The Birthday Cake Soap

Last 16th of May was my little sister's birthday. Only that she's not that 'little' anymore but already a 29 year-old mom-to-be.

So we made her a slice of a blueberry cheese cake soap (including its 'over the cake' melting effect). We added dried green tea leaves into the cake soap content so that if and only IF my sis bathes using this cake soap, it would help scrub her face & body which in effect she will feel very refreshed. (My sis feels that she didn't have the heart to use the soap as it'd alter its shape). We can make you another. No worries.  

In addition to the cake (soap), we added her name and age on each side of the slice as decoration.  

Hope you like the gift, sis :-). Happy birthday! Love u.    

Blueberry cheesecake soap with green tea leaves (wrapped with plastic).

Cocoa Butter & Honey Handmade Soaps

We are now selling our own handmade cocoa butter and honey soaps (on their own) and a combination of the cocoa butter & honey soaps. All these soaps are under our own soap label, Qamalia.

Honey Soap (Sample)

Cocoa Butter & Honey Soap (Sample)

Cocoa Butter Soaps (Sample)

The key & base ingredients of our soaps are refined coconut oil & palm oil, and the ol' good quality olive oil. These soaps will soon make their introduction in some our selected outlets around Klang Valley. We also accept phone/web orders for these soaps.

                                                                       Cocoa bean                                                                      

Cocoa Butter Soap:

Cocoa butter is made from the vegetable fat of the cocoa bean.

Benefits include :

Eliminates stretch marks & other form of scars.

Lubricates, moisturizes and soften the skin.

High content of vitamin E. Vitamin has been proven to help skin renewal and skin repair.

An antioxidant which protect the skin from free radicals or toxins that damage tissues at the cellular level.

                                                                      Honey

Honey Soap (benefits) :

Reduces acne.

Reduces dryness.

Reduces wrinkles.

   

Our soaps have never reached Kelantan in big orders but tonight we are sending a good number of our goat's milk bars to Rantau Panjang for a marketing run.

Hopefully it will be a good start to initiate our market share in the East Coast. InshaAllah.

Safely delivered 300 pieces of flower soaps to an old friend, Fazila for her wedding reception this coming 10th & 11th June in Johor.

We filled all the plastic-wrapped multi-colored rose soaps in 4 different boxes. Delivered them to Ila & hubby at their rented apartment near Amcorp Mall. Hope they make it to Johor Bahru safely tomorrow - and not melt the flowers in the process :-).

Again, congratulations Ila and we hope that you, your future hubby and the guests will love the flower soaps.
Best of luck!

Our Collection of Creative Soaps.

Yati's Beauty & Health Soaps are now selling our collection of Creative Soaps. Some of the soaps available are shown below :

Japanese cartoon figure Doraemon Soap (12g).

Crystallized Love-Shaped Soaps (13g).

Customized Cupcake (with Pink Rose, Heart/Love & Stars) Soap (52g).

Customized 'I Love U' Soap (with tiny red hearts) (76g).

Twirl Candy Soaps.

Cupcake Soap with blue layer (88g).

Transparent Love-Shaped Soap (with tiny yellow 'mango' soaps inside it) (57g).

Tortoise Soap (19g).

Star Fish Soaps.

Oval Shaped Soap (with Shredded Goat Milk Soap inside it) (57g). 

Blueberry Cheese Cake Soap (267g). 

Duck on Soap.

So, these are some of the creative soaps that we have in our collection. These soaps are basically made from contents which include refined Palm Oil, refined Coconut Oil & Olive Oil. They are safe for the skin and are non-alcohol. 

We are ready to take any orders on these creative soaps from our customers. Also, you can always tell us how you would like to customize your soaps based on your creation. We will try to accommodate your wish :-).

Meantime, we will be making more & more creative soaps to add to our current, tiny collection. Stay tuned for more creation!

We are in UKM Bangi!

Finally, after many trips to Bangi, we now have a couple of shops that sell our soaps inside the UKM Bangi campus : One at a c-store in Pusanika (Level 4) and the other in Kolej Ungku Omar.

Again, thanks to Kris Karim for her help in identifying the outlets for us :-).

Alhamdulillah.

We Are Going Fancy With Our Soaps!

