arrived quickly, we would ask that you allow a little more time for the goods to arrive until this period of uncertainty is over. We would like to apologies to our customers for any inconvenience caused.

We would urge all CWU Royal Mail workers and the Royal Mail management to acheive a lasting resolution quickly due to the damage being caused to businesses such as ours, and the great inconvenience caused to our customers and others.

Website Payments Back to Normal

We are pleased to report that our Payment Gateway SagePay is now working correctly, and we are able to take payments with credit or debit cards as normal.

We would like to apologies to our customers who attempted to place orders with us last night and were unable to do so.

We will continue to monitor the situation throughout today and hopefully we will have no further problems.

Website Unable to Process Payment

We are very sorry to report that since around 19:30 this evening we have been unable to process credit and debit card payments. Our Payment Gateway - SagePay - have experienced a system wide failure that has meant we have been unable to take payment for orders by card.

We would like to apologies unreservedly to all of our customers for the inconvenience caused.

We will continue to update this blog post when we have further news.

At Home Skin Care Regime for Oily Skin Types

As part of our At Home Skin Care Regimes series, I have listed below some products that are suitable for Oily Skin Types. You don't have to use all of the products from the list but the minimum required would be a Cleanser and a Moisturiser.

1. Cleanser
A great cleanser to use for oily skin is the Dermalogica Dermal Clay Cleanser because it contains a unique clay formula made up of kaolin and green clays designed to absorb excess oils. It also contains extracts of sambucus, ivy and lemon to purify and refine the skins texture. Cucumber and sage will also help to calm, soothe and heal any irritation while menthol will help to boost and revitalize the skin.

Dermal Clay Cleanser has a lovely thick and creamy consistency and when you use the product it is a good idea to wet your hands first. Pour a small amount, about the size of a 10 pence piece, into the palm of one hand and massage between both hands to warm the product, then apply to the face with small circular movements concentrating on the more oilier areas. Do this for about a minute then thoroughly rinse of with warm water.

You can also use Dermal Clay Cleanser as a masque once or twice a week by applying to the whole face and neck or just to your most oily areas, avoiding the eyes, then leave on for 5-10 minutes before removing with warm water.

Use each morning and evening.

Available Sizes:
Dermalogica Dermal Clay Cleanser (500ml)
Dermalogica Dermal Clay Cleanser (250ml)
Dermalogica Dermal Clay Cleanser (50ml)


2. Exfoliant
The most beneficial exfoliant for a oily skin is the Dermalogica Skin Prep Scrub. This contains finely granulated corn cob meal to gently polish the surface of the skin. We call this type of exfoliant a mechanical exfoliant because of its granular texture. This product will remove any surface dead skin cells and impurities to allow any product applied afterwards to be absorbed more effectively. The skin will also be left with a bright and healthy glow, feeling smoother and more supple.

Apply about a 10 pence piece amount into the palm of one hand then add enough water to make a fairly runny consistency. Massage over the whole face and neck for approximately 1-2 minutes, taking care around the eyes. Rinse thoroughly with warm water. Use no more than twice a week as you can over stimulate the skin which can cause more oil production.

Use once or twice a week

Available Sizes:
Dermalogica Skin Prep Scrub (75ml)


3. Masque
Dermalogica Skin Refining Masque is most beneficial for oily skin. It contains kaolin and bentonite to absorb excess oil, and zinc oxide to remove impurities and refine the skins surface which will help to reduce breakouts. Soothing botanicals of mallow, arnica and cucumber will help to reduce any inflammation and purifying watercress, lemon and ivy revive dull skin.

It is more beneficial to exfoliate the skin prior to using Dermalogica Skin Refining Masque. Apply a smooth film over the entire face, or just on oily areas, avoiding the eyes, and leave for approximately 10 minutes or until the masque has set. Remove with warm water, rinsing thoroughly.

