About us

Where It Comes From

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All of our soaps are handmade in small batches right here in Edmonton, using ingredients from Canadian suppliers. As a nod to the beauty of our city and its much-loved river valley parks, our logo is based on the iconic Walterdale Bridge. 

Most soap makers work with one soap base and simply add other ingredients to it in order to create a variety of products. Whitebridge Soap takes a different approach, because there will never be a one-size-fits-all soap base that works great for every skin type. Our formulas are each unique, right down to the proportions of oils used. 

Each formula starts with a skin concern in mind, and every ingredient is selected based on the qualities it will bring to the final product to address that concern. New formulas are tested (on human volunteers) and often reformulated multiple times before they meet our standards. Depending on the formula, each batch is cured for a minimum of 6 weeks before it is ready for sale.

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Regarding Palm Oil

When grown and harvested responsibly, palm oil is the most sustainable and resource-efficient soapmaking oil available. Unfortunately, much of the world's palm oil is produced unsustainably by clearcutting rainforests and recklessly depleting soil nutrients. To avoid supporting such abhorrent farming practices, we use only palm oil that has been certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) as being produced responsibly.

Why use palm oil at all? Simply put, saponified palm oil (sodium palmate) is a fantastic soap! It is an excellent cleanser, gentle on the skin, does not leave any residue, lasts a long time, and has a pleasant texture. The only other soapmaking oil that comes close to the same quality is lard, which would be a far more controversial ingredient for moral and environmental reasons.

What about other plant-derived oils, like olive oil or avocado oil? We do use other oils in our soap bases to alter the properties of the final product, but as primary ingredients they do not produce soaps that we are completely satisfied with. Many such oils also demand far greater resource usage in production than palm oil on a per-kilogram basis.