Apart from marketing our Qamalia brand (hand-made) soap more aggressively (as our main 2012 objective), we are also coming up with a handful of creative designs (for our version) of fancy soaps which we would aim to market to our clients, business partners or distributors, selling these soaps as gifts or souvenirs - be it corporate or for the fun of it.

Currently, we are in the midst of preparing the making & delivery of a few hundred of rose (flower) shaped soaps to our friend, Fazila Rahmat in Johor, who is getting married to her childhood friend, also from Johor in a couple of months' time. She intends to give out these soaps to selected guests as gifts/souvenirs at her modest but well-planned wedding reception come June 2012. (Ila's a wedding planner :-p pllllbbbbbhhh not fair :-))

We have decided to go with a soap in the form of a rose flower. These flower soaps would be in a variety of colors ranging from bloody red to white. The soap will stand approximately 6 cm in height and measures approximately 8 cm in diameter. Customers would be able to choose its scent or fragrance from the normal flowery or fruity smell to the more expensive branded perfume odour. We will go for a flowery version for Ila's soap.

Rose-Shaped Soap in Bloody Red. 

 Rose-Shaped Soap in the Color Pink (Test Run).

Apart from soaps in flower shapes, we plan to highlight a few other renditions of our fancy soaps here at this blog, on Facebook and selling some of them in small numbers in a few of our selected outlets in Klang Valley & Putrajaya.

We would also welcome customers or potential business partners who wish to come up with their own customized, 'one-of-its-kind-design' fancy soaps suitable for their respective occasion. Do watch out for this blog and for our other versions of fancy soaps.   

As for Ila & her future hubby, we hope they will be happy with the flower soap which we will deliver to her soon.

Also, a hearty congratulations to her & the whole family. Kami doakan jodoh Ila & bakal suami berkekalan ke anak cucu & sehingga ke akhir hayat. Insha-Allah. Cheers all!           

Flooding in Hulu Langat & Ampang.

Early March 2012 : Hulu Langat & Ampang areas were hit with a devastion when hours & hours of rain resulted in mass flooding in these areas. Many houses, shops and mosques were damaged. More than 3,500 people suffered from this tragedy.

A few of our customers who own outlets where we sell our soaps were one of the many victims of the flood. Here's to Safiruddin, Norliza & Kedai Runcit Rustam owner who run their shops in Lembah Jaya Utara & Hulu Langat.

The sad thing about the outlet owners are that their shops had just received new stocks for the month when the incident occured which maximized their total monetary loss. In fact, we had just topped-up our soap stocks at the shops before the feverish downpour.  

To our partners and other victims of the flood, we wish all of you the best and a speedy recovery on your losses. May Allah be with you. Insha-Allah.    

Our Soap Distributors

Ever since we started this business a few years ago, there have been a few distributors who sell our goat milk soap. Sadly, over time, they come and go. 

Most of the time, these distributors are already business owners such as cosmetic/beauty or boutique outlet entrepreneurs. So, they'd market and sell our soaps amongst their other variety of products.    

Some of our partner distributors are also individuals who directly market our products to their office colleagues; and to family, relatives and friends at home. 

One of our objectives in 2012 is to increase the number of our soap sales outside Klang Valley and Putrajaya to other states of the country, if not exporting them to another country, offering our services in the method of selling and marketing these soaps, the way it is packaged and presented. To achieve our target, we need to be able to create more of our distributor network.

Currently, we have a few convenience stores that are buying from us at least 1 carton of goat milk soap every other month (1 carton contains 100 bars of goat milk soaps). Some of our active goat milk soap distributors are:

1) Ayu d' Beauty (Bangsar, KL)

Ayu is a professional beautician who is also marketing/selling our goat milk soap as she has had experiences using the soap and aims to share its benefits with her group of clients.

2) Wak Nasir Tradisional (Pasar Jalan Pudu, KL)

Wak Nasir is a veteran traditional herbal medicine seller who has been selling his products in Pasar Jalan Pudu more than 15 years ago. He imports these herbal medication from our neighbouring country, Indonesia by cargo. Previously, this goat milk soap had been selling very well at his shop but the supplier stopped supplying them after some time. When he came across our number, he immediately ordered a few cartons as demand from his customers for the soaps is still there.   

