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Soap noodles are fast becoming the must-have commodity for soap manufacturers the world over. The biggest market for soap noodles is Asia Pacific like Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia etc. but other continents are catching up fast with this market newcomer. Read on to gain useful insights into some key facts about soap noodles.

1. Soap noodles: one shape, many recipes

Let’s start with the obvious: the characteristic pellet shape of soap noodles. Thanks to the plasticity of the vegetable base, noodle shapes can be obtained easily and shipped in any volume with great convenience.

The simple little pellets enable manufacturers to blend in fragrance and pigments when making soap bars. More or less soap noodles can come into play for each recipe depending on which usage it is for. This is the reason why the same soap noodles can be used to produce personal hygiene products, laundry soap or even multi-purpose soap.

2. Oil-based soap noodles for an eco-friendly approach

The two main types of soap noodles are either animal fat-based or derived from vegetable oil. Clearly this has a big impact on how the end product can be marketed. Used in combination with organic extracts or scents, this type of soap noodles enables sales of a top-range product. After all, personal hygiene is the number one market for soap noodles these days.

3. Why are there different colours of soap noodles?

Soap noodles colours are driven by customer demand. A crisp white is often demanded by the cosmetics industry and requires some refining to achieve. The laundry market however won’t require a perfect white and can readily use translucent soap noodles. In the end, it is up to each manufacturer to go for their shade of choice. This could be a natural white, a snow white or translucent for example. Some colours are specified using colour charts so consistency can be tracked.

4. Soap noodles and the skin

To maximise the cosmetic properties of a body wash or hand soap, say, the best is to go for the snow white type. And that’s not just because of its impeccable finish that can perfectly be mixed with fair ingredients and produce a bright result. It also contains a small amount of glycerine, a hypoallergenic compound that is known to help with skin conditions like acne or eczema. It’s all in the quantity though: the right amount will draw the goodness out of the vegetable oils and other ingredients added to the base noodles. A very small percentage is what is required – anything else and you can quickly go over the top, with a drying effect instead.

5. What’s next in the soap noodle market?

Due to their convenience, superb consistency in product quality and multiple uses, soap noodles are set to sky-rocket on the detergent world market. Vegetable oil-based soap noodles are seeing the most ambitious projections of all, with palm kernel oil fronting the show. With the high availability of palm kernel oil from many source countries, demand can be met in that segment, to every soap manufacturing operation’s delight.

Lighting is a vital aspect across various industries like mining, manufacturing, marine packaging, and sports as well. Various electric fixtures for these industries have been specifically designed for performing heavy-duty jobs. These lights are known to enhance productivity and can easily last in extreme climates, temperatures, and adverse conditions as well.

Besides ensuring the right lighting conditions along with enhancing output, electrical lighting is also helpful for the maintenance of workplace safety. So if you’ve got a well-lit workstation, then workers can easily avoid any unwarranted accidents. Wide electronic lighting fixtures like magnification lights, LED, halogen machine lighting and fluorescent lamps, etc. are commonly used across different industries in Malaysia, and fixtures from Sirocco lighting https://www.sirocco-lighting.com.my/ provides these with great features.

It is important to select the right lighting fixtures based on your work environment in addition to the requirements of the place where they are needed. Here we have listed down a few lighting fixtures.

Industrial Lighting Fixtures
Common lighting fixtures are used commonly across different industries, such as examples below:

Explosion Proof Lighting
In different industries such as transportation, mining, marine, steel, etc. explosion and other accidental hazards should not be overlooked. Thus, it’s best to ensure that the lighting fixtures can withstand the pressures and heat generated through the explosion. Explosion-proof fixtures have stringent quality standards of the National Electric Code.

Indoor Fixtures
Indoor fixtures installation can take place in different indoor workspaces such as workstations, bays, workshops, etc. As various work environments provide different lighting system requirements. It would be ideal for contacting a supplier providing you with customized requirements for lighting. You need to ensure that these lighting systems can endure harsh work conditions along with extreme temperatures.

Flood Lighting
Almost all large industrial units include floodlighting as a part of their lighting plan. As suggested through the name, floodlights are luminaires flooding an area with light. The intensity gets a lot more increased when the LED lights power flood lighting fixtures.

All fixtures normally work across different applications like industrial facilities parking lots, ports, sports grounds, industrial outdoors, etc. These are indispensable parts across all industries.

Mid-Bay and High-Bay Luminaries
Mid and high-bay luminaires are among highly renowned fixtures for industrial lighting. Manufacturing plants are available with tall ceilings for the space of heavy machinery with room for airing. All these luminaires work well for applications that are great and are utilized extensively in the warehouses, manufacturing facilities along with other industrial applications.

Moreover, a lot of industrial units are available with great lighting and must match with regulatory standards assigned by authorities. When LED lights get housed in mid-bay and high-bay luminaires, the whole lighting system can become a lot more effective. Also LED lights are bright, cool, and safe compared to conventional counterparts and make them the choice of all applications in the industry.

Sirocco lighting is among the leading manufacturers of industrial LED lights and fixtures with high-performance LED luminaires. Along with sales of LED lighting products, Sirocco also provides rental and sales options. Industries can also avail of repairs and maintenance along with all original parts.

Pendant Lights
Warehouses and Manufacturing plants have various areas like small child manufacture units and alleys that require a lot of illumination. Having pendant lighting fixtures efficiently keep all these areas illuminated and offers a lot more contemporary feel.

All these fixtures are adaptable and they work great for illuminating cabins and rooms of large organizations. Also, you need to note that pendant lighting gets installed in the same way as the mid-bay or high-bay luminaires, making them ideal for tall ceilings.

