/Skin/ Shea Moisture African Black Soap w/ Shea Butter

this product was purchased by me.
For the most part, I like to go for the all-natural, organic, straight- from-nature approach with the products I use and eat. Ever since I my freshman year and college and after taking that one traumatizing environmental science class, I've been more cautious and have exercised close scrutiny on labels. This is the second time I've bought this soap; when I first got it I only used it on my body. I was more adventurous with it this time and decided to use the soap to wash my face.


It seems to be free of anything particularly harmful in a chemical sense. I really like that this is cruelty-free. In case you couldn't see from the previous picture the ingredients for the soap are African black soap base, African shea butter*, oats, aloe, plantain extract, vitamin e, essential oil blend, vegetable glycerin, plam ash, rosemary extract, and iron oxides (*certified organic ingredient).


From the descriptions of the packaging, African black soap sounds exactly like something I need. The skin on my face is acnes-prone, sensitive, and constantly subjected to dry spots in odd areas so I was eager to try the soap as a magical panacea on my face.
When I first started using this in mid may, the skin along my jaw and chin was in a terrible state. It was itchy, dry, and there were blemishes erupting here and there. After lathering up the soap and applying it to my face, I was relieved to discover that it didn’t sting the sensitive areas of my face (ie: jaw). The soap smells pleasant to me, very much like jellybeans, but not in a synthetically sweet way. I used it for a month and a half as my morning cleanser. I stopped because the soap turned out to be too drying and wasn’t doing too much to clear my skin. The dry, flaky, itchy skin got itchier, too, oddly. As I still have a whole bar left, I occasionally use it on my face and it has become the soap I use for my body. When I bought this two years ago for my body it worked fairly well, though not well enough for some of my severe areas of eczema/itchiness. The soap has a tendency to leave a dark marks on wash cloths and around the tub, though these wash out easily (I think this is comes from the ash in the formula).

I would buy this soap again because it's such a great multitasker (face, body, apparently hair too) and it's a very good value at about $5 for 8 oz/230g. It's bound to last you months, even if you use it daily. I've also found out, after searching on the web, what this works nice as a shaving soap. It's not the best, but it can work fine in a pinch (it's travel friendly as well!).

bright young person loves it

this much.