3) Zul (Bukit Indah Ampang, Selangor)
  
A very young entrepreneur & attached to his family's landscaping business, Zul is our only distributor who chose not to ink his own brand name on the soaps he distributes. Instead, he maintains our 'Yati's Beauty & Health' name & logo differing only in its contact number which he puts down his own digits for any referral.

4) Ustaz Abu Bakar Sairi (Masjid Negeri Shah Alam, Selangor)

A state mosque personnel, Ustaz Abu Bakar distributes the soaps within the vicinity of the mosque. He is one of our 1st soap distributors since we started more than 3 years ago. He was highlighted in one of our previous articles.

5) Zulaiqa Beauty Soap (Zulaikha Abd Malik of Temerloh, Pahang)

One of our most active distributors outside Klang Valley is Zulaikha who is residing in Temerloh, Pahang. She has distributed these soaps to a variety of shops/outlets in a few Pahang districts which include Temerloh, Mentakab, Raub, Jengka, Sg. Tekam, Bera and Jerantut. We are monitoring her progress closely and are keen to watch her market progress into the more upscale Kuantan, capital of Pahang.

6) Silk Story (Mr. Emre Yasar of Turkey)

We've highlighted Mr. Emre or Imran in our previous article. Mr. Emre and his family is from Turkey but is currently working in Malaysia. He markets our soap with his wife to their Turkish friends and family and also to the Turkish community through their Facebook group account. Apart from the goat milk soap, Mr. Emre, who speaks fluent Bahasa Malaysia & English, is also interested to market the Qamalia soap as his wife loves using it.              

7) Ramzi (Sarawak)

Ramzi is a supervisor at a Petronas petrol station in Kepong. We knew of Ramzi when we used to place our soaps at his petrol kiosk a couple of years ago until the management cease rights for us to market them at their premise due to procedural reasons. Since then, Ramzi has been selling our soaps to our loyalists there and he started exporting both our goat milk and Qamalia soaps to his hometown in Sarawak via telephone orders.

Others: Lakshmi (Taman Tun Dr. Ismail), Milky Marvel (K.L), En. Shafik, En. Haris (Meru, Klang) and many more who has purchased our soaps in carton(s) but have stopped short from being active distributors but (we believe) maintain as consumers of this product to this day.

There are a few more distributors whom we are still negotiating terms with, that aim to market these products aggressively through the old-fashioned direct selling/marketing method. There are also enquiries from individuals who are interested to market the soaps in the states of Johor and Kelantan.

Our marketing is now focused on outlets in university campus or colleges where students are proving to be staunch users of our products. Our sales in UIA Gombak and UiTM of Shah Alam are prime examples of this notion.

We are interested to look for enigmatic distributors within the campus of any universities and colleges in the country and our terms can be very flexible and relaxed.

If you are interested to be our distributors, do check with us on our Facebook page at Yati's Beauty & Health Soaps or contact us at 019-350-9380. 

We look forward to do business with you. Cheers.                  

Our Children Have Skin Diseases

This is a story about Puan Ain of Precinct 11 in Putrajaya whose 9 year old daughter suffers from eczema,a skin disease which causes the skin to dry up. Rashes would then appear which make it become red and very itchy. Naturally, kids tend to scratch their skin when it itches. That's when the skin would peel off & bleed resulting from the intense and frequent scratching. Puan Ain's daughter has these rashes visibly apparent on her elbow.   

Another of Puan Ain's (elder) daughter has a severe seafood allergy. This other daughter would experience redness on her skin and itchiness from the slightest contact with seafood such as peeling a shrimp from its shell. Just imagine what she'd go through if she had taken a bite off the shrimp!  

Some of the images of people suffering from eczema (taken from the Web)

We used to market our soaps at this particular petrol station in Precinct 11 of Putrajaya. Puan Ain used to buy our soaps - both the goat milk and Qamalia - for her and the family (especially her children who have these skin problems) from the petrol station. Since we couldn't sell our soaps at Petronas petrol stations a few months back due to some strict regulations from PDB(Read about it from our previous post) , Puan Ain has been ordering soaps from us via phone order.

