A customer came back into the store a few weeks after buying black soap and told me it “ruined” her skin.
I asked her three questions. How long are you leaving it on? Are you using hot water? What are you putting on afterward?
Long. Yes. Nothing.
The soap was fine. We fixed it in about four minutes of conversation, and she has been using the same bar happily ever since.
This happens constantly, and it is why I wanted to write this one. African black soap is one of the products we have sold longest on Fulton Street, and the dryness complaint is almost always a technique problem rather than a product problem.
Why It Happens
African black soap is a true soap. It is made by saponifying oils — palm kernel, coconut, shea — with ash from cocoa pods and plantain skins.
Ash is alkaline. So the soap is alkaline. Traditional black soap generally sits somewhere around pH 9 to 10.
Your skin is not. Healthy skin sits closer to pH 5, held there by a thin acidic film sometimes called the acid mantle, which is part of how the skin barrier does its job.
When you wash with anything alkaline, you temporarily raise the skin’s pH and strip some surface oils. Skin is good at putting that back — but how good depends on your skin, your age, the season, and above all how long the soap sat there.
That squeaky-clean feeling is not cleanliness. It is the sound of a barrier that has been stripped further than it wanted.
None of this makes black soap a bad product. This is how real soap works, and it is the same reason a bar of traditional castile soap will do it too. It just means black soap rewards good technique and punishes careless technique.
The Six Adjustments
Here is what I actually tell people. Most only need two or three of these.
1. Cut the contact time
This is the big one, and the one almost nobody thinks of.
Black soap does not need to sit on your skin. Twenty to thirty seconds is enough to clean. What people do instead is lather up, scrub, keep scrubbing, get distracted, and leave it on for two or three minutes.
Alkaline soap sitting on skin for three minutes does something quite different from alkaline soap on skin for twenty seconds.
Lather, wash, rinse. Move on.
2. Dilute it, especially for your face
Do not rub the raw bar on your face.
Break off a small piece, dissolve it in water in a bottle or jar, and use that liquid instead. You get a gentler, more even wash, and you stop dragging an uneven, gritty bar across facial skin.
Some of our customers keep a small squeeze bottle of diluted black soap in the shower and have never gone back to the bar for the face.
3. Lukewarm water, not hot
Hot water strips oils on its own, before the soap has done anything. Hot water plus alkaline soap is the combination that produces the worst version of this.
Lukewarm. Your skin will notice.
4. Moisturize while you are still damp
This is the step the customer above was missing entirely, and it is the highest-return fix on the list.
Within a minute or two of getting out, on skin that is still slightly damp, put something on. Shea butter, cocoa butter, an oil, whatever you like the feel of. You are sealing water in while it is there, not trying to add it back later.
Wash, pat dry, moisturize. If you wait until you are fully dry and dressed, you have missed the window.
5. Use it less often
Every day on the body is fine for most people. Every day on the face is more than a lot of skin wants, especially between November and March.
If your skin feels tight afterward, drop to every other day before you change anything else.
6. Choose the right version for your skin
Not all black soap is the same, and this is the part people do not realize they have a choice about.
Traditional raw black soap is the most authentic and the most stripping. It suits oilier skin and bodies better than dry skin and faces.
Shea butter enriched bars have added butter that offsets a good deal of the tightness. If raw black soap has been too much for you, this is usually the answer, and it is what I hand most people who come back with the dryness complaint.
Aloe vera versions are gentler again and tend to suit reactive skin.
Liquid black soap is already diluted and is the easiest to control.
We carry all of these because people are not the same, and the person who does beautifully with the raw bar is often not the person standing in front of me.
The Tingling Question
I get asked this a lot, so let me be clear about it.
A faint tingle can happen and usually means nothing.
Stinging, burning, redness that lasts, or skin that feels hot afterward is irritation. That is not the soap working. That is the soap being too much for your skin in that form.
Rinse it off. Next time, dilute it, shorten the contact, and follow with a butter. If it stings again, stop using it and come talk to me — there is a gentler version and there is no prize for pushing through.
About the Grit
Traditional black soap is uneven. It is gritty in places, soft in others, and no two bars are quite alike. That is what handmade with plant ash produces, and it is one of the ways you can tell you have the real thing rather than a black-dyed bar off a factory line.
But grit rubbed hard against your face is abrasion, and abrasion on top of an alkaline cleanser is asking a lot of your skin in one go.
Which brings you back to the same answer: dissolve it for the face, use the bar on the body.
One Thing I Will Not Tell You
People ask me whether black soap will clear up eczema, or acne, or a rash.
I am not going to answer that, and you should be suspicious of any shop that does. Those are medical conditions and diagnosing or treating them is a doctor’s work, not a shopkeeper’s.
What I can tell you is what black soap is: a traditional cleanser, made from plant ash and oils, that cleans thoroughly and that many people with oilier skin get on with very well. Whether it belongs in your routine given whatever is going on with your skin is a question for someone qualified to answer it.
I would rather send you to a dermatologist and lose the sale than sell you a bar of soap for something it was never meant to do.
Shopping in Brooklyn? Our African black soap page lists the bars we carry, and our raw shea butter and body butter pages cover the butters.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does it dry my skin? It is a true soap made with plant ash, so it is alkaline — around pH 9 to 10, against skin’s pH of about 5. That is normal for real soap and is managed with technique.
Is it supposed to sting? No. A faint tingle is common; real stinging is irritation. Rinse and switch to a gentler form.
How do I stop the dryness? Shorter contact, dilute it, lukewarm water, moisturize while damp, use it less often, and choose a shea-enriched bar.
Can I use it every day? On the body, usually yes. On the face, once a day at most, and every other day for many people.
Should I use it on my face? Dissolve it into a liquid first. Do not rub the raw bar on your face.
Why is it gritty? Because it is authentic. Plant-ash soap is uneven by nature. Dissolve it for facial use.
Where can I buy it in Brooklyn? Nicholas Brooklyn, 1396 Fulton Street.
Come Find Your Version
We carry the traditional 100% natural black soap bar and a Madina black soap with shea butter and aloe vera for anyone who has found the raw bar too much.
If you want the background on what black soap is and where it comes from, I wrote about that here.
And if you are standing in the aisle unsure which one is for you, ask. That is the whole reason to buy this in a store instead of online.
Nicholas Brooklyn, 1396 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY 11216.
This article is for educational purposes only. African black soap is a cosmetic cleansing product intended to cleanse and beautify skin. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any skin condition. If you have a persistent skin concern, please speak with a physician or dermatologist.
— Monique Nicholas, Owner