African Black Soap

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pure&simple

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Has anyone on this forum tried African Black Soap? How would you compare it to your hand made soaps?
 
I used it and my skin seemed to feel dry after using it ... Only used it a few times and gave up
 
The real stuff is made by burning plant material and mixing the ashes directly into oils such as coconut and palm. The lye (and the black color) comes from the plant ashes much like the way people used to make lye by leaching it from wood ashes. This results in a very non-specific lye measurement so you COULD end up with lye heavy soap. To prevent this you might overcompensate by adding much more oil than you think you need. And if that oil happens to be something like coconut then it would be drying. Other oils could make it prone to spoilage.

There are also a variety of other soaps that people simply color black using various dyes and call them African Black soap... but technically they are not. That's mainly just label appeal.
 
Boy, I'm glad that other people found the soap very drying as well. I found so many great reviews for it on the net that I had to buy it myself to try. I loved the bubbles that i gave but after a wash, I really had to moisturize more than normal.

I had to remelt the thing in the oven and add some Shea butter. Now, it's not bad to use. But I think I prefer my handmade and homemade GM soaps to the black soap. I'm so happy I learned how to make my own soap, thanks to everyone on this forum. :D
 
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