Black soap

Black soap

Black soap is a pure marvel. The first time I heard about it was as a component of tadelakt (a superb natural waterproof, anti-mold/fungal coating from Morocco made from lime, marble powder and black soap; it can be used as a finish for just about any surface - sink, shower, walls - and you only wash it once a year... no joke. I chose it as a finish for my shower and I can attest to that).
The second time was while reading Dominique Loreau: free yourself from the thousand cleaning products you use and convert to black soap. The Art of Simplicity. Moreover, when you read the prescribed uses on the bottle of Marius Fabre black soap (a French company that has been producing liquid black soap made from olive oil since 1900), you can almost be skeptical: from the inside of the house to your clothes, including your brushes and your pets' fur, you can wash everything with black soap. It's written on the bottle... And it's true! In concentrate as a stain remover it's great (especially for grease stains), diluted (2 tsp in 5 liters of boiled water) as an all-purpose cleaner, directly in the washing machine for clothes, it's practically the only soap you need for the whole house. We happily get used to this absence of "clean smell" when we do housework. And believe me, I don't get any sales discounts, I'm simply converted and convinced.

And once you're really hooked like me, you'll probably go for solid black soap, West African black soap that you buy in blocks, in bulk, from the local African (on the corner of St-Laurent and Duluth in fact, but the store, on the east side of Saint-Laurent, with the multicolored facade... unfortunately doesn't have a name. Sorry). For traveling, it's incomparable: one bar and that's it for all the hand laundry during your trip and all the surprise cleanings. It foams much more than the M. Fabre liquid version and is frankly more economical too (although M. Fabre is also available in a 5-liter format - notably at the Coop de la maison verte on Sherbrooke west -, and even in a one-liter format, it remains economical compared to all the biodegradable eco-friendly soaps). With a one-liter bottle of M. Fabre we last several months, 3 to 6 months and there are 5 of us at home. To give you an idea. Of course, over time we also use soap nuts for laundry, but it's still a super eco-friendly, economical, and easy-to-manage solution rather than having to stock up on a variety of products. Many people praise the cosmetic benefits of black soap - this is what you'll find most on the internet as information on black soap, by the way - but personally I haven't used it for my body or hair to date. And when I do, I'll tell you more about it. But for now, give it a try and let yourself be won over by the simplicity of this unique product. Happy cleaning!