African Black Soap| Detailed DIY Guide

The African Black Soap is a natural soap often used in many African countries for centuries. Its soothing, rejuvenating, healing and has other medicinal properties. It is perfect for exfoliating and can remove dead skin cells, leaving your facial skin glowing and clean always. If you have been hearing a lot about this beauty product in the cosmetics industry and want to learn how you can make your own without relying on commercial ones that may have been pro-mixed, have a lot more unnecessary ingredients, or even have less original or chemical ingredients added.

 

In this post, I will be sharing with you how you can make your very own natural, rich African Black Soap to achieve clean, glowing, skin and how you can use the already-made soap and a few natural ingredients to produce a whitening soap, glowing soap, toning soap and a herbal soap that can give you a brightly toned, clean and clear skin. You will also find the best commercial Black Soap recommendation if you are not up for making your own.

What is the African Black Soap?

The African Black Soap is the one soap most Africans have used for centuries on their face, body and even hair. It is used by many in skincare routines to cleanse the skin, reduce body odour, keep from getting dry skin, stretch marks, and other skin conditions. Kids are also not left out as it is used on them because of its purity and gentleness on sensitive skin. Check out this post to read up full details about What You Should Know About Rich African Black Face Soap.

How is the African Black Soap made?

There are different ways to make this soap. This would depend on the ingredients you have, what you want to get out of the soap (whitening, glowing, simple herbal benefits) or even what your skin is allergic to.

The soap is made from the ashes of natural ingredients like plantain skin, cocoa pod, palm leaves, and palm oil. Some other ingredients like honey, coconut oil, shea butter, cocoa butter, turmeric, etc, are added to enhance its effectiveness.

Once you know what your skin prefers and what it doesn’t, and also what you want to get out of the soap, then you can begin the process of making your very own rich African Black Soap.

How to make your own African Black Soap

The process of making African black soap is quite simple. It just requires you to be precise and understand what you are doing.

To begin, you need these ingredients:

• Plantain/banana peels or cocoa pods (a few slices of the banana or plantain itself can be added if you want)
• 1 cup of shea/cocoa butter
• 1 cup of olive/palm kernel oil
• Aloe vera gel (optional)
• 1 cup of coconut oil
• 1 cup of lavender/avocado oil
• Half cup of safflower/sunflower oil

You can always choose any oil of your choice to make it more personalized to your taste. You can also use them in more quantities if you want to produce a large amount of soap or if you want to get more quality out of a small amount of soap. Once you have that, you can begin the process, which would be done in two phases – making the lye and adding other ingredients to complete the soap.

Preparing Lye (phase one)

1. Get the plantain peels dried under the sun until they feel very dry and crumbly.
2. Roast the dry peels or cocoa pods in a clay oven to produce ash.
3. Get a plastic, glass or stainless steel container and pour enough ash to fill up 3/4 part of the container.
4. Add enough distilled or rainwater to the ashes to cover it up, close it and store it away from kids.
5. Leave it for a few days, say 2-3 days, before going to check if it is potent enough. At this point, it is the soap lye. To check if this is potent and ready for use, wear protective coverings (gloves, mask and even eye protection), open the container and drop an egg into the mix. If the egg sinks, you may have to wait like a day more. If it floats just below the surface, it is potent enough and ready for use. But if it floats on top of the mix, you need to add some more water before using it because it turned out too strong and not good for the skin.
6. Once you have gotten the right potency, use a mesh strainer to get out the lumps of ash or simply break up the ashes within the container before stirring well.
7. You can simply store this mix and scoop it out when you need it. Just be sure to do the egg floating test and add water if you feel it has gotten too strong.
8. And that is it! You have made your very own soap lye, AKA potassium hydroxide, and do not need to buy commercial lye. Now we can head to the next phase.

Keep in mind that the lye can be harsh on the skin at this point. You would have to be careful when handling it and you may have to keep vinegar close to help neutralize any lye if it spills.

 

Adding ingredients (phase two)

1. Heat all the oils and melt the butter in the oils before stirring well together and taking it off the heat once it is well combined.
2. Get a stainless steel container and using your protective gears, pour in your lye until it fills half of the container before setting it on low-to-medium heat.
3. Add the melted oils one cup at a time while stirring the mixture gently.  Let it simmer for like 10 minutes or more, or until it starts to look thicker and creamier. It is totally okay if the soap mix is a dark tan and has black flecks.
4. If you prefer to complete the soap without using a heat source on the lye, you can simply add the heated oils a cup at a time while hand stirring it. When the oils are properly mixed in, set the soap aside and keep going back to stir it for a few minutes at every hour. You will keep doing this for 24 hours until you notice the soap is turning solid.
5. Most times, the soap would move to the top and begin to solidify, if that is the case with yours, you can just scoop out the top and pour it in a well-greased pan or soap mould. But if the whole mixture starts becoming solid, pour everything in a soap mould or a greased pan.
6. Set this aside and cover it with wax paper before allowing it to sit for a day. Bring this out and cut the semi-hard soap into sizeable bars that are okay for you. This is also the part where you imprint whatever design you want to have on it.
7. After this, give it time to harden for two weeks to become useable.
8. Now you have yourself this soft, gentle African Black Soap parked full of nutrients ready to treat your face, body and even hair nicely. You can go ahead to prepare it for use or for sale.
9. Never use fragrance in your black soap. It can irritate a lot of people’s skin.

