Made in Senegal

I went to Senegal this past December. The last time I went was about 2 years ago on December 2020. WURUS was born then, after my cousin sent me back to the United States with a container of body butter she had made. Since then, we have expanded outside of body butters and we now sell oils cold-pressed in Senegal, face and hair mask powders and accessories made by local Senegalese artisans.

My intent for going to Senegal this time around was to see, touch and feel every single plant and tree that was the source of the products we sell at WURUS.

The first tree I saw was the Baobab Tree. We currently sell three products from this tree: Baobab Oil, Baobab Leaves Powder and Baobab Fruit Powder

The drive from the airport to my residence in Dakar was filled with Baobab tress alongside the highway. The emblem of Senegal, standing tall, with many branches poking out of its thick trunk. Many of the trees were bare and did not contain fruit because it was not the season. But later on during my trip I was able to see some Baobab Fruit and get some drone footage.

When I went to visit my maternal grandma in Mbacké (about 2 hours from Dakar), I saw kilometers and kilometers of Soump (Desert Date) trees. Mbacké and Touba are known for having a lot of soump trees because of its more arid environment. We stopped and picked some soump fruit from the trees to taste. When the soump fruit gets to the United States it hardens a bit and becomes less sweet. It was an exciting experience to pluck the soump from the tree and taste something sweet and soft. Under the tree, we saw many soump seeds left from local animals who had also enjoyed the fruit. My cousin (and Co-Founder of WURUS) was with me and explained how our elders pick up these seeds from the ground and crack them open. Once cracked open, WURUS gathers these seeds and cold-presses them to produce the Desert Date (Soump) oil we sell on this site.

I know the process for creating all of our WURUS products but this was the first time I was able to see it. What was really fascinating to me, was how our production process did not disrupt the natural environment. We were using seeds that were discarded by animals or fell under the tree to produce our oil.

I was also able to see neem trees, which are possibly even more ubiquitous in Mbacké than soump trees. When my cousin and I told our grandma, aunts and uncles about the neem oil we sell at WURUS they were able to share with us more traditional knowledge about the tree. Neem was the pharmacy. Many infections and ailments were treated using neem leaves. So they understood how our neem oil can be an acne treatment for some today.

I saw many more flora and fauna, some of which inspired us to create even more WURUS products to share with you all today.

This trip confirmed for me that WURUS is in fact a MADE IN SENEGAL brand and we will not compromise this for nothing.

Follow us on Instagram at wurus_ for more images and videos from my Senegal trip.