Rhassoul Clay
Part of our Ingredient Glossary — educational information about raw materials we may use in our products. We don't sell raw ingredients.
This entry is part of our Em'z Blendz Ingredient Glossary. We use rhassoul clay in our handcrafted soaps; we don't sell it raw.
Different clays do different jobs. Bentonite pulls deep, kaolin softens, French green exfoliates. Rhassoul, the Moroccan one, sits in its own lane. It cleanses without the tight, dry feeling that some clays leave behind, and it deposits a little something back. Magnesium, silica, potassium. The minerals it picked up from the Atlas Mountains where it formed.
People in Morocco have been using rhassoul in hammam bathing rituals for centuries, mostly mixed with rose water or hydrosols into a soft paste for skin and hair. We use it differently. We work it directly into our cold-process soap base where it gives the bar a silky, slightly slippery feel from the first wash. The first place you'll see it is in our Rogue Valley Garden Soap Bar, where it's doing the textural work behind the basil and calendula.
If you've used our Detox & Clarifying Fresh Facial Mask or our Gardenia Rose & Clay Soap Bar, you've felt what kaolin and bentonite can do. Rhassoul is the gentler cousin to those, the one that's tolerated by skin that other clays can sometimes argue with. It absorbs oil but it doesn't strip. It pulls impurities but it doesn't tighten.
We source rhassoul through suppliers who buy directly from cooperatives in the Atlas Mountains region. It's mined, sun-dried, and ground; nothing else done to it. Like everything we put in our bars, the value is in keeping it close to its raw form.
