Rub Soap is hand-made in small batches with a blend of skin-loving oils and butters. Rich olive, castor, and babassu oils and silky mango and shea butters are transformed through the chemistry of cold process soap-making. It’s a slow, thoughtful method that keeps all the good stuff intact, so your skin gets the hydration and care it deserves.

From there, we stir in botanicals, clays, and essential oils, creating rich textures and scents that turn a daily wash into something worth lingering over. No parabens. No sulfates. No junk your skin doesn’t need. Just smart, sustainable ingredients that make clean feel a little more… indulgent.

Each bar is poured, cut, and cured by hand until it’s ready to lather up in your shower. The result? A soap that’s sophisticated, sustainable, and just playful enough to make you smile while you scrub.

So go ahead and get dirty—Rub Soap was made to make clean feel good.

Palm oil isn’t bad. It’s a much better choice for soaps and cosmetics than petroleum-based ingredients and better for food than saturated fats. Problems arise when the billion-dollar cosmetic/personal care industry and the trillion-dollar processed food industry both descend on the same natural resource at the same time. Palm oil is everywhere, from granola bars to lipstick, and the palm oil industry is one of the leading causes of deforestation and habitat destruction. Often called “Conflict Palm Oil”, as palm oil companies forcibly remove indigenous peoples and local communities from their land for new palm oil plantation development. Rub Soap is a tiny company, and our refusal to use palm oil has no impact on these huge conglomerates. Many have asked us why we bother since it won’t make a difference either way. We answer that it makes a difference to us. We are part of a growing movement of people unwilling to accept the status quo and supporting the budding market of palm-free alternatives.

Nearly everything made at Rub is completely plant-based. All rub soaps and body butters are entirely vegan, but when it comes to lip balms, nothing beats beeswax. We are always looking for substitutes that perform just as well, and when we find a winning formula, we will make the switch. 

The “clean” beauty movement started out as a great idea, but has fallen prey to the cult of misinformation. It’s true that our modern lives are heavily reliant on many fast, cheap, and harmful synthetic ingredients. On the other hand, just because something is natural doesn’t mean it’s good. At Rub, we want to be clean and smart. We prefer natural ingredients, but sometimes natural is not the smart choice. Sandalwood, for example, has been harvested to near extinction for its precious oil, and all-natural mica is often mined by children as young as four. When natural ingredients do more harm than good, or simply don’t exist, we turn to responsible synthetic options.

Rub soap is available online at rubsoap.com, the St. Johnsbury Country Store, and occasional craft fairs and farmers’ markets in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom.