|  Back
in early 1999 a creative scientist stood armed with a scale, a bottle of sodium
hydroxide, copious notes with calculations and a pot full of wonderful oils. Pouring
over carefully formulated recipes and weighing out every ingredient with the utmost
care - my very first batch of soap was made.
Frustrated with harsh soaps
available on the commercial market, I began making my own handmade soaps in small
batches with ingredients I could pronounce. When my husband and I found
our apartment filling up with bars of soap, we gave away soaps to friends and
family so that they might reap the benefits of a gentle, natural bar of soap.
When we found ourselves unable to keep up with growing demand, we decided to turn
our clean hobby into a home-run business. After brainstorming funky names
for our soap line we decided to keep it simple. At the time we lived in a gorgeous
apartment in an old home on High Street in Closter, NJ. Since our first batch
of soap was made here, we decided on High Street Soap as our name! Our
soaps are made with all-vegetable, food-grade oils using the traditional cold
process method. One of the things that makes handmade soap special is that it
retains its natural glycerin. Glycerin, a by-product of the soapmaking process,
is a humectant that aids in keeping moisture next to your skin. Commercial
soap companies remove glycerin from their product in order to sell it to various
industries. Some soaps available on the market today aren't even soap - they are
synthetic detergent bars. We craft small batches of true soap with wholesome
ingredients and all the glycerin is left intact, ready to pamper your skin. With
a wide variety of scents and blends, we're sure you will find a soap just right
for you. Of course just making soap wasn't enough for us. Soon we began
researching various recipes and formulations for lip balm, healing salves, bath
salts and bombs, lotions and much more. With the same natural, fresh goals in
mind, we now offer a wide array of natural body care products. Here
at High Street Soap we strive to bring you the freshest, finest products available.
Our recipes embody many hours of research and formulation. From the smallest bath
salt to our ten-pound batches of soap, every ingredient is carefully blended with
the health of your skin in mind. | 
Oils
such as olive, sunflower, grapeseed and castor are common in our recipes. We also
add luxury butters like shea and cocoa because they feel so yummy! 
When
the melted oils and butters reach the desired temperature we carefully stir in
the lye solution. Then we stir... stir...stir... and yeah, you guessed it, stir
some more! 
After
diligent stirring the raw soap reaches a stage called 'trace'. At this
point we add spectacular goodies like oatmeal, poppy seeds, cucumber puree, essential
oils or high quality fragrance oils. 
Whimsy
rums amok during this part of the soap making stage and we're constantly surprised
as to what gets thrown in the pot! This is a batch of our Chamomile-Bergamot soap
to which we add calendula petals.
After
the dust settles from our whimsy frenzy we pour the raw soap into a wooden slab
mold. While in the mold the soap will remain warm and continue to saponify. After
12 hours or so we take the soap out and cut it into bars to cure. Curing the soap
can take anywhere from 4-8 weeks depending on the soap!