Puan Ain enjoys using the goat milk soap very much for baths but she told us about how her daughter's skin problems subsided ever since she tried the (goat milk) soap on her. We were delighted and immediately recommended to her the more effective (handmade soap) Qamalia for her daughter's use and wait for any positive results.

Granted, after a few soaps and a couple of years down the line, Puan Ain is one our customers who really believe in our products as it really has made her family feel a lot better today. Alhamdulillah. It is truly a great, great feeling when you can help ease somebody's misery and suffering then turn it into something joyful and relieving.  

Puan Ain also once commented that her elder children would never fail to pack our soaps up with them before leaving for boarding school. A tacky, corny but true storyline for adverts :-)). 

31st January 2012 :

After delivering Puan Ain the soaps she ordered, we then sent a handful of soaps to a customer in Precinct 8, Putrajaya - also from a phone order. Taneesha, 17, is suffering from what most teenagers her age suffer : acne (or zits, to some). We recommended her Qamalia. We hope that Taneesha would watch her food intake, refrain from using any other pimple medication and use the soap as we had shown her how to. We wish her the best of luck and pray for a positive outcome - in a few months - after trying out our soap(s).  

Our Soaps in Masjid Negeri Shah Alam, Selangor

If you are in the Shah Alam area and you'd like to get hold of our goat milk soap, you can now get it at a shop located inside Masjid Negeri Shah Alam or Masjid Negeri Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah, Selangor.

Ustaz Abu Bakar Sairi who hails from Pulau Indah, is one of the main guys at the state mosque. He is one of our goat milk soap distributors with his own brand name. We assisted him in the preparation of his soap design/brand, packaging/wrapping & brochures according to his preference(s). 

Ustaz Abu Bakar has been our customer for the last 2 years and he has bought a few cartons of the goat milk soap to be sold/marketed at the Masjid Negeri. Although he is selling the soap at a very relaxed pace (Ustaz Abu Bakar is professionally attached to the Masjid Negeri), he sees potential in this business as he receives more and more repeat sales lately. The demand is there. So we encouraged him to have his own brand name with his phone number on the label of the soaps for him to have more access to his own set of customers. Previously, it was either he was using our label when selling the soaps or they were sold without any proper packaging.     

But now, he already has his name & number stamped on the soaps. We wish and pray the best for Ustaz Abu Bakar. He also stated his intent to market these soaps to Klang; and also his next plan to market Qamalia (hand-made) soap at the mosque.  

Congratulations Ustaz. Wishing him all the best! Amin.

                                                  Masjid Negeri Shah Alam, Selangor.    

Our Goat Milk Soap to Turkey?

The other day, we got a call from Mr. Emre Yasar from Turkey who told us that his wife was very interested to market our goat milk soap as she loves it so much. 

On the 12th January 2012, we met up with Mr. Emre who happens to be a very, very nice chap. He is attached to MATUACA (Malaysia-Turkey Cultural Association/Persatuan Kebudayaan Malaysia-Turki) based in Kuala Lumpur.

He was saying that sometime ago, his wife received this goat milk soap as a gift from somebody. Until recently, when Mr. Emre saw and bought our goat milk soap somewhere in one of our partner's outlets, she was searching for the soap as she loved the feeling bathing with it very much.

So, Mr. Emre intends to sell these soaps under his own label & brand name, where he asked for our advice and consultation. He immediately bought 1 carton of the soaps. After a while, he asked us to wrap and create a brand for his soap label called 'SILK STORY'. He also expressed his interest to try and market this goat milk soap to the Turkish community here in Malaysia and if that goes well, he wants to take it a bold step further by exporting it all the way to Turkey. InshaAllah.

We wish Mr. Emre and his wife all the best in their new business venture. And if you are reading this page Mr. Emre, rest assured that we will always be here to assist you on anything pertaining to this soap business. Best of luck, sir!

P/S : Thanks a lot for the 2 religious & motivational books you gave us the other day. We really appreciate your kind gesture. Wassalam. 




   

Ups & Downs of a Soap Biznes

It gives you a great feeling each time you are able to sell your soaps/products at new outlets particularly in uncharted territories. Especially when you can foresee that sales will be great by the number of people going in and out of that outlet. On the other hand, it really sucks when potential partners refuse to let us put our soaps in their shops - let alone the place where we want them (products) to be placed ie. at the cash register counter. But, that is sales. You win some, you lose some. It is how you bounce back and persevere that really matters at the end of the day.  

