Bradford Soap Works

BRADFORD SOAP WORKS from Bradford, England, the now-behemoth soap manufacturer got its start supplying flake soap for scouring wool to the many textile mills peppering New England. But having failed to register the name, Bradford Soap Works became the trademark used by another English immigrant, who’d serendipitously also settled down to make soap flakes in Rhode Island. Today, the company does business as Bradford Soap Works and is re-imagined as one of the largest bar soap manufacturers in the United States. Their growing client list includes top consumer-goods companies like Colgate- Palmolive, Johnson & Johnson, Unilever, L’Oréal, and Amway, with specialty soap currently sold in more than 50 countries. “We’re a company of firsts,” proclaims President & CEO Stuart Benton. “We made the first specialty bar soap for Amway in the 1980s – a glycerin and honey bar. We also developed the