Desert dates — locally known as toogga — are a key ingredient in Toogga’s beauty products. But how do they get from the fields of the Sahel to your bathroom shelf?

The journey starts with a group of about 50 women near the town of Aleg. As members of the Badely Cooperative, these women have been specially trained in sustainable harvesting and processing techniques. The women of Badely are responsible for growing, picking, and preparing the desert dates.

The women begin each morning at the Cooperative House, where they divide the day’s work: some go out to the fields to pick the fruit, while others remain in the Cooperative House to prepare the products for shipment.

When freshly harvested desert dates are brought to the Cooperative House, the women of Badely separate the kernels from the flesh of the fruit. Once the kernels are dried out overnight, their shells are removed to reveal the versatile toogga nuts.

Now ready for pressing, the nuts are packed into 10-kg bags and shipped to Toogga’s headquarters in Nouakchott. There, they are cold-pressed to extract the organic oil that is used in Toogga’s soaps, shampoos, body butters, and other natural products—and the trip from Mauritania to your home begins!