Getting Squeaky Clean With Lit Farm’s Black Soap

Among being a lover of big buds and freak for fruity strains I’m above all an utter whooore for hype strains.

I hail from a time and a place where nobody had the remotest idea what the fuck the actual name of the strain it was they were smoking and we still managed to have a blast.

So to be able to see names like “Permanent Marker“, “The Soap”, or “Black Soap” for example rise out of obscurity to become viral within the international stoner community like they often do is just plain exciting. 

It’s analogous to car watching. Do I see myself driving a Cutless on 22”s anytime soon? Not really. Do I want to have the experience of rolling around in one some time in the future? Hells yeah.

People often think of big corporate brands like Cookies when they think hype, and this isn’t unwarranted as Berner has done a lot to commoditize and really build the upper end of the commercial cannabis market.

But hype is not really about the brands so much as it is the consumers, since it is the consumers and patients voting with their dollars and YouTube reviews that ultimately dictate what is “hot” and what is “not”.

So that begs the question, is Black Soap Even a Hype Strain?

Well, just because you haven’t heard of it doesn’t mean it isn’t hype. Hell, just looking into the CA market from up here in Oregon there are things happening that regularly wow me and of which I also know nothing about.

Cannabis is still a very regional game, with different farms dominating different states, each offering their own prized genetics to duke it out locally before occasionally breaking through and going global in their popularity [cough] Runtz [cough].

I contend though that Black Soap is at least a hype strain candidate if not the real deal because it checks many of the boxes that hype strains, aka “super popular flower” (idk why that’s considered such a bad thing outside of craft cannabis fans just being curmudgeonly anti-conformist when it comes to their shopping habits).

First of all, Black Soap has got undeniably rad bag appeal. Second, this flower was grown by Evan’s Creek Farms, who pretty much only sell fuego. Third it has well respected parent genetics in the double mints behind The Soap parent (itself a Cookies Fam/Seed Junky Minntz collaboration strain) and then the timeless classics behind the Permanent Marker parent strain in Biscotti and a Jealously/Sherb bx.  

This Permanent Marker parent is probably the biggest hype strain existing 2023 and still chugging along hard in 2024 as well. It made my “Top 5 Strains” lists in multiple states across the country and was also not-so-coincidentally voted Leafly’s official Strain of 2023.

So now that I’ve hopefully got your attention and whet your appetite a bit lets dig into the meat and potatoes of this review of Black Soap, bred by Lit Farms, cultivated by Evan’s Creek of Oregon and purchased at Oregrown PDX. 

Appearance: Showcase Grade Bag Appeal

Let me be blunt with you, this is some downright gorgeous flower. If you like your purps dark then this is about as dark as they come. I think the only similarly dark purple weed I’ve smoked was the first big drop of Oregon Breeders Group’s Sirius Black, but I think Black Soap is even blacker.

It’s dark, with just the faintest of purple peaking through kind of some super dark velvet curtains hung in a candlelit stone castle. It’s hard to tell if they are indeed purple or black. Breaking the sticky bastards up in your fingers though confirm your sneaking suspicions that this is indeed some of the urplest purple out there.

All of these attributes make it a supremely desirable strain for a wide variety of applications, including but not limited to: 

Want to flex on your inner stoner circle? Black Soap.

Want to bring something brooding and medieval to your D&D game night? Black Soap.

Planning a lazy Sunday afternoon Batman or What We Do In The Shadows binge? Black Soap.

Going to a black suit/black dress event and plan to dip out to blaze and share? Black Soap. 

Want to smoke a bunch of it and then blog about it like a huge fucking dork? Black Soap. 

In terms of structure the buds are nice spear points, densely packed and covered inside and out with trichomes that glisten against the deep dark purple hues dominating this flower. The effect under the right lighting is flower that sparkles something similar to distant stars against the black backdrop of space. 

Breaking this flower apart leaves your fingers sticky as it should and reveals even brighter pops of purple interspersed with the occasional smudge of deep olive greens. 

Nug sizes vary but they’re all dense little bastards, not requiring much to fill up my preferred pins. 

