You can start the course at any time: today, tomorrow or next month. Whenever is best for you.

You study at home, or wherever you want. The course does not involve you being in a classroom or going to a test centre.

The natural skincare course can take five – Seven months to complete. But you can do it as quickly or slowly as you want. That’s the great advantage of distance learning.

The tutoring for the course lasts two years from the point of enrolment, so if you wish to pass the course and receive your Certificates, you do need to have all your work marked within this time frame.

However this is a reasonable amount of time to complete, when you consider the average student takes 5 – 7 months studying part-time.

There is the option to extend the tutoring period by a year if needed.

The course modules remain available to you indefinitely, even after the tutoring period has ended.

• The course fees are here:
  https://inst.org/natural-skincare-courses/enrol/
• Does the cost for the course include everything I need? Or are there any extra fees?
  There are no other costs or fees.
  Can I spread the cost of the courses over a period of timeYes. You can make five monthly payments. It costs 20% more. You can find the cost of paying by installments by clicking here.How could I get my money back if I don’t like the natural skincare course?Just return the course in good condition within 60 days of receiving it, and we’ll send you a full refund.

Yes. We have students in 28 countries. And we have two editions of the course. One edition is for the UK and Europe, and people who want to pay in sterling. The other is for North America and those who want to pay in US dollars. But we welcome payment in any currency.

There have two types of people you can contact – your tutor and a course advisor. The tutor marks your work, and helps you with any problems. You can fax, email or post assignments to your tutor, whenever you want.

We don’t give out the tutor’s phone number, because a few people would spend all day talking to their tutors, who would never get any work done.

But sometimes students get stuck, or have an urgent question. If so, you can phone a course advisor at the Blackford Centre at any time during work hours. If you leave a message out of work hours we’ll call you back the next day. You can contact course advisors as often as you want, and about anything to do with natural skincare.

Is the course endorsed?

Yes. Our course has been endorsed under the Quality Licence Scheme.

This means we have undergone an external quality check to ensure that our organisation and the courses we offer meet certain quality criteria.

Endorsement involves a robust and rigorous quality audit by external inspectors to ensure quality is consistently met. A regular review of courses is carried out as part of the endorsement process.

To this end, the learning outcomes of the course have been benchmarked at QLS Level 4 Award against level descriptors published by Ofqual, to indicate the depth of study and level of difficulty involved in successful completion by the learner.

When you successfully complete this course you will receive a Certificate of Achievement and a Learner Unit Summary (which lists the details of all the units you have completed as part of your course).

Read more about course accreditation here

No. But it will help you set up and run your own business. And we encourage all students to continue their studies after completing the course.

Yes, all tutors are practising practitioners. Some other organisations use college lecturers, which means you don’t get the information from the real ‘coal face’.

Yes. We can recommend brokers or insurance companies in the UK and the USA who will give you professional liability insurance. If you live in other countries, we can also help.

Yes. Only it’s a lot more fun!

Yes. the course is designed specifically to help you set up and run your own practice. Some courses, even at university, seem to omit this all-important aspect. We give you enough technical knowledge to practise, and we also provide detailed guidance on marketing, operation and finance to run your own business.

As far as we know, there are no restrictions anywhere in the world that prevent you from operating a complementary practice in the areas we teach. In the USA, some states have legislation that prevent the use of certain words, such as Licensed… or Certified… But these do not stop you from practising. There are growing international controls on the labeling and retail sale of certain remedies, rather than the control of practitioners,. And most practitioners find they can operate satisfactorily within these boundaries. You should always check the status of the law with your lawyer.

Yes, the course includes practical guidance of getting work. You can also discuss this with your tutor or a course advisor.

• Is there a final exam?
  No, there is no final exam. The course is based on continuous assessment, through the assignments you send to your tutor.And continuous assessment lets you check all the time that you’re on course to succeed.So you should look on the assignment as an exciting challenge. No, it’s true! You’ll enjoy them. We promise you!
• What happens if I fail an assignment?You do the work again! 80% of students complete the course without ever failing an assignment. But you might misunderstand the question, or produce an insufficiently detailed answer. So the tutor will explain the problem and ask you to send in the assignment again. When you do this, your work will be much better.
• Can I submit hand-written assignments?
  Yes. That’s no problem.
• Can I submit assignments by E-mail?
  Yes. That’s no problem.

Yes. That’s no problem. We make no assumptions about people’s prior knowledge. But you ought to have a deep interest in the subject.

Yes, you can. So, if you want to tackle a particular topic, you can go straight to that module. This is useful if you have a job or a client that requires you to know about a particular subject. You might note that some other organisations supply only one or two modules at a time.

