Ash, shea, and six generations

The shea tree does not respond well to being hurried. It takes fifteen years to bear fruit and closer to thirty to bear well, which means the trees standing in the north today were planted by people who knew they would not be the ones to harvest from them. That single fact shapes everything about how the work is done.

The method

Nuts are gathered at first light, before the heat, then boiled, dried and cracked by hand. The kernels are roasted over a low fire until the oils begin to move, ground to a paste, and kneaded with water until the butter separates and rises. The women who do this can read the exact moment of separation by the sound and the weight of the paste against the palm. No instrument in our workshop measures it better.

The result is unrefined butter, ivory to pale gold, carrying the faint nutty scent that refining removes along with much of the vitamin content. We take it as it is. Nothing is bleached and nothing is deodorised.

The trees standing today were planted by people who knew they would never harvest from them.

Ash, the other half

The cleansing base comes from cocoa pod husks and plantain skins, sun dried and then burned slowly to a fine ash. The ash is filtered through water to draw out the cleansing salts. It is an old chemistry, worked out through generations of observation, and it produces a cleanser that lifts oil without the harsh surfactants that leave skin tight.

Why we buy this way

We buy directly from the cooperatives, at prices agreed before the season rather than after it, so the women who do the pressing are not exposed to the swing of the market. It costs us more per kilogram than the commodity route. It is also the only version of this business we are interested in running.

When you hold a bar of the heritage soap, you are holding the end of a long chain of decisions made by people you will never meet. We think it is worth saying so.