Discovering Black African Soap: TOTALLY Different to Anything I’ve Tried Before (and Loving it)
When I purchased my shea butter from Brixton Market I saw bags with dark balls. I wasn’t sure if they were food or maybe something to do with dealing with insects at home. Yes, that’s what I thought.
I then asked the guy who told me it was soap… And the aha! moment came. “This must be the black African soap everyone is raving about!” I thought.
And no wonder. This strange looking soap is WONDERFUL! I’ve been using it and oh mighty health… I LOVE IT!
Yes, I doesn’t look very appealing. But that’s part of its appeal. I actually love the look of it. It’s very dark and doesn’t smell particularly nice (or bad). Like a waxy smell.
I’ve seen many different black African soaps in the Amazon store but none like this. This is the authentic, all natural one.
I’ve now used it to wash my entire body and the other day I washed my hair with it also. It doesn’t leave it smooth and silky, but it feels like something that’s good for the scalp.
This is the only soap that doesn’t make some parts of my body feel itchy (all the others do, including a natural shea butter soap I bought) so I was well impressed.
The way I use it is I take a pinch of it (you don’t rub it like other soaps, you take a bit of it, as you would do with bread) and use it to rub it against your body. You need to meet hair to create the lather otherwise this particular one doesn’t.
It feels wonderfully smooth and I LOVE IT ON MY FACE. It cleans it but doesn’t make it squeak, which I used to think it was a good thing but actually, this makes me feel better: it adds softness to the clean feeling.
I have fallen in love with this soap and plan on trying 3 versions of it: this one, Dudu Osum soap (which I’ve already bought) and a liquid black African soap. I’ll be reviewing them soon.
I’ve had mixed results with traditional African black soaps. I first tried one in the form of the very popular Akoma Skincare and ended up with a nasty neck rash that took a while to clear. I thought I was allergic to the cocoa pod ash in it, but I recently tried out another soap, with exactly the same ingredients, from a different company and haven’t had any issues so far.
Dudu Osun—which I’ve used for years, and is considered ‘non-traditional’ because of its (added) ingredients—lathers more than the traditional African black soap, but dries out the skin more. If your facial skin, in particular, is sensitive, it can have an irritating burning sensation when used frequently. Personally, it’s best to use that one once a day, at most. I find its greatest strength is as a shampoo: it cleans and clarifies sensationally and leaves the hair feeling super-soft.
The liquid black soaps lather the least; they’re much runnier and depending on the make, they contain the most palm oil. Personal stance on palm oil aside, I find the liquid one the least cleansing and usable for the skin. It feels as though it stays on the surface, and quite a lot has to be dispensed for it to spread. It’s best used as a hair conditioner.
Hi, thanks so much for your comment. THESE ARE FABULOUS TIPS you’re giving! And funny you mention all these things because this very week I’ve been making liquid soap from my solid Black African soap (the one you can see on the featured image) we bought. It’s not from Akoma skincare but looking at Akoma’s pic I can see they look the same (the balls I bought are ‘unbranded’, from a stall in Brixton, London (UK) ).
I love that you’ve mentioned the 3 ‘types’ of Black African Soaps I’ve also tried (traditional, Dudu Osun and the liquid soap) and I agree with what you’ve said regarding the lather for each. Good to know Dudu Osun (which is my least favourite because I can smell some sort of fragrance I’m not sure where it comes from) works well as a shampoo: I’m actually using shea butter on my hair and this morning was thinking I need something good to get rid of it, I’ll definitely try the Dudu Osun next time on my hair.
We didn’t really like the liquid black soap because, to be honest, the packaging was a total disaster (and if you weren’t extra-careful it would get knocked over and you would lose a lot of product which happened a few times!). Also the plastic broke in places and the liquid just ‘disappears’ through your fingers so we bought 2 and didn’t buy any more (and no plans of buying anymore). What I’ve done is make liquid soap out of my traditional Black African Soap (have made it this week) by boiling 5 parts of distilled water to 1 part of grated traditional soap (made a few attempts till I found the right consistency so 5 parts of distilled water will give you a thick-ish liquid-y creamy-ish soap) with 2% vegetable glycerin, and leaving overnight (stirring every now and then). The pH turned out to be 9 so all good in terms of microorganisms, mould and yeasts (so it won’t need preservation). So that’s that for the liquid soap, we’ll be making our own from the solid traditional one and ditching buying any liquid one (which might have different ingredients, and the palm oil might be a problem, depending where they’re sourcing from). Shame I never tried as a hair conditioner, was intrigued about your comment!
So, I’ll be trying Dudu Osun as a shampoo and the traditional African soap (my ‘liquid’ version of it) for body and face and see how that goes. I make my own soap from glucosides which I use on my face quite a few times a day but I’ll definitely be using the Black African one on my face when showering.
Great tips there, thanks again!