It’s obvious Evan’s Creek Farms knows what they’re doing as there are zero faulty points to nitpick with this flower. The perfect curing, the ruthless trichome coverage, and the world-class colors make this a solid 10/10 in bag appeal. 

Having immediately drawn my eyes on the dispensary shelf due to it’s unique sinisterly dark appearance the next test was the sniff test, which was actually surprisingly restrained. 

Smell: Restrained Notes of Talc and Laundry

For a strain called Black Soap the intensity of the terpenes coming off this bud isn’t as high as you might presume, or at least that I had presumed. See, I knew that Permanent Marker was one of the parents, with the other strain being The Soap. 

These are two very powerful and distinct smells upon themselves. I haven’t met a permanent marker I didn’t enjoy sniffing, with the ultimate being these big girthy mother fuckers from off-brands too cheap to even paint the whole metal tube. Yeah those slapped. 

I was a bit disappointed at the dispensary picking this out because I was expecting turpentine but I was getting more dark cream sherb, baby powder, and a little bit of Walmart tire department. 

Things got a bit stinkier once I actually laid flame to this beautifully grown specimen, with the exhale and lingering smoke smelling more like walking into a room where someone was recently using a permanent marker. 

The Soap is faint. This isn’t the eye opening intensity of Irish Spring, nor is it the tempting creaminess of Ivory. This is good old fashioned Dial gold. The cheap stuff striking a balance between more intensely perfumed soaps and the expensive luxury brand names. 

Sweetness is sparse but present, further rounding the edges of this flower to make it formal and friendly. It is unique in its cleanliness, with a dry soft finish that is smooth on the nostrils and dissipates quickly. 

Once sparked up things become a bit stinkier, the Permanent Marker genetics become a bit more obvious, and the Soapy bite more apparent on the inhale and exhale. 

Sensation: Men In Black CDXX-Type Weed

That’s right, if there was a Harold & Kumar x Men In Black crossover and you entered the MIB headquarters breakroom and the Neebles were passing around a bong and Agent K passes you a freshly lit doobie they would both be Black Soap. 

Like the MIB this stuff is clean and neat and straight to the point. It’s a slow kind of build up to a very clear and refined kind of high where you don’t ever feel geeked out or scatterbrained. I’ve been enjoying cooking after ripping Black Soap, I’ve enjoyed reading transhumanist loverboy Yuval Noah Harari by the pool, I’ve enjoyed watching Star Trek Voyager late into the night (past 10pm….). 

I’m in a good routine where I’m able to keep my tolerance pretty fuckin low and I want to keep it this way if I can because I’m running a lifelong marathon here not a fucking sprint and I’m also not fuckin 20 anymore. 

First half of my joint pre-dinner gets lifted but not zooted. So that’s like maybe a half gram’s worth? It’s the perfect weed and a perfect dosage for a quick walk around the Portland burbs for a discreet smoke sesh before smashing your favorite restaurant. 

The second half of the joint after dinner layered right on top of the first and it was like spinning the brass hose knob that little extra twist that gives you that little extra water pressure that lets you hit them plants way in the back. 

Admittedly the fluid zen-like stone of this bud has got me in a battle with my eyelids and gravity and I’m honestly not sure how much longer I can hold out for. 

Not saying Black Soap is a “knock you out” kind of sedentary type of smoke it’s definitely not, if you don’t want it to be, but after a grams worth I’m feeling pretty good and close my eyes for a bit-y. 

Permanent Marker is known to be on the sleepier side of the spectrum and while the minty clean behind The Soap feels fresh on the inhale it’s also Kush Mints we’re talking about here with Cookies & Minntz backed Animal Mints. 

What I’m saying are these are rich genetics, you can tell by the looks, you can tell by the smell, and you can tell most of all by the grade A ultra premium high it imparts. The emotion that comes along with the Cloud 9 cliché. 

So with all of that context, I encourage you to welcome the soft embrace of Black Soap and melt into the sensatory experience that is the active compounds of this rock star of a genotype coursing through your body, stimulating various endocannabinoid receptors and triggering neural connections all in it’s effort to speak to you. 

Listen to what it the Black Soap has to say…