Adding sodium lactate and sodium citrate to my soap

[sapanificator]

Hello,

I want to try a new batch with sodium lactate and sodium citrate for having harder and more foaming soap.
I know for sodium citrate it's 1-3% and sodium lactate 2-5% of the oils weight.
Do you know if it has an incidence with the quantity of sodium hydroxide I have to use ?

 

[AliOop]

Hi @sapanificator

Neither of those ingredients will affect the amount of lye that you need. However, I'd try adding just the sodium citrate first, and see what you think. Otherwise, it's hard to know which ingredient is to blame if you don't like the results.

Also, as @DeeAnna has pointed out in previous posts, adding too much and/or too many different salts to your recipe can cause unintended and less than desirable results. So if you do add both ingredients into one batch, my recommendation would be to start at the lower usage rate of 1% each.

 

[sapanificator]

thank you for your advice, yes I'll try first with low quantities.

 

[dibbles]

@AliOop gave you good advice about adding one ingredient at a time. I use both sodium citrate and sodium lactate in my soaps with no problem. I use sodium citrate at 1.5% of the total oil weight, and sodium lactate at 1 tsp per pound of oils (which, when I've weighed it, turns out to be close to 1.5% of the oil weight as well).

 

[Thomas Ancona]

I added two tsp of sodium lactate to a batch hoping to make the soap harder. It was a 33% lye concentration and 10% super fat. