A small gift set in a cardboard box: a cream-white unicorn® soap box, a 25 g bar of Dudu-Osun® Classic African black soap, and a small natural sponge. 9 x 12 x 3 cm.
The soap box is the part that matters
This sounds like the accessory and it is actually the useful bit. What determines how long a bar of soap lasts is whether it dries between uses — a bar sitting in its own water dissolves several times faster than one that drains. A good soap box is worth more to you than a good soap.
The unicorn® boxes are made from liquid wood, which is worth knowing about: it is a thermoplastic made from lignin, the polymer that makes trees rigid and which is left over in enormous quantities as a by-product of paper manufacture. Mixed with natural fibres and wax, it can be injection-moulded like plastic and is biodegradable. Most lignin from papermaking is simply burned for energy; turning it into a durable object instead is one of the more elegant ideas in bioplastics.
The soap
A 25 g travel bar of Dudu-Osun® Classic — the Nigerian black soap made in Lagos by Tropical Naturals, and the best-known African black soap there is. Its colour comes from ash: cocoa pods and plantain skins burned to potash, which is the traditional alkali the soap is made with. Nothing is added to darken it, which is why the shade varies between bars.
Two things worth knowing before giving it to someone. It contains honey, so it is not vegan. And it contains fragrance, which is a declared ingredient — so it is not the right gift for someone whose skin reacts to scented products.
It also contains shea butter, a tree-nut derivative.
The sponge
A natural sponge is an animal — or rather, was: the fibrous skeleton of a marine sponge, harvested by divers. It holds far more water than a synthetic one, feels much softer when wet, and does not shed microplastics.
It is also not vegan, which is worth saying alongside the honey.
Natural sponges last a long time if they are rinsed properly and dried out between uses, and rot quickly if they are left wet in a corner of the bath.