Shea Moisture African Black Soap

If you have been living under a beauty rock, let me tell you about the Shea Moisture African Black Soap. This bar of jet black soap has suddenly come into popularity for its ability to cleanse, hydrate and calm problem skin. This bar has suddenly become splashed all over social media as the savior for those of us with skin that is oily or problematic. So, of course, you know I had to get my hands on this soap and try it out for myself!

The Shea Moisture African Black Soap retails for $5.99 USD at Ulta, available both in store and online. The product is packaged like most bar soaps, wrapped tightly in a plastic wrap which is easy enough to remove. Once you open the wrapper, not going to skirt around this, there is a strong fruity smell that will hit you. The smell isn’t horrible, but it is a very strong candy like smell. The smell reminds me a lot of banana flavored Runts. It is very strange washing your face and smelling bananas the entire time. One of the ingredients in the soap is plantain extract, so it does make sense that there could be a smell from that, but this is intense. Ok, I digress…

The soap is easy enough to use, wet the soap directly or using your hand and apply to a wet face. I prefer to wet my hand, wet the soap in the soap dish with my hand and then apply the soap that way. The bar is rather large and it awkward to maneuver around the contours of the face, which is why I prefer to not use the bar directly on the face.

The formula of the soap is nice. The feeling on the skin is smooth, not waxy like most bar soaps can be. It does suds up on the face when washing, not like a mini-bubble bath on your face but enough that it satisfies the “sudsy soap” feeling we expect when using soap. The soap rinses clean from the face, leaving no residue behind.

From my experience using the Shea Moisture African Black Soap, here are the pro’s and con’s to it.

Pro’s:

- The product feel is one of the nicer I have used for a bar soap.

- This product will 100% clean your skin. If you are looking for a squeaky clean feeling, this soap will do that for you. (Literally, if you run your fingers over your face, your skin will make a squeaking sound!)

- The soap removes all dirt and excess oils from the skin.

Con’s:

- The soap smells so strongly of bananas, it can be off putting for some.

- The soap removes all excess oils from the skin, and can be overly drying for some.

- The instructions for the soap are confusing! On the multiple websites it instructs you to use the soap daily, but on the packaging it says to use two to three times weekly, as the soap can be overly drying. So, uh, which one is it?

In the end, I do like this soap. I like how it really cleanses my skin and leaves it completely clean and free of all dirt and oil  Having used this for about two weeks now, I do notice that my hormonal acne has calmed down slightly. The more oily parts of my face seem to be less oily, and the drier parts of my face do not seem to have gotten any drier, thanks to the African shea butter which is a large portion of the all natural ingredients used to create this soap.  

Unfortunately, I do not foresee this soap taking up a permanently residency in my skincare collection, simply for the fact of how strange it is for me to store it. The reason I say that is, with four little kids running around, having a soap dish on my vanity or bathroom counter to store this is asking for trouble.

Have you tried the Shea Moisture African Black Soap? What do you think of it? Have you not used it and would like to try it?

XOXO