Alaffia

Welcome to Alaffia

If you have ever wished your personal care routine could feel good on your skin and do good in the world at the same time, Alaffia is the brand you have been looking for. Founded in 2003 and rooted in West African tradition, Alaffia handcrafts award-winning skin, body, and hair care products using fair trade ingredients sourced directly from women-led cooperatives in Togo, West Africa. Every bottle of shampoo, every bar of African Black Soap, and every jar of shea butter carries a story of real people, real families, and a real mission to build a more equitable world.

What makes Alaffia stand apart is the depth of care behind every product. These are not generic formulas slapped with a feel-good label. Alaffia works directly with shea and coconut cooperatives in West Africa, paying trade partners 15 to 25 percent above market price for ingredients, ensuring the women who harvest and process these materials earn a living wage. When you buy from Alaffia, you are not just getting luxuriously effective skin and hair care products at a genuinely great value. You are funding education projects, maternal health programs, and environmental sustainability initiatives that are actively changing lives in Togo. That is beauty, equality, and empowerment in action.

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About Us

A Friendship That Became a Movement

The story of Alaffia grew out of West African soil. In 1996, a young man from Togo, West Africa, met a young woman from rural Washington State. Inspired by a shared calling to do right by the world, they founded Alaffia as a social enterprise in 2003. From the beginning, their mission was clear: to redefine the natural products industry through the values of Beauty, Equality, and Empowerment, grounded in fair trade and safe, effective hair, face, and body care.

The very name Alaffia (pronounced ah-la-fee-uh) is a common greeting and farewell originating from central Togo, Benin, and Nigeria. It means a state of peace, health, and well-being. That meaning is woven into every product the company makes.

Milestones That Tell the Story

2003 — Alaffia establishes its first Shea Butter Cooperative in West Africa, laying the foundation for its fair trade supply chain.

2004 — The company officially establishes itself in Olympia, Washington, and launches its Maternal Care Project and Education Project in Togo.

2006 — Alaffia launches its Environmental Sustainability initiative, along with its Bicycles for Education and Eyeglasses programs.

2008 — Alaffia earns its first For Life certification, a globally recognized fair trade standard by ECOCERT.

2011 — The first school built through Alaffia's Education Project opens in Kouloumi, Togo.

2012 — A new Coconut Cooperative is established, bringing 130 more women into the cooperative family.

2015 — Alaffia launches the Queen Alaffia line to economically empower women who had previously been victims of the sex trade.

2017 — The Djapak Cooperative is established, and two more schools are built in Nadagou and Tamangue.

2018 — Alaffia products become available in more than 2,500 retail stores nationwide. The company receives the Award for Corporate Excellence from the U.S. State Department for Women's Economic Empowerment.

Certified and Committed

Alaffia holds For Life certification by ECOCERT, one of the first and most respected international fair trade inspection and certification agencies in the world. Their products containing shea, African Black Soap, white soap, or coconut are made with fairly traded ingredients, ensuring cooperatives in economically disadvantaged communities receive a greater share of the price consumers pay. Alaffia is also a certified Minority Business Enterprise (MBE), recognized as a minority-owned, managed, and controlled business.