High Mast
Industrial units normally have larger outdoor areas usable for unloading and loading of raw materials, goods, and such. A lot of these units can also operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and make lighting imperative in outdoor areas.
A lot of high masts have been used for illuminating large outdoor areas. This is the best option for lighting as it leads to a high ratio of space to light, resulting in unvarying illumination. All these fixtures work best when they’re combined with LED lights and they’re available across different heights to get required illumination.

The lighting industry has gone through significant changes and is introducing new technologies and products. Sirocco lighting fixtures through Airstar (France) offers unparalleled glare-free industrial lighting to meet the demanding situations of night time jobs.

Having adequate illumination with LED lights from https://www.sirocco-lighting.com.my/ results in a safe working environment as all these fixtures have a constant beam angle with high lumen output. According to various studies, intensification of lighting leads to enhancement of productivity of employees which ultimately results in higher output.

To start with a definition, peer-to-peer lending (sometimes called p-2-p lending) is lending between people online. Peer-to-peer is person-to-person, but on a large scale (and can be p-2-b, person-to-business). There is an intermediary or platform at the center of this transaction, but typically not a bank.
Each lender in the p-2-p transaction might lend money to many borrowers, perhaps only a small amount of capital to each: An individual might borrow money from many different lenders, who collectively offer the sum that the borrower requests.

In the traditional market for borrowing money, the bank accepts the deposit of funds from customers – depositors – and the bank then lends the deposited funds to other customers, other banks or governments – i.e. borrowers.
The bank typically pays interest to the depositors on the funds they have lodged with the bank. The borrowers, conversely, are charged interest on the funds they have borrowed.

The bank expects to pay the depositors less than they charge the borrowers. The difference between the rate changed and the rate paid – the margin – is used to cover all the bank costs. Costs include the fact that some borrowers will default on their loan and not repay. Also, the bank owners expect to earn a profit. The bank typically pays the owners compensation as dividends.

The differences between traditional, i.e. bank borrowing and p-2-p borrowing are mainly about risk and return.

In a traditional scenario (bank borrowing), the bank is solely responsible for assessing the risk a potential borrower represents and for dealing with a default, should one occur. The bank makes all of the decisions: The lender (the depositor) is isolated from the risk of the borrower defaulting on the loan. Of course, if the bank makes too many poor lending decisions, depositors’ capital will be at risk. Ultimately, the bank will fail if too many people borrow funds and don’t repay them. Governmental guarantees may be available in these circumstances to protect depositors funds.

If the depositor is dealing with a p-2-p borrower, then they will typically be more exposed to the loss in the event of a default by a lender.

P-2-p lending is more akin to lending money to a friend or family member. If a friend asks to borrow a sum, we typically discuss the purpose and the duration they wish to borrow for and how and when they will repay the debt. As the lender (depositor), we will also judge the risk, i.e. the likelihood that the borrower will default and not repay it. Unlike in the bank borrowing scenario, if a friend borrows a sum and does not repay it, we suffer the loss personally, and there is typically no compensation.

So it is with p-2-p lending. The intermediary platform, which connects the depositor to the borrower, will not compensate the depositor if the lender defaults: The depositor will see the deposit’s recorded level of funds on deposit reduced by the sum in default.

(The intermediary or p-2-p platform may offer some additional support, discussed later).

So why would a depositor use a p-2-p platform to lend their money, rather than the typical bank borrowing scenario, when doing so exposes them to so much more risk?

Along with the increased risk comes an increased return.

In the bank borrowing scenario, the bank uses the margin (the difference between the interest they pay the depositor and the rate they charge the borrower) to cover their costs, plus a sum set aside to deal with default (reserves) and a sum paid to owners of the business (usually share dividends). The rates paid and charged could mean that the bank pays interest at, for example, 0.5% on the sum deposited: The bank could have set the tariff to be paid by the borrower 5.0% interest, giving an interest margin of 4.5%.

The bank has to absorb all of the losses from defaults in this scenario. Management must set aside some funds to cover this. And the bank may also have dozens or hundreds of branches and other premises, plus thousands of employees and so forth. Shareholders will also expect a return on their shares, i.e. distributed profit.

P-2-p depositors, on the other hand, might see a much larger share of the interest charged to the borrower being paid to them.

Here are two examples:
Example 1: Borrower with an excellent credit rating, low risk of default. This borrower might be charged 4.0%, less than the traditional bank would have charged, making this route attractive to the borrower. On the other hand, the depositor may receive 3.25%, many times more than they would have received as interest from a bank. The p-2-p platform management uses the 0.75% margin to cover their costs and provide their profit. They have no default risk to cater for (born by the depositor), and they have, typically, much lower overheads than the traditional bank.

Example 2: Borrower with a low credit rating, unable to borrow from a traditional bank because of the higher default risk. Here, the borrower might be charged 12.0%, because of the risk of default. That risk is carried by the depositor, of course, so the p-2-p platform may still only retain 0.75% margin, paying the deposit maker the balance of 11.25% interest. It is for the depositor to decide if they want to accept such relatively high-risk loans. If the depositor decides to take this risk, rational behaviour assumes that a percentage will default. Knowing this, the depositor can set aside some of the higher amounts of interest received to off-set against the capital lost in those defaults.

Finally, the p-2-p platform may provide some other services. At its most simple, the platform management connects the person advancing money to the people who want to borrow. They may help manage the downside risk by only lending a small sum to each borrower. P-2-p management undertakes risk assessment and set interest rates accordingly. The platform might allow depositors to choose to accept or decline higher risk loans.

To learn more about this and other forms of finance, please visit Malaysian Financial Market (capitalmarketsmalaysia.com)