Use once or twice a week

Available Sizes:
Dermalogica Skin Refining Masque (75ml)


4. Toner
After cleansing spritz over the skin with Dermalogica Multi-Active Toner to refresh, rehydrate and protect your skin. 3-4 pumps should be enough to cover the whole face and neck.

Use each morning and evening after cleansing.

Available Sizes:
Dermalogica Multi-Active Toner (250ml)
Dermalogica Multi-Active Toner (50ml)


5. Moisturiser
Even though your skin is oily it is still very important to moisturise your skin, just ensure you use an oil free moisturiser. Dermalogica Oil Control Lotion is perfect for an oily skin type as it contains micro sponges to absorb and regulate oil production throughout the day, which will help to eliminate shine and give your skin a much welcome matte finish. This product contains one of Dermalogica's most effective ingredients - salycilic acid - which will clear congested follicles, helping to prevent future breakouts. Lots of soothing, calming, anti-inflammatory ingredients have also been used which really help to ease any red, sore or inflamed areas.

Use each morning and evening after cleansing.

Available Sizes:
Dermalogica Oil Control Lotion (59ml)


5. Targeted treatment
One of our most recently introduced products is Dermalogica Clearing Mattifier. This product is great to target oilier areas as its main benefit is to control oil and shine. Dermalogica Clearing Mattifier contains a host of ingredients to purify and minimise sebaceous activity, while salycilic acid clears congested follicles to prevent future breakout activity. A unique extract of cinnamon bark helps to reduce the onset of comedones while other ingredients soothe the skin and reduce inflammation. Clearing Mattifier has a lovely texture which melts effortlessly into the skin and should be applied after cleansing and toning just to oily areas, followed by your prescribed moisturiser.

Use each morning after cleansing.

Available Sizes:
Dermalogica Clearing Mattifier (40ml)

Telephone and Live Chat Support

We pride ourselves on always being available for our customers and on the many methods we make available to contact us. For this reason we carry out maintenance on our Telephone, Live Chat and other communication systems to ensure that for the remainder of the time they work as required.

In line with this standard we will be carrying out maintenance beginning on Monday 24th August 2009 and ending on Monday 31st August 2009. During this time we will be unable to offer Telephone or Live Chat support, or take any orders over the phone. We are afraid that any voice mails that are left will not be dealt with until Tuesday 1st September 2009.

We are very sorry for this interruption to our Telephone and Live Chat service but we will still be able to offer email service during this time. Simply email shop@pure-beauty.co.uk if you require any assistance.

Please note that during this time our website will be working normally accepting, processing and dispatching orders as usual. There will be no interruption to this service.

Website Maintenance

Due to the problems we experienced last month with our website being slow and access to the secure site being, if not slow, then impossible, we have arranged some maintenance to our site to try to prevent the same problems occurring again.

The maintenance will take place on Thursday 20/08/2009 between 08:00 and 09:00 hours. We are not expecting any problems during this time but our site maybe unavailable for a short time.

If there are any changes to the plan or if we experience any difficulties we will post updates on this blog.

20/08/2009: 08:50 Update:
The maintenance is now complete and our systems are back to normal. We appreciate your patience in this matter.

Royal Mail Strikes

There are currently a number of intermittent strikes around the country which seem only to be affecting local services. As a whole the delivery has been unaffected and our parcels are reaching their destinations as quickly and speedily as they usually do.

We will continue to monitor the situation and update our customers as soon as anything is planned that will affect the high standards of service you have come to expect from Pure Beauty Online.

Dermalogica Samples from Pure Beauty Online

We have always been at the forefront of Customer Service and innovation when selling Dermalogica products on the Internet, and as part of that we were the first to allow our customers to choose their own Dermalogica Samples and the first to list them alongside the normal sized retail products.

We prefer our customers to choose the Dermalogica Samples that they would like to try and we have always sent at least 5 samples with each of our orders. We improved the system for adding samples to your order some while ago to allow customers to order samples based on the amount that has been spent on products. We have now further refined the process by including an overview of the allocation of samples you are entitled to order based on the current value of your basket. You will be able to see this at any time simply by clicking on the View Basket links on our site. The allocations are clearly explained along with an overview of how much is required to be spent to be able to receive a larger allocation.

