The Swishing team would like to wish all our members and subscribers a very Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year! – we look forward to seeing you all on the site again in 2012. And remember, any unwanted clothes/shoes/accessories or jewellery presents?? – don’t leave them languishing unloved in your cupboards, why not swish them with us …

Congratulations to Becky from the lovely town of Bude in Cornwall, winner of our recent Paul Penders / The Natural Skincare Company competition. Becky will be receiving a prize bundle of skin & haircare organic beauty products worth over £65!! – Becky, we hope you enjoy. To everyone who entered but didn’t win, we thank you, and wish you better luck next time – keep looking out for more competitions, coming soon!

Just to advise that we have had a few hosting issues over the last week or so … you may have experienced some downtime (or ’security certificate invalid’ messages) when logging on or into Swishing.co.uk, or onto SwishingParties.com. Just to reassure you we are pushing our hosting providers to resolve the problems, nearly there now we think!  and that the site’s security certificate IS valid and up to date – any error messages should disappear very shortly. Please let us know if you continue having issues, or have any concerns about using the site. We apologise for any inconvenience that the hosting issues may have caused you.

To celebrate the launch of our new “Swishing Boutique”, Swishing.co.uk is proud to present four of the summer’s hottest Little Black Dresses, courtesy of Swedish design house, Righteous Fashion. A perfect partner for Swishing’s green credentials, Righteous Fashion produces high-end, stylish designs whilst adhering to the principles of fair trade, human rights, the use of sustainable materials and environmentally-friendly production. To find out more about Righteous Fashion please see their website – http://www.righteousfashion.se.

We first came across them in the London Fashion Week Estethica Pavilion (the hub of UK’s ethical fashion industry), and are now hugely excited to bring you four gorgeous dresses from their Spring/Summer 2011 Collection, UK exclusives for Swishing.co.uk! To see the dresses just click here to go to the Swishing Boutique … but be quick – we only have a limited number, so grab one before they go!

Swishing.co.uk is pleased to announce the launch of its “Swishing Boutique”, a new section featuring an exciting range of designer, vintage or end of line products, specially sourced for you by the Swishing team. Where possible, these items will be ethically sourced and/or exclusive to Swishing.co.uk (you can find more information on our sources/suppliers in the ‘Featured Brands/Retailers’ section). Even better, you can still use your virtual money credits to part-pay for these items – meaning you get access to fabulous designer, vintage or end of line products at rock-bottom, bargain prices – hooray! To go the Swishing Boutique, click here.

New Swap Fee

From 15th June, a small swap fee of 50p will be payable for all standard swap items ordered from the site – the remainder of each item’s display price can still be paid for in swap credits, as before. Whilst we regret the necessity for a swap fee, we hope you will agree that it is a very minimal outlay for all the great benefits and service that the Swishing site provides. For more information on the new swap fee and minimum cash amounts please see http://swishing.co.uk/item-pricing.php.

Changes to Freepost

From 1st June, we ask that our Freepost mailing bags ONLY be used for those items which have been formally uploaded, with an image and pre-approved – this gives us a fair chance to assess the items before they are sent to us at our cost. Freepost should NOT be used for items uploaded without an image, for Quick Swap items, or returns – these should be sent by customer-paid post in the normal way. The supply of bags will also be limited – members will receive one bag at first registration, and one with each order thereafter (you can obviously still send us items by normal post at any time if you don’t have a Freepost bag available). For more information on Freepost and sending items, please see http://swishing.co.uk/freepost.php.

Winter is coming … with temperatures set to drop to Arctic levels this week, we’ve picked out our cosiest items to keep you warm and dry – check out the Featured Clothes category for more. So saying, there’s not nearly enough on here right now – we need your winter woollies people! Please upload your jumpers, cardies, fleeces, coats, anoraks, parkas, scarves, hats, gloves, whatever you have, and help keep your fellow swishers happy and warm this winter …