Custom Soap and Bath Products for Boutiques and Retailers - How It Works

Some of the most interesting custom work we do doesn't start with a wedding date or a baby shower. It starts with a conversation with a boutique owner or wholesale buyer who wants something made specifically for their store - a custom branded product their customers can only find there.

What Retail Custom Orders Look Like

When a boutique, gallery, or small business reaches out about a custom order, the conversation usually starts in one of two places.

Either they want products from our existing wholesale line packaged and labeled for their shop, or they want something designed from the ground up - a scent, a design, a custom branded product that belongs to their space and their community.

Made for them by hand in our Brooklyn studio. Here are two examples of different briefs for custom soaps we've made in the past:

Somewhere in Time Gallery, Mackinac Island

Our longest-running retail custom relationship is with Somewhere in Time Gallery, a shop on Mackinac Island in Michigan. It started simply - in their first summer carrying our products, they bought from our existing wholesale line. By the second summer, they came back with something more unique in mind.

Mackinac Island is known for its flowers. Lilacs bloom across the island every spring and draw visitors from across the country. So we made them a Lilac soap - a custom fragrance and floral design built around that specific place and what it means to the people who visit it. By the end of that same summer they had expanded the collection to include a Secret Garden soap, a soft pink floral bar with its own character.

This summer is the third. They added a Blue Hydrangea soap, and a custom body butter - a Lilac formulation that extends the collection beyond soap.

This is a collaboration three summers in the making, now a fully custom product line their customers love.

Dear Gloria, New York City

This was a different kind of brief entirely. Dear Gloria is a New York City-based pottery studio that makes limited-edition and NYC-inspired pottery. When they were developing a home goods collection that complimented their ceramics, they wanted a soap that felt like it belonged in that same world.

We created a custom white and gray marbled soap with their logo stamped into each bar - a design that echoed the marble finish of their plates.

Not every retail custom order becomes a multi-year program. Sometimes it's a single product for a launch, a gift with purchase, or a bespoke surprise for a customer base that will remember it.

What We Can Create for Your Shop

Every retail custom order starts with a conversation about your store, your customers, and what would feel right on your shelves. From there, the possibilities are wide.

We can develop a custom soap in a scent and design specific to your shop or region.

A body oil or body butter named for your store or the place it calls home.

A reed diffuser formulated to match the atmosphere of your space - something customers can smell in-store and take home.

Or a seasonal product that marks a particular time of year your customers care about. Packaging and labeling are always custom branded to feel like yours.

Minimum order quantities are low and flexible. Most custom wholesale orders start at 16 units, a low quantity we know is important for independent retailers who don't want to commit to a bulk order before knowing how something will sell.

Getting Started

If you're a shop owner or wholesale buyer interested in custom products for your store, reach out through our custom orders page and tell us a little about your shop - where you are, who your customers are, and what you're imagining. We'll take it from there.

You can also browse our Custom Orders Lookbook to see past projects and get a sense of what's possible.

Just interested in becoming a wholesale partner right now? Reach out through Faire or visit our Wholesale page to learn more about carrying Mainland Vintage in your shop.