Two months after the Iran war began in February, entrepreneur Stevi Lowmass faced the prospect that her 13-year-old Dubai business might not survive the sharp drop in tourism.
The Camel Soap Factory, which Lowmass had built from a home operation into a manufacturer whose products are sold across the UAE, had always relied heavily on visitors. As tourist numbers fell, so did sales, leaving her scrambling to cut every cost she could.
Among those cuts was Lucy Bradley, founder of Dubai marketing agency Plug, who Lowmass had worked with for several years to promote the brand.
“We took all the actions, including terminating Lucy,” Lowmass tells The National. “I had to phone to say: 'Lucy, we have to cut every single cost possible, which meant really cutting all our contractors.'”
Bradley was given one month's notice. But rather than simply seeing out the remaining weeks, she decided to use them to try to help save the company.
“I’ve got a last hurrah here,” Lowmass recalls Bradley telling her. That last attempt became Save Our Soap. Bradley's idea was simple: ask the community for help.
“I remember messaging the brand manager, and I went: ‘Let’s go to the public. Be really honest. Tell them the situation,’” Bradley recalls. She came up with the line: “Does camel soap float? Yes, if Dubai backs it.”
The Camel Soap Factory would aim to sell 25,000 bars of soap in three months – enough to keep its staff employed, its factory operating and give Lowmass time to shore up the business. It was a plan, Lowmass admits, she found hard to accept. To make it work, she would have to publicly acknowledge that the company was struggling.
“Nobody wants to share with the wider public that you might fail,” she says. “I do remember the first post was incredibly painful. You know, saying we might have to admit defeat here.”
But people responded. Since the Save Our Soap campaign began at the end of May, more than 22,500 bars have been sold, putting the company within reach of its 25,000 target.
Customers have placed orders, other businesses have shared its appeal and companies – including some Lowmass had dealt with more than a decade ago – have resurfaced to ask what they can do to help.
“I cannot tell you what it’s done in terms of almost uniting companies and people behind,” Lowmass says. “We’ve been contacted from all sides by people just asking: 'Can we help?' and offering their services for free.”
For Lowmass, what began as an attempt to keep a struggling factory afloat has become a demonstration of the value the UAE community places on its home-grown businesses.
“It’s brought a community together because we’re not the only local company suffering,” she says. “People aren’t always aware of how important local businesses are. We’re the lifeblood of communities.”
It is also a marketing success story. Rather than spending money on advertising or influencers, Bradley wanted to talk directly to people who already knew the company. The Camel Soap Factory had a database of about 7,500 customers, corporate clients, other businesses and previous online buyers.
She decided to concentrate on that database, supplemented by posts on her and Lowmass's LinkedIn accounts, rather than relying heavily on social media.
“If you want people to take action, you must make it super, super clear: Buy the soap. Save the factory. Here’s the link,” she says.
Emails went out twice a week. At the beginning of the week came the call to buy. On Fridays, supporters received an update from Lowmass about how close they were to the target.
The 25,000 target was deliberately ambitious but achievable.
For Lowmass, selling that many bars would not suddenly revive the business or guarantee its long-term survival. But direct sales at that level would equate to about Dh625,000 and, crucially, buy her time.
For Bradley, setting a target that people could actually see getting closer was also important.
“It had to be a number that's believable,” she says. “It had to be a number that also we could see moving, and would get excited about.”
Small beginnings
The prospect of losing the company was particularly painful for Lowmass because of how unlikely its beginnings had been. She had spent her career working in FinTech and technology and had never imagined becoming an entrepreneur.
“I never ever saw myself running a business. I liked the security of a salary that came with working in corporates,” she says.
Her life changed when she became a mother. “I had wanted her so badly, and I just couldn't see myself going back into the corporate world after she was born.”
The idea for The Camel Soap Factory emerged a couple of years later during a family holiday in Western Australia. Lowmass visited an olive oil soap factory surrounded by orchards, where visitors could watch products being made and buy locally produced goods.
“I remember turning around to my husband and saying: 'This could work in Dubai. This is what we need. We need something that visitors to the country can come and see that highlights something regional.'”
Lowmass, who moved to the UAE in 2002, settled on camel milk as the ingredient that could give the products a distinctly local identity.
“I actually had to Google best soap maker in the world to find somebody to teach me how to make soaps,” she recalls.
She initially made everything herself and sold her products at school stands and markets. As manufacturing regulations developed, she moved into industrial premises and raised her first funding from friends and family.
The business grew with the UAE. Its products moved into gift shops, supermarkets and duty-free outlets. By 2018, Lowmass says the company was generating more than $2 million in annual revenue. Over its lifetime, it has sold nearly 3.5 million products.
Then came the Covid-19 pandemic. With its reliance on tourism, the company lost most of its revenue almost overnight. It survived by broadening its range beyond soap, developing creams, solid shampoos and haircare products and, more recently, a camel milk lip balm.
The Covid experience meant Lowmass recognised the danger quickly when tourism was hit again this year.
This time, however, the response has also forced her to reconsider something fundamental about the business: its customers.
For years, The Camel Soap Factory had focused on tourists and the large retailers and distributors that served them. Save Our Soap has introduced it to a domestic market it had never seriously pursued.
Lowmass says a major lesson has been “that there are untapped markets that are probably best not to be ignored”.
“I think for us it might be quite a rich seam of business that we can explore going forward.”
Businesses helping each other
The Save Our Soap campaign has also grown. Inspired by its success, Bradley created Homegrown 25, an initiative through which local businesses with their own customer databases can support one another.
The principle is straightforward: The Camel Soap Factory, for example, promotes another home-grown company to its network, and that company does the same in return.
“The reason I came up with that was to get more people on board, and obviously our ultimate goal is to spread our message to get more people to buy,” Bradley says. “We promote you, you promote us.”
Save Our Soap has reinforced Bradley's belief that businesses need genuine relationships with their customers rather than simply large social media followings. It has also changed her view of how much people care about the independent companies operating around them.
“It has been incredible how people have rallied around,” she says. “I didn’t think people cared that much, but clearly they do.”
Lowmass is looking beyond the immediate crisis. The company plans to develop markets outside the GCC, taking its camel milk products – and the UAE story behind them – to a wider audience.
But perhaps the more personal lesson for her has been learning that asking for help – and admitting publicly that her business was struggling – could bring people together around it.
She had spent 13 years building a company around the idea that visitors could take home a small piece of Dubai. When that company found itself in trouble, it was the community at home that responded.
“I think I’ve just learnt massive lessons out of this, both personally and businesswise,” she says. “It’s been a really interesting learning curve for us.”