Fantastic Dermalogica Products - Fairly Priced

It is common practice these days not to look after your existing customers but only to focus on enticing new ones. To this end many businesses, whether on the high street or on the Internet, have different price structures for loyal customer compared to if you are a new customer, and if you're a loyal customer you can often be taken for granted and mistreated. There are some unscrupulous on line retailers that will give a cheaper price and free delivery to new customers only. If you're loyal to them and don't click on their Sponsored Links, but go straight to their website saving them money, you will be charged a higher price for the products and you will have to pay for delivery!

When you shop with us at Pure Beauty Online, you are guaranteed to be treated to our ground breaking levels of Customer Service, whether you are a new customer buying for the first time or are a loyal customer who only comes to us for your Dermalogica products. We only have 1 price for each of our Dermalogica products and we only have use the highest standards of delivery - FREE First Class Recorded Delivery if you spend under £100.00 and FREE Guaranteed Next Working Day Delivery if you spend over £100.00.

Dermalogica Product Reviews

It is very important to us that we allow our customers to provide feedback not only on our website and service but also on the Dermalogica Products they have purchased from us. Therefore we allow our customers to review the Dermalogica Products they buy from us and provide a star rating which we are then able to show as an average for each of the products. This star rating enables prospective customers to see what our customers think of the products, which may or may not influence their decision to buy.

We are aware that there are many unscrupulous websites that provide false reviews for their products. We wanted to inform our customers how the process works and how we police the system to ensure that every review we publish is honest and legitimate.

If you want to review one of our Dermalogica Products it is important that the product has been purchased from our site. Any reviews that we receive by customers are checked against their order history and if it is found that this is not the case then we simply delete the review before publishing it. If it is confirmed that the customer has purchased the product from us we then read the review in detail, to ensure we moderate any unsuitable content, and then we publish the review which can then be read on the product detail page.

Website Unable to Process Orders

We are very sorry to report that our website has been experiencing sever problems since around 12:00 today. There have been many problems with the website being very slow indeed. This problem was resolved around 16:00 today but then another issue occurred with our secure server. Without this working properly we have been unable to correctly process orders although we would like to thanks those customers who did persevere and managed to place their orders. We processed these as normal and sent them on time with Royal Mail.

We hope to have the situation resolved very soon and we would like to apologise to all of our customers unreservedly.

21:00: Our website is now backup and running properly and orders are being processed as normal. We will monitor the situation for the next few hours.

Pure Beauty Online's Environmental Policy

Many of our customers have requested further information regarding our policy toward the environment. We have always been very concious about our approach to minimising our businesses impact on the environment and we published our beliefs and strategies from the beginning on our About Us page. We thought it maybe beneficial if we explained a little further on our blog.

Dermalogica Products
The Dermalogica products that you buy from us arrive in plastic containers and many in cardboard boxes. All of this product packaging is fully recyclable today and should be disposed of with your household recycling as normal.

Packaging and Filler
All of your products are sent in white cardboard boxes which are fully recyclable and the void filler we use to protect your items is a biodegradable filler made from starch. Polystyrene is not biodegradable and cannot be recycled. We do not use plastic bags to send your products.

Some customers have expressed a concern over the size of some of the boxes we use when ordering a small item such as an Eye Cream or Concentrated Booster. There are two reasons for this. Firstly we like to ensure that your products reach you in the best condition possible. Secondly we include within each parcel the Dermalogica Product Directory, your Dermalogica Samples and the delivery note. We can completely understand our customers concerns but everything we use is recyclable and we hope you would agree with our reasoning.

Delivery
Probably the largest impact our business has on the environment is due to the logistics of delivering your products to you. We took a decision early to use Royal Mail. This was due to the fact that Royal Mail already have the complete infrastructure in place. They have vehicles on the road moving post around the country and therefore adding to it can only reduce the card foot print of that journey. We decided that a courier means implementing a dedicated journey by a vehicle to deliver the parcel and that this was not as environmentally friendly.

