FAQs
How can we help?
Choosing the right development and manufacturing partner comes with a lot of questions—about capabilities, timelines, compliance, and what it really takes to bring a product to market. These FAQs are designed to give you clear, direct answers based on how Bradford Labs actually works. From formulation and regulatory compliance to manufacturing across aerosol, liquid, solid, and hot pour, we’ve covered the details that matter.
General
Bradford Labs is a U.S.-based contract manufacturer (CDMO) for personal care and home care brands, specializing in custom formulation, tech transfer, private label, and turnkey production across aerosols, liquids, hot pours, and solid care. With four manufacturing sites and FDA-registered OTC capabilities, Bradford Labs serves masstige and prestige brands in face, body, hair, and home care.
- West Warwick, RI (Headquarters)
- Blue Island, Illinois
- Broadview, Illinois
- Calexico, California
All of our Bradford Labs products are manufactured within the US except for our pouf sponges which are made in North America.
Bradford Labs has approximately 500 employees across four U.S. manufacturing sites in West Warwick, RI; Blue Island, IL; Broadview, IL; and Calexico, CA.
Bradford Labs works with a broad range of Brands that focus on personal care products for face, body and hair or home care. We specialize in formulation development and manufacturing with a focus on Masstige and Prestige brands.
Yes, Bradford Labs is flexible in how we work with customers. We have a full range of formulations that can be customized based on brand needs, allowing for speed-to-market, or we can develop a new product from scratch. If you have an existing formula, we offer tech transfer services. We can also provide turn-key manufacturing and finished product solutions across a broad range of formats and packaging options.
You can request a quote by clicking on the Contact Us button on the Bradford Labs website or you can call 401-821-2141.
Yes, Bradford Labs will sign a two-way NDA, so we can discuss the details of your project in confidence.
Yes, Bradford Labs can meet a broad range of certification requests, including vegan, Leaping Bunny/cruelty-free, as well as many clean-beauty retail certifications. Visit our Sustainability page for a more detailed list of options.
Yes, Bradford Labs offers a broad range of sustainable packaging options including certified paperboards, single stream plastic, ocean reclaimed plastic and compostable films. Visit our Sustainability page for more detailed information.
In contract manufacturing, products are custom created to the specifications of the brand. They can be formulated from scratch or modifed from a chassis to include hero ingredients, adjusted textures and brand specific packaging. This drives product market differentiation and the strongest brand alignment. Private labeling is when pre-made or existing formulas are packaged under the brand or retailer’s identity, enabling speed-to-market but with little to no customization of the formula.
- Bradford Labs donates soap bars and soap base to organizations such as World Vision, Eco Soap Bank, and Amenity Aid. This annually prevents over 200 tons of soap base from going to landfills, and it promotes health and hygiene to some of the most remote and underserved regions of the world.
- The soap base is donated to women’s communities who form it into soap bars in regions that would otherwise not have access to soap.
Products and Capabilities
Bradford Labs offers a variety of skin, hair, body, and household products in aerosol, liquid, and solid formats, including hot pour formats.
Bradford Labs has 150 years of experience in aerosol, liquid, and solid, including hot pour, product development, and manufacturing.
- Bradford Labs boasts an expert team of R&D chemists who can create custom formulations tailored to individual customer needs across aerosols, liquids, and solids, including hot pours. We can also offer tech transfer services for brands that have outgrown their current contract manufacturers or want a higher level of service, quality, and regulatory support. Our formulation library of obsession-worthy, market-ready products can be customized based on brand preferences and hero ingredients.
- Visit our product page to learn more about our products.
- Bradford Labs offers a collaborative, end-to-end product development process designed to bring your personal care products from concept to commercialization.
- The process begins with a consultation with our sales team to understand your brand, product goals, target market, and technical and commercial requirements. This is captured in a product brief to ensure alignment. From there, our research and development team creates custom formulations tailored to your vision and performance needs. We will send you samples to test and work with you to review and select packaging.
- Once the formulation is approved, we move into finalizing pricing and then batching and scale-up to ensure manufacturability. We then conduct stability and compatibility testing to ensure the product is shelf-stable and to support regulatory compliance.
- After final approval, we work with you to determine the preferred approach to sourcing of ingredients and packaging. We then manage material and packaging procurement, full-scale manufacturing, quality control, and final product approval to ensure delivery of finished product ready for market.
Lead times at Bradford Labs are influenced by several factors, including raw material, component, and packaging lead times, and our production schedule. Production is generally 8-16 weeks, from the time of PO, depending on the product and packaging type and associated input lead times.
