Companies can clean up with same-sex products

They look equally pretty — one might say identically pretty — in their white dresses, red lipstick and dated brown bobs, all embedded in eight ounces of clear glycerin soap.

It's "Same Soap Marriage," which also comes in a male-male version, one of a growing number of products offered online to help mark same-sex unions.

Also out there: photo albums with two brides or two grooms on the cover, handmade certificates to note the event, and rainbows — a symbol of gay pride — on jewelry, tuxedo ties, bathrobes and doormats.

The $8.50 soaps, made by a California company, are offered on twobrides.com and twogrooms.com, sites launched in 2000 by Gretchen Hamm of Dallas, who was unable to find supplies for her daughter's same-sex wedding.

"When I started, I was a little ahead of my market," said Hamm, admitting she got caught up in the dot-com fervor and the notion that anything sold online would be a sure ticket to success.

But after a slow start, her business doubled last year and may double again this year with increased interest in same-sex ceremonies.

Hamm insists, however, that she'd be delighted if wedding gear for gays and lesbians were available at mainstream retailers and supply houses. "It's not that I want my business to go away, I'm really enjoying it," said Hamm. "But I would love to see the day there's no need for it."

In Vancouver, B.C., Gay-MART is not only an 8-year-old Web site, gaymart.com, but a retail shop that opened on Davie Street in 2001.

Besides same-sex cake toppers, the site offers enameled pins of white wedding bells with rainbow ribbon, and what it calls "Lesbian Marriage Ducks" and "Gay Marriage Ducks," 4-inch-tall yellow ducks in male-male and female-female combinations.

Gay-MART co-owner Finn Mollerup says he knows of no particular significance to the wedding ducks, offered at $7.95 a pair. "They're just for fun." (The site also contains some adult-themed content.)

Since British Columbia's Court of Appeals legalized same-sex marriages last summer, the province has been a draw for visits by gay and lesbian couples. Mollerup said his shop sees three or four newlywed same-sex couples each weekend, and most are coming up from the U.S.

Jack Broom: 206-464-2222 or jbroom@seattletimes.com.