How to make skin whitening African Black Soap

If you are in the category of people who want to use this African Black Soap to achieve a skin whitening result, you are not left out. This recipe, using your already-made Black Soap, would give your facial skin a whiter and even tone, while working against pimples, eczema, white patches and other facial blemishes to give you glowing skin.

Ingredients:

• 2 bars of already-made black soap
• 4 tablespoons of turmeric
• 1/2 cup of honey
• 2 tablespoons of coconut oil
• 3 tablespoons of powdered milk
• 3 tablespoons of orange peel
• 2 tablespoons of sandalwood powder
• 4 tablespoons of oat powder
• 100ml lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons of kojic diplamitate
• 50g of snow white
• 2 “seven days” lightening serum

If you want the soap to also perform skin repair functions, add these 2 skin repair ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon of neem oil
• 1 cup of water gotten from the soap lye during the black soap production (simply scoop out the water that settles at the bottom of the soap when it started to solidify at the top using the no-heat method or use the water you get from rinsing the container you used in making the lye).

Preparation

1. Crumble the already-made black soap with your hands and pour in a clean mortar.
2. Add all the ingredients one at a time while mixing them gently.
3. Get a pestle and pound everything together to get a well-mixed, fine product.
4. Once done, get clean small jars and scoop enough quantity to fill each one up.
5. Start using your soap and experience the magic of clean, glowing skin with the all-natural Whitening African Black Soap.
6. If you also want to put it up for sale, start packaging and get selling. Just be sure that you and your buyers get to exhaust the soap within a few months.

 

 

How to make skin-toning herbal African Black Soap

If you want to enjoy the benefits of a herbal black soap that can give your skin a good toning, check out this recipe, using your already-made Black Soap, to produce your very own skin-toning herbal soap.

Ingredients:

• 2 packs of black soap
• 60ml of lemon juice
• 4 tablespoon of cosmetic turmeric
• 1/2 cup of honey
• 2 tablespoons of coconut oil
• 2 tablespoons of oat powder
• 4 tablespoons of sandalwood
• 2 tablespoons of rice powder
• 4 tablespoons of powdered milk
• 2 tablespoons of orange peel
• 2 tablespoons of shea butter
• 4 tablespoons of kojic dip
• 2 tablespoons of ascorbic acid

Preparation

1. Crumble the already-made black soap with your hands and pour in a clean mortar.
2. Add all the ingredients one at a time while mixing them gently.
3. Get a pestle and pound everything together to get a well-mixed, fine product.
4. Once done, get clean small jars and scoop enough quantity to fill each one up.
5. That’s it, your toning herbal soap is ready. You can start using it to experience the magic of evenly-toned, healthy skin.
6. If you also want to put it up for sale, start packaging and get selling. Just be sure that you and your buyers get to exhaust the soap within a few months.

How to make skin glow herbal African Black Soap

If you prefer your herbal soap to have a glowing effect, then you can get that done with just a few ingredients. This recipe, using your already-made Black Soap, would give your facial skin a brighter glow while keeping the extra herbal qualities intact for brighter, healthy skin.

Ingredients:

• 2 packs of black soap
• 3 tablespoons of turmeric
• 1/2 cup of honey
• 4 tablespoons of coconut oil
• 2 tablespoons of rice powder
• 2 tablespoons of oat powder
• 30ml of lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons of sandalwood
• 2 tablespoons of carrot powder

Preparation

1. Crumble the already-made black soap with your hands and pour in a clean mortar.
2. Add all the ingredients one at a time while mixing them gently.
3. Get a pestle and pound everything together to get a well-mixed, fine product.
4. Once done, get clean small jars and scoop enough quantity to fill each one up.
5. Your skin glow herbal soap is ready for you to use and experience the magic of brighter, glowing, healthy skin.
6. If you also want to put it up for sale, start packaging and get selling. Just be sure that you and your buyers get to exhaust the soap within a few months.

If you just want to skip the whole work of making your own African Black Soap and get one that has already been commercially made, you can check out the very popular brand, Dudu-Osun. The Tropical Naturals Dudu-Osun African Black Soap is a cleansing bar soap that is perfect for all skin types, especially oily skin types. It can soak up excess oil and can brighten your skin along the way. Be careful though, it contains lemon and lime juice, and this may not be the best thing to use without sunscreen if you want to protect your skin from UV rays and not give it sunburn.

If you are looking for where to get the original Dudu-Osun, you can send a DM to instagram.com/_facialskincare and make an order for the quantity you need.

 

 

How to use the African Black Soap

Dudu-Osun, and other African Black soaps, can be used as a face and body cleansing soap. For use on the face, you just need to dip the bar into the water and rub it all over your face. Gently massage your fingers all over your face, paying attention to your under-eye area, problem areas and areas that easily break out or release a lot of oil. Leave this for a few minutes after massaging and then rinse off with warm water before patting your face dry.

You can use this daily or three (3) times per week, this would depend on how sensitive or easily irritated your skin can be. The soap can also be used as an effective deep cleanser and exfoliator, but be careful to not irritate your skin by using it too often, or at almost every point of your facial care routine.

Conclusion

In summary, the amazing thing about the African Black Soap is that it is made from natural ingredients that are completely safe for your skin. It is quite easy to make with a few ingredients that can be tweaked to give you the customized product of your choice. This soap is a great and effective deep cleanser, exfoliator and skin nourishment that can remove dead skin, clean off dirt, oil, and makeup, and also help remove an excess of oil that leads to acne.