Making soap in its finest form is indeed an Art!  A skilled soap maker, using great care in choosing the finest oils in proper ratio, can create a small bar of soap that is luxurious in the way it feels in your hands, with a rich, creamy lather that will clean your skin but not strip it of it’s own natural oils and scented to perfection with exquisite essential oils and fragrances from around the world to arouse the senses and soothe the spirit after a hard day’s work.

The definition of soap in its simplest form is the combination of an acid (Olive oil, Coconut oil etc.) with an alkali (sodium hydroxide).   When the two are combined they react and begin to saponify or make soap.  

 “The Gentlemen’s Quarter” (TGQ) takes the greatest care in making all of our batches of bath soaps, shaving soaps and shaving creams in small quantities to ensure Freshness and Quality.  We use a smaller amount of lye in our soaps to ensure that not all of the skin rich vegetable oils have been turned into soap, thus ensuring that additional skin care oils remain, this is known as Superfatting.  We offer several Fine Herbal bath soaps for your skin care needs and offer you the simple pleasure of using a luxurious bar of handcrafted natural soap, to enjoy each and every day; full of rich, creamy, moisturizing lather, laced with the finest aromatic oils, made just for you.  All you need to do is “just add water”.

        Many of our bath soaps have the addition of select botanicals harvested from our very own mature herb garden, along with teas and spice gathered from around the world.  This small touch of botanicals and spice give a wonderful depth of color that cannot be achieved from a bottle of synthetic dye and lend a light exfoliating texture to our bath soap; gentle enough for even sensitive skin and are pleasing to the eye.       

For our Fine Herbal Bath soaps we prefer the method known as Cold-Process.  This is a skilled method of soap making where no external heat is applied during saponification, thus it is known as “cold process”.  We select only the finest Grade A Vegetable oils and combine them with sodium hydroxide dissolved in pure distilled water to begin the process of saponification, then we add Quality Aromatherapy grade essential oils and/or cosmetic grade fragrance oils, clays, butters or botanicals.

During this stage of the soap making process, the soap is like a very heavy, rich cream, which is poured into handmade wooden molds and covered; during this insulation process the soap begins to gel and then harden into the more familiar looking bar of soap.  After 24 to 48 hours the soap is removed from the wooden mold and placed on ventilated shelving for a day and then cut into bars to properly cure.  During the curing process of four to six weeks the excess water used during saponification begins to evaporate, leaving a hard, long lasting bar with a very fine texture, packed with natural glycerin to provide you with a pure herbal soap with a soothing, rich, luxurious  lather that will leave your skin clean, soft and moisturized.  “The Gentlemen’s Quarter” is proud to offer you the Cadillac of hand crafted soaps, able to rival the finest European soaps.

“The Gentlemen’s Quarter” shaving soaps are made from the finest quality base on the market today and are unique in that they are soap, not just a glycerin base filled with detergents.  Our shaving soap is 100 % natural with added Kosher glycerin from a vegetable source.  We add no synthetic detergents, chelators, foaming enhancers or artificial colors to our base.  What we do add is a Custom blend of rich creamy goat’s milk, moisturizing Shea butter and skin soothing Aloe Vera along with our own special blend of the finest ground Kaolin, Bentonite and Rhassoul clays to provide superior slip and glide without drying your skin.

“The Gentlemen’s Quarter” exclusive line of Shaving Creams are made by hand using the finest select ingredients and has the roots of development  based upon shaving cream formula’s from the 1930's.   Colleen has taken her knowledge of the different properties of quality oils available on the market today along with her skill as a soap maker to develop our very own line of shaving creams exclusive to “The Gentlemen’s Quarter”.

We begin by selecting the Finest Vegetable oils, Butters and Grade A quality Tallow (certified Kosher).  Our shaving cream is made by using a combination of hot process and cold process soap making methods, held at a specific temperature for a period of 3 to 6 hours.  The cream is then aged in large glass bowls for the next 30 days; during this time the cream is whipped by hand every other day to achieve a beautiful, smooth texture.   The end result of following this time honored traditional method, gives you a shaving cream that is unique in today’s world of mass production.