The Drama over Melodrama

YellowBerry’s commitment to bringing you the best organic self-care is not without hiccups. Our homemade approach means we know exactly what goes into our products but it also means things can go wrong just as easily. For the International Day of Charity, let me tell you the story that was the inception of the aptly-named Melodrama Handmade Soap and how a disaster was turned into a success.

All our products are the result of experimentation in our laboratory. It is a meticulous and laborious process; each ingredient is to be handled with care, wary of contamination and half-measures. Laboratory conditions also play a factor. Temperature, humidity, light, these all affect the precious ingredients we use to make our concoctions. We normally start out by initiating a small test batch so if anything does go wrong, it doesn’t affect the rest of production. Unfortunately, this time we were victims of our own hubris — we figured that, by now, we were experts in this and shouldn’t bother going through a trial batch. Ego is truly blind and the consequences taught us a great lesson in humility.

The idea of Melodrama arose from a former product of ours, an aromatherapy blend called Supernatural, which had the intoxicating smell of grapefruit. Intoxicated with the great smell of the blend, we imagined modifying the blend with a little more grapefruit would surely enhance that fragrance. In the excitement we overlooked some crucial details — most significant of which was that grapefruit solidifies very quickly. The laboratory conditions were also not favorable that day. Having added the grapefruit, we couldn’t get the batch through our molds properly.

The result was a sweet-smelling but aesthetically unappealing handmade soap. Having made one mistake, we went on to experiment with getting the balance just right for couple of trials more. All in all, we ended up wasting a significant amount of our time, money and resources in this pursuit, before we finally struck gold.

But what to do with the batches left behind? There was nothing wrong with them, as such. They still functioned very well as soaps, they had a lovely aroma, they just weren’t up to the quality standard YellowBerry prides itself in.

But another thing YellowBerry prides itself in is sustainability. We charitably gave out our “ugly duckling” batches to orphanages, old people homes and distributed them among our staff. I, myself, took home some samples and, honestly, they smelled so nice!

There is no learning without error, no trials without tribulations and no journeys without detours. The goal, however, is to make it through and find a way despite them. Sure, we lost some resources and capital, but we ended up providing an essential product to people who needed it the most. Morals of the story? Always remain humble and always make the best of a bad situation!