African Black Soap

[kerianne]

Hi everybody!

I have a question about making black soap, I did some research online and from what I gather it seems that they use the ash from the smoked plantain skins to create the saponification reaction.

I'm wondering if I could just make the soap with lye and then add the smoked skins at trace or if that would create an adverse reaction?

Thanks!

 

[Fragola]

They don't add plantain skins to soap, but rather they obtain lye from plantain ash.

You are aiming for something different. Probably it could go two ways:
- smoke them a little, chop them to smallish pieces and add them like a sort of scrub
- burn them completely and add them as "activated charcoal"

If you would ash them completely, that could possibly raise the pH of your soap and result in a harsher bar.

 

[kerianne]

Ah ha. I gathered that they used it to get the lye, but couldn't figure out how to include it while using lye beads.

I think the activated charcoal method might be a good way to go.

Thanks!