Flowers in full bloom

Chapter 205: Starting a Small Business

Her husband was only a minor official of the seventh rank, and could not make much money. She also had several children who had not yet married, and they were in urgent need of money to do things. If it were not for the need for money to arrange the marriages of these children, she would not have gone to such a small family to seek bad luck.

At this time, seeing that Hua Lei was unmoved, he stopped talking, stood up, and left angrily without even saying hello.

Hua Lei ignored her, packed up the teacups herself, and went to the study room next door to read storybooks.

On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, everyone in Yuanying Manor returned and began to deliver food to the Imperial College and various restaurants in an orderly manner. The chopped pepper sauce in Baihua Manor was still being pickled and produced. Xiaoyuan also went back to live in the Imperial College. Hualei's life became regular again.

She went to Yuanying Manor, and took Tian Xiaohe and a group of women from the manor to sort out duck and goose feathers. She first soaked the duck feathers collected and dried before the New Year in warm water, rubbed them carefully with soap, washed them, removed the grease and dirt on the duck feathers, and then rinsed them with clean water. Then she found the white cloth bags and packed them in preparation for disinfecting the duck feathers.

Years ago, she bought a lot of fine white cotton cloth from Liang Xiangyi. Because the cloth had defects of thread pulling and breaking from time to time, it was very cheap. However, it did not affect the use of making cloth bags to hold duck and goose feathers. Hualei asked the women in the village to make a lot of cloth bags with a width of 1.5 feet and a length of 2.5 feet.

At this time, she put the clean duck feathers into a cloth bag, put it into an iron pot with boiling water for more than half an hour, then took it out and put it in the sun to dry with the cloth bag, and patted it to loosen it. The next day, she steamed it in the iron pot for another half an hour, and then put it in the sun to dry.

Because Tian Xiaohe had no experience at the beginning, she only wanted to be quick when collecting duck feathers and goose feathers. There were a lot of blood stains and grease on duck feathers and goose feathers, so it was very troublesome to clean them. Many of them needed to be softened with warm water, and then carefully peeled and picked out with hands, and then the duck feathers needed to be carefully wiped with soap nuts and rubbed carefully. Therefore, the whole process was rather cumbersome and required a lot of patience.

Hualei specially found a group of women in the manor who were more careful in doing things to do this. Because Hualei wanted to make down jackets, the cleaning and disinfection of the duck feathers was very important.

Unlike in the past, we don't have very good machines and cleaning supplies to clean, disinfect and dry duck and goose feathers now, so it can only be done manually, slowly and carefully.

As for the fabrics for making down jackets, Hualei had already asked Liang Xiangyi to help find them before the New Year. The fabrics in Shangjing City are mostly silk and brocade, which are not suitable for making down jackets because they are easy to get hairy.

It took more than half a month just to clean, disinfect and dry the duck feathers. Similarly, the goose feathers were all cleaned, disinfected and dried according to the above steps. We found a dry room, stored them all, and waited for Liang Xiangyi's fabrics.

Because a lot of soap nuts were used to clean duck and goose feathers, Hualei felt that soap nuts were not as good as the soap in her previous life, so she decided to try making soap herself. Pigs were slaughtered every day in Zhuangzi, and the greasy pig fat was the main raw material for making soap.

I went to the Baxianlou restaurant where I had dinner last time and picked up a lot of shells they had thrown away. I took them back to the farm, rinsed them with clean water, then roasted the shells over charcoal fire, crushed them into powder and set them aside for later use.

Then take some clean straw and burn it to make wood ash, filter out the alkaline water with gauze, then pour the shell powder into the alkaline water, stir evenly, filter twice, and let it settle for later use.

Then take the fattiest pork lard, cut it into small pieces, and start refining the lard. First, put the pork lard into boiling water and boil it for two minutes, then take it out, add a small amount of water back into the pot, pour in the blanched fat, bring to a boil, then change to medium or low heat and continue to simmer.

After two quarters of an hour, the lard begins to slowly seep out. Use a newly woven bamboo basket to scoop out the oil residue and pour the lard into a small ceramic jar to cool. When the lard reaches room temperature, add alkaline water and then salt. Stir slowly in one direction to form a saponification reaction. After it becomes a sticky paste, put it into a bamboo tube to set.

After drying in a cool and ventilated place for three days, split the bamboo tube, and then cut it into blocks of appropriate thickness with silk thread. Expose them to the sun for more than half a month to allow the soap to fully saponify.

Hualei originally wanted to make a batch of flower soaps, but unfortunately the magnolia flowers in Baihua Manor were not in full bloom yet. Hualei had no choice but to use the dried osmanthus and chrysanthemums picked in autumn and mashed them into the soap. Unexpectedly, the taste was very rich and smooth, but not as transparent and beautiful as the flower soap in the previous life. However, it was much better than the soapnuts used now, and it had a strong floral fragrance. Hualei was very happy.

I brought a few pieces back for Mrs. Pei to try out. Mrs. Pei liked them very much, and Zhenzhu thought they were even better. She asked Hualei to make more, saying that they could be given away as gifts or sold.

Hua Lei thought this was a good idea, and actually set up a soap-making team and let Tian Xiaocheng take charge of it. Soon, a month later, the soap was put on a small shelf in Hua Qianbian's shop and began to quietly enter the hands of the women in the backyards of the aristocratic families in Shangjing City.

And the price is quite expensive. A piece of soap the size of a palm is wrapped in oil paper. Hua Lei also specially makes various drawstring cloth bags with beautiful scraps of cloth, and puts them on the outside of the soap for sale. One piece costs three hundred coins.

Of course, there are also gift boxes of four pieces sold for one tael of silver, which contains a random flower soap, and gift boxes of six pieces sold for one and a half taels of silver, which contains two random flower soaps with different scents, but the flower soaps are not sold individually. Hualei racked his brains to make money, and spared no effort to demonstrate the nature of all businessmen being dishonest.

It is said that many ladies in the back house would directly buy a gift box of four or six pieces of flower soap in order to get one, which directly contributed to the increase in soap sales. After the flowers in Baihua Manor bloomed, Hualei launched many different flower soaps, such as Assassin, Magnolia, Peony, and Camellia, which are rich in fragrance and bright and beautiful.

When the mugwort on the edge of the field grew vigorously, the flower buds caught the mugwort and made several batches of mugwort soap, joining the army of flower soap. When the honeysuckle in Baihua Village bloomed brilliantly, they picked the honeysuckle and made several batches of honeysuckle soap. As long as it can be used in soap, nothing is left out. The main point is to follow the season and use whatever is available.

Similarly, mugwort soap and honeysuckle soap were also added to gift boxes in twos, driving the sale of regular soaps. Gradually, the soap business picked up. Hualei was not greedy, and slowly made it according to the raw materials and manpower that could be collected, with quality first and quantity second.