We used to have our soaps sold at more than 20 Petronas petrol station's Mesra c-stores in Klang Valley since 2009. However, since Petronas Dagangan Berhad (PDB) had tightened its rules and regulations in the 3rd quarter of last year (2011) against products which are not registered with PDB to be sold at their c-stores, we have suffered a massive blow in the decline of sales. Petrol station outlets contributed approximately a high 35% of our sales revenue. The number of soaps sold per month surpass any sales garnered by other outlets (eg. convenience stores, restaurants, pharmacies, laundry outlets) eventhough the number of petrol stations selling our soaps are very low in our total list of outlets.

(NOTE : To be a registered PDB vendor, one is required to go through strict & tideous procedures and pay monthly royalties based on their sales/product deliveries to the Mesra c-stores nationwide. Those who are normally not registered with PDB as vendors are small business owners (for example nasi lemak suppliers, traditional cake suppliers and (us included) locally-made soap distributors who could not afford to be burdened by royalty payments as their profit margin is tiny and sustaining power is low. Why we selected Petronas' Mesra c-stores as a place to market our product(s) is because they are our national oil company and we naturally feel that they could at least support local but small-time businesses but not anymore. At least the petrol station operators are supportive of our cause and are sympathetic when it's time for us to go. No offence to PDB but to be fair, they have done their best to look away (in allowing these small time business owners to sell their products) on numerous occasions from repeated complaints by registered vendors who feel that it is unjust to allow non-registered vendors to be sold at the c-stores at their expense).  

But life goes on. We are aggressively acquiring more outlets than ever now. More outlets we secure, the more soaps we sell and the more people have our company/products in their minds.

It's equally disheartening when a particular outlet is doing well but when the time comes, they refuse to pay what is due to us and in turn, treats us like beggars - sending us away, refusing to talk to us - over a paltry RM50 to RM100 collection. With the consignment business we offer, we face the high risk of not getting paid when the soaps have already been sold by untrustworthy shop owners.

Selling these soaps are not easy but by offering shop owners our products on a consignment basis, it is highly risky but the only way for us to get our products out there in the market. Until then, the battle has to go on.


          

Delivery of Qamalia Stock

9th & 10th January 2012 : We received deliveries of the Qamalia stock - and coincidently, also the delivery of the goat milk soap stock.

Qamalia will be sold at selected outlets in Kuala Lumpur.

Freshly packed Qamalia soaps

In the store room

Qamalia : A Testimony from an Old Friend

Frankly, I don't do testimonies but in this business, belief in your product will hold more water when your customers or product users rave about them - without paying them to do so :-).

On the 29th of December 2011, my old, old friend Kris sent me this SMS :

"Hi..Kris here..just to share..do u remember u gave me the soaps last year? i still have one..and my daughter is now down with chicken pox. i tried on her when the spots are dying out..Alhamdulillah..dia dah tak gatal2 lepas guna sabun tu (she no longer feels itchy after using the soap)".

Kris added that the spots (from the chicken pox) dries out fast and the flaky scars fell off.

Thanks a lot for the useful information, Kris. We are really glad that Qamalia has helped your daughter recover from the pox. Don't stop using it.

Kris & her adorable daughter, Amirah

In 2012, we are planning to focus more on the premium Qamalia in our marketing plan. As you have read earlier, Qamalia is a hand-made soap which is a combination of goat's milk & calendula. Ever since we introduced this product more than a year ago, it already has a fanatical following despite its high price.

Penny, one of our customers in Wangsa Walk is crazy about the product. Having a fair but sensitive & oily skin is not easy for a lady especially when she would always experience breakouts (acne). After using Qamalia, her many pimples & red spots have subsided tremendously and today, she is one of this soap's staunchest supporters - also distributing the soaps for us.

Ina who works in Seksyen 5, Shah Alam is also a fan who buys Qamalia in bulk for her whole family.

Ramzi from Sarawak orders from us to sell Qamalia over there (in Sarawak).

Read more about Qamalia in our earlier post.