If you require any further information regarding our Environmental Policy please do not hesitate to contact us.

Pure Beauty on Shopping.com

As part of our commitment to make our website and service open to public scrutiny, we have joined Shopping.com which allows you to complete a survey and provide us with feedback as soon as you have placed your order. You can also choose to receive a follow up survey via email 5 days after your order to allow further feedback after you order has been processed.

When you have completed your order you will be invited to take a survey in a popup window. If you do not wish to take part then simply close the window. If you wish to take part all you need do is follow the instructions on the screen.

How We're Communicating with You

We have updated our website over the weekend to better enable our customers to communicate with us. There are many ways that you can talk to us:

By Phone
You can always call us on 0121 314 7039. We understand that a lot of the time we are busy processing your orders, and we may not be able to take your call personally, but it is always possible to leave voice mail message. We promise you that we always call our customers back - always. Even when a customer has subsequently emailed us and their query has been resolved we have still called them back.

By Email
One of the quickest way is to email us a shop@pure-beauty.co.uk. We will answer as soon as possible and maybe call you on the phone if we feel that a chat would be better. That's why it is always important you register a telephone number with us.

By Chat
We implemented a Live Chat service over 12 months ago which will enable you to get the answer to your question immediately. If we are not online at the time then simply send us an email with the form provided.

On Facebook
We started a Facebook page earlier last month to enable our customers to see what we're up to and to join discussions with us and provide us with very public feedback. So if you're on Facebook why not add us to your list.

On Twitter
We have just started tweeting Shop Messages so you can follow us there too.

Our Blog
You can always comment on this blog on the articles we post. We would welcome any suggestions you would like to make about future posts and the type of subjects you would like us to cover.

We know how hard it can be sometimes getting hold of real people when dealing with websites. We are trying to break the mould and blaze a trail for all websites encouraging frequent and speedy communication with our customers. Let's hope more and more websites follow our lead.

Find Your Nearest Dermalogica Skin Care Centre

Dermalogica products are available to buy only from authorised retailers such as Pure Beauty Online. Salons, such as ours, will be using the Dermalogica Professional products in the treatments they offer to ensure you get the best results from your visit. The salons will also have the full range of Dermalogica Retail products on offer for you to buy, usually at Recommended Retail Price, to enable you to continue to benefit from the products at home that began with your salon treatment.

We are often asked if we can help find local Skin Care Centres for our online customers who are unable to make it to our Beauty Salon in Lichfield. The easiest way to do so is on the Dermalogica UK website. Click on the link below and add your postcode to the Find a Location search box and then press the Submit button. You will then be provided with up to 10 salons that are local to you that use Dermalogica in their treatments.

Find Your Nearest Dermalogica Skin Care Centre

Pure Beauty: Authorised Dermalogica Retailer

From time to time we are asked if we are an authorised Dermalogica retailer. We can completely understand the question and we thought we would explain how selling Dermalogica works and what we have to do to be able to sell it on line.

First and foremost we are Skin Care Centre - a Beauty Salon - based in Lichfield in the Midlands. Our salon is based at the Lichfield Health and Fitness Club. We have two Beauty Therapists with over 30 years of experience between them and they are both fully trained in the Dermalogica Retail and Professional products ranges. Our full treatment range can be found on the Treatments Page of our website.

When we set up our salon we decided that we were going to use Dermalogica as our core product range and all of our key treatments are based around Dermalogica products. Due to the fact that we use Dermalogica products in our treatments, and that we sell the retail products from our salon means that we are allowed to sell the retail products on line. This makes us an authorised retailer. Further more we are listed on the Dermalogica UK website which is the first place you should look when checking out any company on line who are selling the Dermalogica Retail products.

Pure Beauty Online are an authorised Dermalogica retailer - click here to see us on the Dermalogica UK site.