Experiments

The warehouse was not very large, just like Edmund had said, it was dirty, a bit old but certainly not what a person would call in disrepair.

"Hmmm, needs a bit of cleaning, but not too bad overall, right now we just need a place to do our experiments, once we get the formula right it would be the jackpot."

William commented.

" So from where do we start?" Edmund asked.

" We need to get some equipment first, without them we would have nothing, we also need raw materials, all of that is mentioned in the paper anyways."

"What about manpower, how many do you want me to hire?" Edmund asked once more.

"Hmm, no one as of now, we can do the experiments ourselves, I am a bit tight on money, not to mention we need someone we can trust."

William thought about it for a bit before he continued.

"Here is how we will do it, After we figure the formula and start production we will separate the work into smaller tasks, spreading the manpower we hire and giving each group only one task to do."

"Why? shouldn't they all work together to familiarise themselves with the process? This will help in raising the production." Edmund stated.

"Maybe, but not necessarily. I want to separate the tasks and have the same group do their portion of the work and nothing more for two reasons. the first is so that they can only focus on a narrow task and raise their efficiency and therefore their output by doing it over and over again."

William explained before he continued.

"The second reason is so that no individual will know the process of making the soap, this will not completely prevent the recipe and the method of making it from leaking, but it will certainly slow it down long enough until we establish ourselves as a reliable brand in the minds of the people. Giving us a headstart that few could ever hope to catch up to."

Edmund's eyes twinkled at the realization; indeed this method if perfected, could give them the Advantage they need to conquer the local market.

"What is a brand?" he asked a bit confused by the term.

William sighed a bit as he thought, ' I guess it's fair, just as I am ignorant about much in this world, they too would be ignorant about mine as well.'

" Think about it this way, a brand is a symbol of your products and by extension your business as a whole, it could be anything as long as the people recognize it. With time and as you sell more and more things, people will come to associate your symbol with certain qualities, it could mean quality, prestige, low cost it all depends on your product."

William preceded to explain in detail a bit more about brands, how they work, what they could mean and their advantages.

"I see, it's like the famous artisans who have gained much fame and prestige making their products, creating a great demand for them. Here instead, it is the name of the whole 'company' as you call it that will become known not the individual." Edmund summarised.

"Exactly, my padawan."

"Excuse me?"

"Ehhh, nothing nothing. Anyways let's go shopping for what we need, I don't have much time as I will be going on a trip the day after tomorrow. I will probably be away for some time so we need to produce our first few successful results in the time we have left. You can do the rest of the work on your own." William quickly changed the subject to cover his blunder.

They went ahead and took to the streets to acquire the necessary materials, William's guards had stayed outside so as to not give themselves away but close enough to interfere should the need arise.

Once the duo came out, they once more followed from behind keeping a good distance to not be discovered.

With the help of Edmund, who led the way as he knew from where to procure their needs, they quickly purchased what they required. The fats were bought from butchers, the wood ash from bakeries for cheap, water from the river to be distilled later on as well as a few other things.

Overall the most expensive ingredient was the fats, they could swap them later on for some vegetable oils, but for now, this would suffice.

Once they came back, they went ahead and started their first attempts at making soap. they first put two pots on two separate fires, one to boil the water, purifying it by collecting the steam, while the other pot was for boiling the animal fats to collect lard.

After boiling the water and collecting the vapor, thereby producing distilled water they mixed it with wood ash.

After which they filtered it, making sure there were as few solids as possible in the liquid.

After boiling the fats in water and collecting the produced lard, they threw it into the distilled water that was mixed with wood ash and filtered, boiling the whole mix together for about half an hour.

After this whole process, they simply poured it into molds and waited for it to cool down, a process that would take at least a whole night.

"See!!! it's not that hard, nor expensive either, as long as we discount the fats we used" William said with a smile looking at the product in front of them.

It had taken them a few tries to get it right, but eventually, they found what they assumed was a somewhat correct way of doing it.

Since they still had to wait until the next day to be completely sure of their results, they simply called it a day, each going back home.

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The very next day they came back once more at around two o'clock to check on their results. What they had found was promising.

"Is it supposed to be like this? It's not exactly solid." Edmund commented looking at the somewhat gooey soapy thing they had made.

" It probably just hadn't dried up yet, maybe it needs a day or two." William reassured.

"Are you sure you know what you are doing?" Edmund asked a bit concerned.

"Of course!!! Well..... mostly actually, but isn't that the fun of it, science is all about experimentation, we just try until we get it right" William explained.

"Besides, we won't know unless we try it ourselves, here you go."

Edmund took the gooey substance he has been given by William and felt its weird texture.

They both dirtied their hands with some dirt and took some water they had brought with them and started washing their hands and faces.

As they did so, a small amount of foam started to appear. Edmund marveled at the sensation he was feeling as this was certainly a first for him.

After they were done they washed their hands from the soap with water to see the results.

"Success!!! clean as it could get, though it certainly needs a better texture and a scent if possible." William proclaimed.

"So this is soap?" Edmund said as he examined his hands, they certainly looked and felt a lot cleaner than before as well as more cleansed than if he had just used water.

"Come on!!! we still have more experiments to do, we need to make the soap as best we can, I have to leave tomorrow so I don't have much time left." William exclaimed.