On Main Street in good Ol' Bisbee, lives a soap store with a sign that says "Free Smells" — not that you need to walk in to smell it, you can smell the Bisbee Soap and Sundry from the Bisbee Grand Hotel.
Do it. You'll be bowled over by the powerful cedar, lavender and citrus scents coming at you from all directions when you walk in. It smells so clean.
Bisbee Soap & Sundry's storefront located on 74 Main Street in Bisbee, Ariz.
The Bisbee Soap and Sundry is owned and run by Amber Avery-Pierce and husband-slash-business-partner Mark Pierce. And it all started as an on-a-whim decision. It was Amber who suggested opening the soap store almost three years ago and it was Mark that found the shop right after.
"She was a bartender and I was a chef in a kitchen and we're like 'Let's do something else! Enough of this,'" Mark said.
The Bisbee Soap & Sundry shop is located on 74 Main Street in Bisbee, Ariz.
They moved into their shop at 74 Main St. on December 2014 with a box of soaps and a handful of lotions. Since then they've grown their inventory, their services and the amount of soap they make. They've even taken their soaps from the streets of Bisbee to every Whole Foods Market in Arizona and some co-ops across the country, all from the workshop behind the store.
That's where the magic happens, in the back through the curtain. It's where Amber is making the soap and concocting new scents.
"It starts with a base of plant oils and we add the essentials and the colors and pour it in together and 24 hours later, it's soap," Amber said.
She was inspired by her aunt’s soap store in New Mexico.
"She's been doing it for 30-something years. She was taught by my grandmother who was taught by her grandmother and it goes on and on. It's kind of a generational thing," she said.
After soap came beard oils, lotions, body butter and then everything else. All varying in sizes, scents, and colors. Some with scents that are familiar to a Bisbee native. The creosote is picked from the gulch and the coffee is from Old Bisbee Roaster.
And if you can believe it, Amber has somehow turned dirt into a bar of soap. It smells just like dirt but like good dirt you want to clean your body with. Mark suggested buying the Bisbee Blue, it’s turquoise and it smells like a field of flowers.
A full bar of creosote soap is $9.
I left with 6.5 ounce Creosote bar of soap because I’m obsessed with creosote. I couldn't stop taking a whiff of it after I left the store and I haven't stopped using it since I got it.
"It's a nice thing to do. I enjoy making these products, hand-made, small-batch, hand-crafted goodness," Mark said.
If you go
What: Bisbee Soap and Sundry
Location: 74 Main St. in Bisbee, Arizona.
Hours: Open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday and closed Mondays.
More info: bisbeesoapandsundry.com
