# make african black soap



## Rigneylane (Feb 11, 2017)

African black soap made with sodium hydroxide


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## shunt2011 (Feb 11, 2017)

Are you asking how to make it?


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## IrishLass (Feb 11, 2017)

Ditto what Shari said (we were posting at the same time, lol). 

IrishLass


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## cherrycoke216 (Feb 11, 2017)

Are you asking for modern African black soap recipe?
Traditional African black soap is using burnt plantain leaf, cocoa pod, coconut shells ( depending on the region ). It may be an idea to start from scratch just add these burnt stuff as additives. So you can incorporate NaOH.


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## Gerry (Feb 11, 2017)

cherrycoke216 said:


> Are you asking for modern African black soap recipe?
> Traditional African black soap is using burnt plantain leaf, cocoa pod, coconut shells ( depending on the region ). It may be an idea to start from scratch just add these burnt stuff as additives. So you can incorporate NaOH.



I've made black soap using coconut AC.  But I wouldn't call it "African Black Soap"... more like "Canadian Black Soap"? 

Edit:  On the AC label, it says the source of the coconut husk/shells is from Philippines.  Can I still call it Canadian Black Soap? Hahaha


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## cherrycoke216 (Feb 12, 2017)

Gerry said:


> I've made black soap using coconut AC.  But I wouldn't call it "African Black Soap"... more like "Canadian Black Soap"?
> 
> Edit:  On the AC label, it says the source of the coconut husk/shells is from Philippines.  Can I still call it Canadian Black Soap? Hahaha




Hahahaha very cute! Food for thought indeed. 
But I guess it's like Castile soap, Aleppo soap, etc. If people around the world using the traditional recipe even traditional method, what are we getting out of the soap pot?!


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## Susie (Feb 12, 2017)

I looked on YouTube for a tutorial, there are several.  Here is the first:

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QUOD1baLqY[/ame]

I have never made it or researched it, so I can't say whether it is right or not.


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## cherrycoke216 (Feb 12, 2017)

Susie said:


> I looked on YouTube for a tutorial, there are several.  Here is the first:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QUOD1baLqY
> 
> I have never made it or researched it, so I can't say whether it is right or not.




Very simple and easy to follow video. But have to buy the African soap powder. This one pops out right after I saw your vid. 
https://youtu.be/E8GlJ_TvvQw

I have stuffy nose and cough so much my rib hurts. So I sit up and saw this one through. Nigerian channel. Though most of the time they are taking native language, but the colorful dressed man did a great job using English to explain their traditional way. 

They hot process the soap, using pestle to beat the soap batter/ dough, ( is it gonna change soap molecule structure faster, like we stickblender it? ) add some suspicious white powder ( around 20:00 ), back in the hot process pot.
It's late, so I only remember plantain leaves... Might be other things are also included ( they write a simple explanation in Description box .
Very cool. 10 minutes in, there's some background music sounds like Europe indie band or any country's experimental band, very calming and cool.
The man do say they bath new born baby in it. Very mild. Stuff sounds like snake oil. But so is first world cosmetic claims. But his skin is glowing. And that's very convincing. Actually I saw a soap company's video first, ( it once has been mentioned here something like ess*****l depot's cousin ). She spent like an hour burning stuff she's not quite sure. Tamarind pod and fig leaves. ( people mentioned in reply section ) I skimmed and fast forward.
I understand the Nigerian Mr.'s accent better. Probably because he speaks slower, haha!

I feel I'm stealing their ancient wisdom. And it is so wonderful they are using YouTube to make them heard. And black people ROCKS every color costume. Seriously. I wish I can buy directly from them. It's a pity there's no website or link. So I can compare if I'm going to whip up a batch. 

Every year L'Occitane sells fair trade Shea butter. I do hope the word is not invented for first world to feel better about the product, the mental effect, the buying action itself. I wish they got paid better. I just found a supplier here in my country has West African Shea butter directly imported. Though there's oil company, but I think it's less exploitive than international company buying from raw material company.

Ok, I'm talking too much like I'm having a fever. Gotta sleep now.


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## TBandCW (Feb 12, 2017)

I bought the powder to make black African soap (from sheaterra on amazon) and then did some more research.  Cart before the horse as they say.  When I saw how little it was selling for I decided it wouldn't fit into my sales.


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## Susie (Feb 12, 2017)

I looked into making it, and had the same response when I saw little/no interest locally.  They sell the stuff at Walmart, you see.


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## cmzaha (Feb 12, 2017)

I am a purest about some things and ABS is one of them. It is not ABS if it is made here no matter how you make it. I do sell it but it comes in from Ghana from a friend that imports it. Of course I know I have mentioned it before, I just believe we should buy the real ABS and help support the women of the tribes that know how to make it. This is might sound odd when I will not send my soap scraps to Clean the World, but donate them where I live.


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## Hbsmith121 (May 19, 2017)

*How to make it*

I would like to use ABS in my soap. So I woudl like to know how to do it. I thought I would buy ABS, crumble it up and add it to a batch. My questions are, first, is this possible?
 and second what oils woudl be good to use in the base soap recipe? I have heard that ABS contains a high amount of shea butter so that may not be a good oil to use. Thanks.


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## WeaversPort (May 19, 2017)

Hbsmith121 said:


> I would like to use ABS in my soap. So I woudl like to know how to do it. I thought I would buy ABS, crumble it up and add it to a batch. My questions are, first, is this possible?
> and second what oils woudl be good to use in the base soap recipe? I have heard that ABS contains a high amount of shea butter so that may not be a good oil to use. Thanks.



There would be a couple of ways to do that. One, you could shred or crumble it into a soap just the way you would with a confetti soap or embed. 

If you want it more blended in, you could also do a part rebatch, part new soap hot process mix. You would either add the shreds to the mix of oils you want for the new soap, melt it down together over heat and blend it up with the stick blender, add lye water, blend with stick blender, pour into molds.. (or finish it as a hot process). 

Or rebatch the normal way with other soaps you like. 

As to what recipe, I guess it would depend on what kind of soap you like and what you're starting with. I saw one ABS seller selling soap with a high coconut, which they stated "could be drying." 

But in other cases it seems to be the potash mixture, with coconut, and shea. And some of them  add palm to the mix instead. 

Oils like castor, avocado, sweet almond, olive oil, cocoa butter might be a nice addition to the soap.


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## cmzaha (May 19, 2017)

ABS soap varies from trlbe to tribe since they are handed down recipes. You will never know what is in true tribal made ABB. Also be very careful as there can be husk pieces and plant material in the soap. In my opinion most if not all of us make better soap. I do keep a lot around to sell because I have a few customers that will not use anything else. I get mine from a vendor friend that imports it from the same tribe so mine is fairly consistant


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## Zany_in_CO (May 25, 2017)

Hbsmith121 said:


> I would like to use ABS in my soap. So I woudl like to know how to do it. I thought I would buy ABS, crumble it up and add it to a batch. My questions are, first, is this possible?


Yes. See WeaversPort's comments above.


> ...and second what oils woudl be good to use in the base soap recipe? I have heard that ABS contains a high amount of shea butter so that may not be a good oil to use. Thanks.


Elements Bath & Body has a VERY nice recipe for ABS using Smooth  Coconut Carbon Powder. Here's a link:

https://www.elementsbathandbody.com/Coconut-Carbon-Powder-Smooth.html


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## Hbsmith121 (Jun 10, 2017)

thank you all for your help! I did add some ABS to a recipe I had, but now I want to also get the charcoal and play with that in my soap. Thanks for all the support!


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