Srinagar, June 15: A young woman from Srinagar district has been making products with plants and saffron that are made just for her customers.
Sana Aftab used to live in Rainawari Srinagar, but she now lives in Baghat Barzulla. She started a soap business called “Mountain Soap Company” and has gotten a lot of good comments so far.
Sana Aftab told the Kashmir News Observer (KNO) that she started making soap as a hobby. During the shutdown, she found the process of making soap on YouTube to be very creative.
She said, “Most regular soaps dry out our skin, and I later learned that there is a need for organic soaps that soften the skin.”
“Basically, I first made soaps for myself, and then I gave them to my family and close friends. Once they started using them, they started asking for more,” she said.
“Later, my friends told me I should start making soaps on a large scale, so I did. I called my business the “Mountain Soap Company,” and now a lot of people order soap from this company online,” Sana said.
Sana said that she got her engineering degree from NIT Srinagar and her MBA from the University of Manchester. She has also worked in different places.
“As I worked in different countries, I realised that Kashmir is rich in every way, but its resources need to be explored,” she said. “It’s easy to start an organic soap company because all the ingredients are available and most of them grow in the wild.”
She said, “Youth should take advantage of opportunities because this is the age of creating and sharing knowledge, and to get out of that you only need a government job.” She also said, “This is the age of mobile work, and the government has already been encouraging entrepreneurship in Kashmir.”
“We’ve made soaps with herbs, spices, nuts, wadur soil, walnut oil, mustard oil, and lavender, and many people love them. Many companies have already contacted us about promoting this product,” she said.
“We sell one piece for Rs 200 and make soaps for weddings and other events. It takes about half an hour to make a bar of soap, but it takes about three weeks for the soap to fully cure,” said Sana.
She said that people’s reactions have been very good and that the goal is to launch more organic items so that more people can get jobs.