- Bags
- Clip Strips
- Displayers
- Dump Bins
- PDQs
Quality Assurance & Manufacturing
- Our MOQs for bar soaps and shampoo bars are 25,000 units. Conditioner bars are 10,000 units.
- Our liquid, hot-pour and aerosol MOQs can vary based on size. Please reach out to our sales team for information.
Yes – higher MOQs (as well as higher annual demand) can drive purchasing and manufacturing cost savings which translate into more competitive pricing. We can present pricing at a few different MOQ levels if you would like to see the difference.
Aerosols
Bradford Labs’ new state-of-the-art aerosol production facility is capable of producing a broad range of products from hair care to skincare, body care, and home care. Our aerosol product offerings consist of formulating, testing, filling and final pack-outs.
Bradford Labs offers conventional hydrocarbon propellants, hydrofluorocarbon 152a (HFC-152a), various propellant blends, and dimethyl ether (DME).
Bradford Labs offers aerosol products in aluminum, 2-piece steel, and 3-piece steel cans.
- Bradford Labs is flexible and works with customers to determine the appropriate can diameter based on multiple factors, including aesthetics, desired delivery volume, and cost.
- Aluminum can diameters typically range from 35mm to 53mm. The most common steel can diameters are 205 and 211.
- Each customer project is unique. We work in partnership to determine the best option for each product. The options include
- Pre-printed litho cans
- Wrapped label
- Full shrink-sleeve
- We can also offer bundling options for multi-packs
Typical product types include mousses, dry shampoos, hair sprays, body sprays, deodorant sprays, and room sprays, which is just a sampling of our product capabilities.
Liquids
- Body Wash
- Creams
- Gels
- Liquid Soap
- Lotions
- Shampoos & Conditioners
- Mist sprayer, vials, Cosmetic Jars, Tubes, Sticks, Bottles, Pump sprays, Cylinder Bottles, Blister Packs, Sachets, and Pouches.
- We also offer various packaging decorations, including printing, labeling, and shrink sleeving.
- Each customer project is unique. We work in partnership to determine the best option for each product. The options include:
- Pre-printed tubes/bottles/etc.
- Wrapped label
- Full shrink-sleeve
- We can also offer bundling options for multi-packs
Hot Pour
- Beard Balms
- Deodorants
- Glow/Radiance Sticks
- Lip Balms
- Moisturizing Sticks
- Pomades
- Shave Sticks
- Solid Colognes / Fragrances
- Similar to liquids and aerosols, each hot pout customer project is unique. We work in partnership to determine the best option for each product. The options include:
- Pre-printed jars
- Wrapped label
- Full shrink-sleeve
- We can also offer bundling options for multi-packs
Bradford Labs can fill up to 64 oz of Hot Pour products.
Solid Care
- Coconut
- Combination Syndet/Soap
- Custom Formulations
- Soap-Free Syndet
- Tallow
- Translucent
- Vegetable
Yes. Bradford Labs is one of the few companies in the United States that manufactures both soap base and finished soap bars for both soap and syndet formulations.
Soap is created through a process called saponification, whereby fats and oils react with alkali to make soap. Syndet is made through a blending process from synthetic surfactants. Learn more about the difference in this article.
Bradford Labs offers a broad range of stock die shapes and sizes. Once we get an idea of what you are looking for, we can send you some options to select from.
Yes – Bradford Labs can work with you to create a custom die shape. Lead time for new dies is around 8–12 weeks and they have an average cost of $10K–$12K, but that can be vary depending on the bar size and anticipated volume.
Yes – You can keep an existing die shape and change the center panel to accommodate a logo or copy. The cost is approximately $600, depending on the complexity of the panel, and it takes 6-8 weeks.
- Bradford Labs’ RI site is FDA-registered to manufacture OTC products. That includes soap, shampoo bars, and conditioner bars. Our over-the-counter products contain active ingredients such as benzoyl peroxide, salicylic acid, sulfur, and other acne-fighting ingredients. We also have analytical methods for zinc pyrithione and sulfur for dandruff control, and benzalkonium chloride for antibacterial soaps, among others.
- The Bradford Labs team provides comprehensive OTC support, including formulation development, method validation and testing, product registration, and regulatory compliance. This ensures your product meets all FDA requirements.
- Cartons
- Custom hand-packed requests
- Film
- Flow Wrap
- Paper Wrap