Product Description

Alaffia’s Authentic African Black Soap is likened to the home remedies of Togolese mamans. It’s made from a centuries-old ​recipe of handcrafted fair trade and certified organic unrefined, "raw" shea butter and Orangutan-safe West African ​palm oil†, and enhanced with calming lavender oil. Saponification is reached by adding potash (made from plantains and leaves) to the hot oils, ​and then cooking it for six hours. The last step is curing the soap in the sun ​for three weeks, resulting in a gentle and effective cleanser that clarifies and softens skin. Suitable for any skin type, even the most sensitive. Sulfate-free.

† Our natural West African palm oil is grown and harvested by small-scale farmers in the Maritime region of Togo, from the town of Tsevie to Kpalime. The oil is extracted by our Fair Trade cooperative in Sokodé using traditional methods. When palm oil is grown as an industrial plantation crop, such as in Indonesia and Malaysia on newly cleared rain forests or peat-swamp forests rather than on already degraded land or disused agricultural land, it can contribute to the endangerment of animals such as the Orangutans. However, this is not the case with the small farms that we receive our palm oil from in Africa. Oil palms are native to West Africa and have been grown as part of multi-cropped sustainable small farms for centuries. Furthermore, it is important to point out that Orangutans do not exist at all in Africa.