A Poor Performance by Soap and Glory (soapandglorycosmetics.com)

Member Name: blonde_girl774

Product:	soapandglorycosmetics.com
Date:	17/10/09 (135 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Concise and Easy to Navigate.

Disadvantages: A General Lack of Features & Unable to Purchase or View Products.

I am a huge fan of Soap and Glory products, in fact probably about fifty percent of the products currently in my bathroom cabinet are from this range. Last Christmas I asked so many people to buy me Soap and Glory products that I ended up with about ten different ones, along with a couple that I recieved twice, and so I'm still working through a bit of a back log really. I first discovered them around a year ago now when they started to appear on the shelves in my local Boots store and ever since then I never fail to browse their particular shelf whenever I visit Boots. For those of you that have never heard of Soap and Glory it's a brand of body care and make up products that is currently stocked in Boots and Harvey Nichols stores in the UK. It's an American range and as such has limited exposure in the UK and you can only purchase it from two different stores. The range is very focused on the female market and boasts a range of products including body and facial scrubs, body moisturisers, hand creams and shower gels too. More recently the range has moved into the beauty arena and now offers a range of facial moisturisers, perfume and toners. The products all have a rather 1950's and quite humourous feel to the packaging as well as having rather humorous and unique names, similar to the Benefit make up range. The prices are a little more expensive than you'd pay for a brand you'd find in a supermarket although not as expensive as the somewhat designer ranges such as Clarins and Clinique. A body moisturiser can cost between about £5 and £10 while a body scrub will cost around the £6 to £8 mark in general.

After I'd tried a couple of their products I decided to have a look at the website, mainly because I wanted a bit of background information about the brand prior to writing a review on here. The website was easy to locate through a simple search on Google and I was eager to start exploring it... mainly to see if there were any new products I fancied trying out! I was presented with a bright pink background to the site which is typical of much of their product packaging and really quite eye catching. All the information is located in the central area of the page with there being a lack of any clear menu on the site. In the centre is a large Soap and Glory logo along with a brief welcome message and their motto "At Soap and Glory we believe it's always in one's best interests to come clean" which reflects their rather humourous approach at branding and their tendancy to play on words too for added effect. There is also a message that their real website is being "de-kinked" at the moment so this one is just a short term measure although it has been the same since before last Christmas now so I'm not sure if that still counts as a short term measure, hence why I've decided to review it as I can't wait any longer! I know some may comment on this review by saying it's not an accurate review of the Soap and Glory website but as this website has been present for such a long time now I feel it's able to be reviewed. Below this is a continous list of twelve different options, I say a continuous list as they're not presented in a typical list format but instead in a paragraph separated only by stars. The links are all quite self explanatory and here they all are:-

* Buy Some Products From: this link transports you to a new page which has the exact same background and layout as the homepage and shows three circles, each depicting a different continent / country where you can buy their products. In the UK circle it lists Boots, Boots.com and Harvey Nichols. By clicking on any of the links you'll be taken to that store's homepage. They do also say that soon you'll be able to shop on this actual site although again that has been promised for around a year now!

* Contact The People At: this will open up an email on your computer's default email browser as there doesn't seem to be any sort of comments form on the site that you can fill in directly. I emailed them once about a product query and didn't get a reply for about a week, they were obviously clearly too busy to reply to me as they were designing the real website! When I did get a reply it was satisfactory, I'd made a complaint about one of the product's causing me some irritation and they merely apologised.

* Complain About (sorry!): this will basically result in exactly the same as the option above, an email will open with the Soap and Glory email address inserted in the recipient field. The only thing that makes this different is the (sorry!) addition which I think is quite comical but also did make me wonder if they were expecting quite a lot of complaints about their products and therefore decided to apologise on their homepage to try and avoid too many emails coming through. Not really the best impression to give!

* Distribute: Same as the above options, it merely opens an email.

* Find Out More About: Same as the above options, it merely opens an email.

* Join the Mailing List Of: this link transports you to a new page which has the exact same background and layout as the homepage, they're clearly going for a uniform look to this temporary site. You're asked to enter your first name, your surname, your email, your month and year of birth and any comments you'd like to make. They also say that the year of birth is optional as they know some people can be "all sensitive about that kind of stuff." They also assure you they won't share your details with anyone else for the reason that "a clogged inbox leaves one less time to apply lipgloss" which I did actually giggle at.

* Profess My Love For: Same as the above options, it merely opens an email.

* Sell Something To: Same as the above options, it merely opens an email.

* Star On A Label Of: this link again transports you to a new page in much the same fashion as the others do. Here Soap and Glory offer you the chance to stand on one of their labels and get your fifteen minutes of fame. They ask you to scan in and send some of your old family albums, as the theme is very much 1950s and 1960s black and white the photos would have to fit these criteria for the brand to even consider them. They will alert you if they're going to use your photos before using them!

* Suggest A Pun To: this link again transports you to a new page and is probably the most detailed page on the entire site. They provide you with a different email address to send your pun ideas to than the other areas of the site use. They provide a little information here including "Normally, we think up the names of our products ourselves. However we have realised over the years that a) there are other funny people in the world and b) two thousand heads when it comes to "the pun" are better than one."

* Work At - Same as the above options, it merely opens an email and inserts "Yes, I'd like a job working with the seemingly crazy people at Soap and Glory. More about me below..." into the subject line.

* Oh, Uh, Other - Same as the above options, it merely opens an email.

Now that really sums up the site, it's probably one of the smallest internet sites I've ever wrote an opinion on and even one of the smallest internet sites I've ever come across. It seems quite obvious that this isn't the finished Soap and Glory site thankfully, there is another one in the pipeline which I hope will be more informative and useful. However I really don't know when it will finally appear as this temporary site has been here for around about a year now and doesn't seem to be going anywhere. As such I'm going to rate this site with a single star, yes it is easy to navigate and it's very quick to load however it's so basic and minimal in content that it really didn't tell me anything new at all about the brand. I was rather disappointed with this site and was expecting something much more modern and professional, I don't know how long it takes to make a website but I've never heard of it taking nearly a year! I wouldn't recommend you visit the site unless you want to apply for a job, complain, etc. if you're after any information on the brand, the products or even want to order some products then it'll be a wasted visit.

Thanks for reading.

Summary: The website for the bodycare and skincare brand Soap and Glory.