African Black Soap

A friend of mine recommended I try African Black Soap.
I mentioned to her a while ago that I was going to try quitting salicylic acid because I thought it might be causing my acne to flair up.  You would not believe how many facial products are laced with that stuff!

After a visit to a dermatologist resulted in a long lasting case of thrush, I decided to do what I could do to fix the problem the natural way.

I quit using my moisturizer and switched to Coconut Oil about a month ago.  I also use the coconut oil in my kitchen, which is kind of unique.  It's remarkably delicious on eggplant.  I have been using a few liquid face soaps from Whole Foods for about a month or two.  They are good, but a little drying. 

Let's talk about African Black soap.  Here is a picture of the one I am trying:

I just so happened to stumble on this the day my friend mentioned the soap to me, so I went ahead and picked up the bar.  It was only a couple bucks, which is a plus.  The only downside of this bar is that its not actually made in Africa.  It's made in Lacey, WA.  lame.

I am actually kind of disappointed that its not from Africa.  I guess thats why it wasn't super expensive.
When you open it up, it looks like a piece of cake.  A really hard, waxy piece of cake.

I tried this soap for the first time on Monday.  I was really surprised by how well it got into a lather.  The other nice surprise was that I didn't feel like I needed to coat my face in moisturizer afterwards.  A lot of face soaps dry my skin out.  This was really nice because the oil was all built in.  I didn't end up using coconut oil on my face at all. 

Will give it a try for a while and see what happens.  After a few uses, I think I could still use an added moisturizer after the soap.  We'll see how the skin fares in about a month.

Here is a nice link if you want to read up about the benefits of African Black Soap.