Don’t worry. We sympathize. But this course is nothing like your memories of being stuck inside a stuffy classroom on a summer’s day with an old-style teacher droning on.

For a start, this is a subject that interests you (or you wouldn’t have got this far).

And getting this deep into the website shows that you can absorb information and concentrate for long periods of time.

Also, you’ll see that we write clearly and simply. And that’s how we’ve written the course materials. It’s true that some organisations write long and boring pages that make your eyes glaze over. We promise you that our course is nothing like that. You’ll find this course is informative and enjoyable. In fact, many students are almost upset at finishing the course.

We send you the whole course when you register. This means you can study any topic you want to. You can also see what topics are coming up. Getting everything in one package makes it easier for you to get an overview of the course. As we mentioned above, some other organisations supply only one or two modules at a time.

We think this is the best course in the world. Bar none. But please examine other courses before making a decision. Consider these points:
1. Is the course comprehensive?

2. Will your studies be supported by a tutor? Research shows that people succeed much better on courses that include a personal tutor.

3. Is it interactive? That is, do the course materials regularly make you stop and think, and do exercises? Too many courses consist of page after page of boring lecture notes.

4. Does it teach you about setting up your own business? College courses are often weak on this point.

5. Is it Endorsed?

6. Can you get a refund if you don’t like the course?

Yes. We show you how.

Once you complete the course, we’ll give you three months’ free business mentoring.

You’ll have a personal mentor who’ll help you set up your own business (if that’s your choice).

For three months after getting your Diploma you’ll get one-to-one advice and support from an active practitioner.

So if you’re unsure on how to launch your own business, this mentoring programme will put you on the road to success.

And because it’s all part of the Blackford Centre’s course, it won’t cost you a penny.

Here are some answers we hope will reassure you.

• Here are some answers we hope will reassure you.
• We’ve been in operation since 1995; so we’re very established.
• We publish our physical address at the bottom of each page – and you are welcome to visit us.
• We’re audited yearly by The Quality Licence Scheme. The Quality Licence Scheme is part of the Skills and Education Group who are a leading national awarding organisation. (You can phone them to Verify that).
• You can read the Reviews of our students on the web site.
• You can ask us for the contact details of former students who will talk to you about their experiences.
• We publish an Ethical statement here.
• We’re registered at Companies House: registration number 352 4886
  
• Our VAT number is 729 1528 23
• Our Licence number granted by the Office of Fair Trading under
  the Consumer Credit Act 1974 is 606843.
• Our bank is NatWest, 7 High Street, Wells, Somerset (we have money in the bank and no loans or overdraft).
• We’re registered with the UK government’s Register of Learning Providers (www.ukrlp.co.uk); Number 10009490.
• And finally, we love what we do; and we wouldn’t do anything to jeopardise it.

And finally, we love what we do; and we wouldn’t do anything to jeopardise it.

The course uses natural products to create the recipes. It is not directly designed to be vegan, but the vast majority of the recipes are vegan friendly, as we focus on using plant extracts.

The only recipe we include that may not suit those who are vegan, is a ‘Lavender Sweet Dreams’ bar, included in module 3, which uses beeswax. Some Vegans will use this product, while others may not.

We send the following ingredients with the printed edition course:

• Dried Lavender
• Shea Butter
• Almond Oil
• Liquid soap Base
• Beeswax
• Coconut oil
• Citrus essential oil
• Chamomile Flower
• Plantain Leaf

Of these items, only the beeswax could be considered as unsuitable for vegans. The soap base we currently supply is vegan.

Of the ingredients we discuss in the course, we may include some that not vegan based, but often there are alternatives available on the market. For example, at one point we discuss the use of yoghurt. You could use a vegan yoghurt in this case, such as yoghurt made with almond milk.

The course assignments ask you to create the recipes included in the course, so you would need to make the lavender sweet dreams bar. However, aside from this, we teach students how to create their own products, so you would be able to create products with your own choice of ingredients, allowing you to focus directly on vegan products.

We only buy from ethical suppliers, who strive to source products from ethical suppliers. So the likelihood is they will not have been tested on animals.

The course includes a section on Ethics, so we discuss ingredient use and sources as a part of the course. You can see a full list of what we cover in the course here:
https://inst.org/natural-skincare-courses/syllabus

Certificates are sent via email as standard, as this provides students with an E-copy that can easily be added to a webpage, sent via email, or printed if necessary. This also helps us get your Certificates to you as quickly and securely as possible.

However, we appreciate that some students would still prefer a hard copy of their certificates, and therefore upon request can process this. We simply ask the postage costs are covered for this.