Raw African Black Soap, 100% All Natural by Raw Apothecary- Fair Trade Certified, Cruelty Free, Organic and Unrefined (1 Pound)

What a pleasant surprise. I've struggle with acne my entire life and now that I'm 24 I've really wanted to be rid of it! I've tried dermatologists, expensive facial cleansers, acne treatments, oral antibiotics, the works. Nothing seemed to help. I read up on this soap and the benefits it has and decided I needed to try it.Packaging was simple. Wrapped in Saran Wrap and then I'm a plastic bag. I'm going to keep my eye out for a more permanent container for easier storage.The size is large! And I swear it will last me years. I cut off a good size piece for my sister to try and I still have loads left.The smell isn't too bad. I was sick of using perfumed face washes so this nice "organic" scent was a refreshing change. I don't mind it at all.Because I'm only using on my face at this time I've just been cutting the smallest amount off with a pair of scissors (the soap is pretty soft). I would say the size of a penny. I then lather over my Clarisonic spin brush and wash my face as normal. After washing I wipe off excess with a wet wash rag and pat dry.I have found that it does feel like your face is burning a little. Nothing painful it goes away within 20 minutes or so.I would definitely only use this once a day. I can see this overdrying my face if I used it morning and night. Currently I'm only using at night.I'm already seeing a DRASTIC difference in my skin. My acne has subsided, redness is almost gone and it's smooth!I'd highly recommend to anyone suffering from hormonal or adult acne. I've been using this for 2 weeks no every night and it's doing wonders. Will update review in a few months.

I've never really used an African Black Soap before, but I'm blown away by this product.Raw Apothecary is not the cheapest seller of black soap by far (a quick Amazon search indicates this product is about $5 more than some other sellers) but I absolutely love what I've bought from them. Everything I have gotten from them is extremely high quality and lasted seemingly forever. This soap is no different.This soap has dramatically improved my complexion and the overall health of my skin. I rarely have issues with acne, but I have keratosis pilaris badly on my arms and legs and blackheads on my face, as well as roughness/pigmentation on my face. My skin is combination on my face (mostly dry though) and the rest of my skin is very dry. In addition to that, I am allergic to many fragrances and additives. As such, it's a challenge to find anything that works well to try and improve the issues that I do have that doesn't make one of the other conditions worse. This soap has actually improved all of the conditions noticeably. I wanted to give myself several weeks to really see how I liked it, especially because it's not something I use every single day, but the difference was very dramatic.I love this soap, especially that it's Fair Trade and Cruelty Free. It's worth a few extra dollars to me to get a high-quality, long-lasting product that is made in Ghana and pays people fairly and isn't tested on animals. In addition, you can see even when opening it that it's extremely good quality (some of the cheap ones on Amazon are off-color and look cheap), and I've found that it holds up well even in the shower (a lot of places caution you not to use black soap in the shower because many of them hold up so poorly to large amounts of water) I won't need another pound for a while, but when I do, I know where I'm buying it from.

I'm personally not wild about the scent (reminds me of a faintly mild smoky-play dough smell, it doesn't stick around on your skin though) but regardless of that, it is an exceptional product. I lather up my scrub and add a drop of Shea moisture body wash for fragrance. I've always used expensive face cleansers and will never go back to my 20-30$ bottles of face wash after trying this, my face feels way softer, cleaner and I love that it isn't filled with tons of chemicals. I generally have a lot of break outs while pregnant and haven't had any since using this stuff. I also love how smooth it makes the skin on my body feel. My husband uses it head to toe and has replaced his shampoo, face & body wash with this product & we also enjoy using it on my toddler (body only at this time bc I don't want to risk getting it in his eyes) & I look forward to using it on my newborn when he arrives in a few months. If I had any constructive criticism to offer the makers of this product it would be to add some cocoa butter, essential oils or other natural fragrance to give it a better smell, but it is not a deal breaker for me. Love & highly recommend!

When I unwrapped the soap I found a large spot of colorful mold (about the size of a quarter). The soap was very damp and sticky as if it had not been dried properly before being wrapped in plastic wrap. I should have returned the soap, but my son had already started cutting it up into smaller pieces. So I decided to cut off the mold and continue to cut it into smaller chunks. I put the pieces out to dry on my counter for a week hoping that I wouldn't see any more mold growth.The soap is now hard and not sticky at all. I didn't find any additional mold growth so I feel OK with using this soap. It is a gorgeous dark mahogany color.We purchased this for my son who is in the beginning stages of acne. His skin looks better after a few weeks of using the soap and so far it hasn't dried out his skin. He is not using any other products right now, but he has eliminated most sugar/grains/gluten out of his diet. But he had done that before using the soap and we feel the soap has been an additional help to his skin.I tried using it on my face and my mature skin loves it! It even removes skin and eye makeup. It has plenty of bubbles and doesn't sting our eyes. I make sure to let it dry between uses and one small piece is going to last some time. So this pound of soap should last us for 6 months to a year if we use it only on our face.