Have you for once seen people putting on cloth fabric braced and wonder what give it Crisp Appearance? atimes you hear people shouting ‘ege’ when they see another person clothe most especially when you are in the kingdom of yorubas

Well the look you see on the clothe is by the help of Starch, but do you know you can make this Starch by yourself, sell to others to realise money and you dont even need to undergo any training before you can start doing it. The steps are just easy to follow.

Starches are made from carbohydrate foods like potatoes, rice, wheat, maize (corn) and/or cassava. but for the purpose of this post, let us streamline our consideration to a full discussion on how to produce laundry starch locally from cassava!


For better understanding, the process of producing cassava laundry starch is divided into 3 categories-Farm Stage, processing stage & pre-application stage. Let us see how it is done stage by stage, one step after the other.

1. Farm Stage: This involves harvesting your cassava plants, peeling, taking (conveying) them home or to point of processing. Harvesting entails cutting the cassava plant on the farm. You will need a matchet or cutlass to do this. After cutting is done, you now hold the cassava trunk (stump) and forcefully pull it from the ground. This is if you have chosen to do it, of course, our point of emphasis, without machine. In order to peel also, you need knife, cutlass or matchet, you peel by just gently removing the first layer of cover, usually brownish in color & that directly in contact with the soil. Peeling off this part makes you to be left with the whitish tuber. Here your peeled cassava is ready for processing.

2. Processing Stage: The processing stage involves grating your peeled cassava in a machine designed specially for the purpose. Less for this modern age and technology, grating was done with an improvised grater. The grater is produced by perforating many holes on a flat metal plate. You then grate by robbing your cassava against the rough surface, cutting it into its finest paste. Don’t forget, it is this paste, which is, through another process converted to our popular (Africa) garri flour. After grating, the paste is put in a bag and the liquid drilled off. If needed in large quantity, you may put a considerably heavy substance on the bag to press it down to further remove the liquid. The white liquid is collected in a bowl and left to settle thereby clog. You need to gently spill off the water layer that is formed in order to have your 100% laundry starch (unprocessed). Some individuals have to drain the water to the last drop to have a semi-solid starch. The remaining solidified, paste is passed on for onward processing into garri.

3. Pre- Application Stage: This marks the final production stage. During the pre-application stage there is need to boil water to a very high degree temperature. You collect the needed quantity in a bowl. If it contains water, you will need to stir thoroughly to avoid any clog deposit so as not to produce a clog, stony effect in your final, needed laundry starch. Pour your hot water into the bowl containing the starch & stir also, immediately. What you have is a whitish, pap-like paste called laundry starch. Ouch! It’s ready to be applied!

Can you now see that the process is very simple to follow, start making your own starch so that you will look so nice in your starched fabrics.

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