Rubbish.

Paula made some tentative muttering about making Yashmina and Ben responsible for cost control in a meeting but she never followed through and she never asked Ben to join her when she had Yahsmina were clearly doing the cost analysis. It was apparent to all and sundry that in practice that Paula and Yashmina were doing cost control and that Ben had other roles.

Yasmina actually poured in the Sandalwood. If you want on iPlayer from about 17:20 you see Debra point out how expensive the Sandalwood is, to be reassured by Paula that "we only used about half a gram" (not even 3g now!). The next shot is Yasmina pouring in a beaker full of stuff which the voice-over says is Sandalwood, while Ben holds the tureen lid.

(It looked like there are a lot of ingredients to soap, most of which are standard, and Ben did the standard bits while Yasmina and Paula worked on the bits which made their product unique. Paula isn't present at the mixing.)

I certainly think Ben was derelict; because he was so closely involved. With hindsight, they should have costed each item as they added it: "25g of fat, 67p - check" sort of thing. But I also think it would be quite hard for a spot check to catch the mistake. It either needed someone involved end-to-end who could see the whole picture, or else it needed written Bill of Materials documentation that reflected that whole picture. Yasmina was the only person involved end-to-end, but she had no intuition for what 3g versus 450g looks like. We know Ben did some checking, but it sounded like he only checked their arithmetic. He wasn't involved end-to-end, and either he wasn't presented with a document he could audit against, or he was and his check was too superficial. So I think he was culpable, but no more so than, eg, Yasmina. It was really their procedures which were broken.

I had a look at this scene in iplayer. The beaker of stuff being poured in was "the essential oils", not just sandlewood.

Secondly I was surprised how much Paula was involved in the costing of everything.

Yes, you're right there, Yasmina was in the fore front of the Task, and she poured in the whole glass of oils as the Camera focused on it.

However, don't agree that she had *no intuition" re what quanity of liquid looks like, as she must have prepared milk products where a measuring jug was involved, at some time in her life. It's possible to guess quantity but if a recipe demands a certain amount then you use a measuring jug.

Sandalwood isn't just expensive, it has a very strong smell, whereas Cedarwood smells more of musty wood, and Yasmina would have known the difference between the two, as it's very marked. I noticed she chose the large bottle when a smaller one stood close by. Oils only need a few drops in a mixture, and the amount of Sandalwood used would have hummed the room, and what it would do to skin is something else!

Ben and Yasmina's Boardroom stance was a disgrace, and both should have gone. End of.

There was a bit of lavender in the beaker too. Earlier they mention using 90:10 sandalwood:lavender. Most of what Yasmina poured was sandalwood.

I notice that Ben passes her the beaker. I wonder if Ben actually mixed it according to their recipe, and then gave it to Yasmina to pour in. If so, then I also wonder whether this was suggested by the production crew to create a visual that tied Yasmina to the mistake.


Yes. And there were a lot of expenses beyond the ingredients themselves. For example, the label and packaging etc would have been a cost. I'm guessing Ben never went near that side of it.