Alexander had to go through the same security clearance when he moved out of the paper workshop and into the soap-making plant designated with level-2 clearance.
The reason behind this level of clearance was because soap was not really a popular substance in Adhania.
Regular people did not have the financial ability to use it, while the rich lords viewed it more as a perfume or for scenting their bath water rather than using it on a regular basis for washing and cleaning.
Hence, with Alexander being not sure of its economic potential, he decided to put it relatively low on the clearance table, thus willing to sell it for a good price.
There was also the fact that soap was not easy to make.
The various reactions that Alexander used to produce the alkali used in the soap were simple high-school chemistry, but for the time period, it was closer to magic.
Copying that was not easy, and that was not considering that an appropriate amount of base would be needed to be added to the fat to start the saponification.
Too less and it will not be soap, just fat.
Too much and the soap will cause itching and even might burn the skin.
Taking all this into account, Alexander placed the soap industry at Level-2 clearance.
After Alexander and his group showed their ID cards and went through all the procedures, finally they entered the enclosed workshop and found that a similar expansion to the paper shop had occurred here too, enabling much more volume of both solid and liquid soap production.
“Haquim, how are you?” Alexander greeted the man in charge of this plant, and after some general pleasantries, he started the tour of the premises.
It was similar to what he had in the paper workshop and found most things to his liking.
The basic structure of the plant had remained the same, with it only expanding in size, with more men, material, and vats being full of boiling liquid.
There were only two additional buildings constructed that Alexander had not seen before and Haquim led them to tour both of them.
“Here is the drying room,” Haquim first led Alexander to a huge shed whose wooden floor was covered with liquid soap.
Workers could be seen carrying buckets of hot liquid soap from the huge boiling vats and directly dumping them onto the floor, after which another group would use a long, wooden rack-like tool to evenly spread the liquid, caking the floor with the semi-solid soap about an inch thick.
This shed was huge, around 50m long and 20m wide, with a three-story height, and Alexander could see the semi-finished soap was laid all over the huge area in multiple rows, each row in a different stage of their drying.
“How long does it take the soap to dry?” Alexander curiously asked.
“This is lye (NaOH) soap, my lord. It hardens much faster, in only a few days,” Haquim replied.
Then he pointed to one end of the shed and said, “Once the soaps have hardened enough, the dimensions are marked using long strings dripped with ink and then cut using those things.”
‘Those things’ referred to giant cutter knives, which the workers would use by placing the edge onto the soap lines and slowly dragging the sharp edge through the soap, cutting them.
And this had to be done twice, once horizontally, and the other vertically, thus getting the rectangular product.
“It takes one day to cut the soap, And then a worker uses a special mallet to hammer in the logo,” Haquim explained to Alexander.
After this Alexander was led to the storage shed, where literal mountains of soap were stacked in a hollow cylindrical pattern to dry and harden, arranged in such a way as to allow air to pass around them.
The soaps would stay like this for a month or two, depending on the outside temperature and humidity, after which they would be ready to be sold.
“How many can you make per day?” Alexander was a bit taken aback by the amount of soap there was.
“About one ton, my lord.” Haquim sounded pleased with the number.
But for Alexander, it caused a slight headache.
He had not had any real sense of the scale at which soap could be produced and so seeing the amount of soap in stock waiting to be sold caught him a bit off guard.
“Of only lye?” Then Alexander asked a bit incredulously.
And was relieved to see Haquim shake his head, “No, my lord, of all the five different soaps put together.”
This bought some relief to Alexander, as this amount of daily production was still within his ability to export.
And on thinking it over, Alexander found it foolish that he thought five tons of olive oil would be used every day to make soap.
There was certainly not that much in stock.
‘Hmmm, but still, I need to find a buyer quickly,’ Alexander said to himself while gazing at the soap mountain, but the only person that he could think of who might have a big enough pocket seemed to be Mikaya’s brother and he was only scheduled to come in a month and a half at the earliest.
“How many men are under you?” Alexander then decided not to think too much and instead discussed whether to slash production, which is where this question came from.
“About fifty men, lord pasha,” The number employed was minuscule compared to the thousand men in paper production.
And so Alexander did not think there would be much point in laying off some workers.
“Could you let me see one of those soaps?” Alexander then asked Haquim and was promptly fetched a piece.
“*Sniff*” Alexander took a whiff of the bar of soap and found that it was odorless.
‘Hmmm, I have heard that olive oil soaps are fragranceless, but will it sell?’ Alexander ruminated.
And found that it would likely not, as for most people, the allure of soap was in its nice smell.
‘Is this odorless soap useless?’ Alexander found his heartache when thinking about letting all this soap to waste.
“Could you bring me some water? I want to use the soap,” Alexander thus asked, intent on finding how it felt to wash with this neutral-smelling soap.
Thus a pitcher full of water was soon bought to him and water was poured over his hands as he cleaned them using the lye soap, finding the soap not too rough or too soft, after which he rinsed and dried his hand with a towel. ｂ𝚍ｎｏｖ𝚕．ｃｏｍ
The feeling of the soap was nothing to write home about, neither good, nor bad, just normal.
And thus it came down to smell.
“*Sniff*,” Thus he took a sniff of his hands and was pleased to see that there now was a sweet, natural body scent that he quite liked.
‘Hmmm, some people might prefer this,’ Alexander reasoned that some would certainly favor the clean, fruity natural body smell over the gaudy, artificial perfumed soap.
But still, he knew that such people would be in the minority, with most preferring the scented ones, and hence asked his chief soap maker, “Haquim, from now on, remember to add some perfumes to the soap during the boiling process. Stuff like thymes, rosemaries, and various flower juices like do.”
“Okay my lord,” Haquim nodded.
Finished exploring here, Alexander was shown the storage sites of the other soaps afterward, where he found that the solid soaps were stored in huge stacks and the liquids in huge wine barrels.
Alexander tested all of the products and found all of them to have different textures while washing, which please him greatly.
“I can sell all of them using different brands, and thus artificially create comparisons,’ Alexander chuckled, knowing providing a variety of choices for one’s customers was one of the basic phycological techniques of business.
Even if there was no difference, even if it was the same product with only a different label, the human brain was capable of making up imaginary differences.
“My lord, how are we going to sell these soaps? Like this?” Haquim asked a good question.
As a wholesaler, Alexander had no problem selling the soaps as is.
He could sell them to large guilds, rich merchants, and the temples like this with no problem.
But, there would be problems if he were to sell soap like that as a retailer, to individuals like a noble or a few men.
Or to just give some as gifts.
“Hmmm,” Alexander traced his chin as he thought about it a bit, and then thinking back to how they were sold in his previous life, he decided, “I will ask Ajijak to design some wrapping paper and paper packets. The solid soaps can be sold in them. As for the liquids, bottles made of leather, metal, or glass can be used.”
In this way, the hard soaps can be wrapped in paper and then sealed with glue, or be directly placed in hard paper packets, while for the liquid soap, depending on how fancy the buyer was feeling, containers of various prices could be used.
“My lord is ever knowledgeable,” Haquim cheered Alexander’s decision.
With all these done, Alexander felt he had seen everything there was and so decided to move to the next workshop, the weapons manufacturing plant.
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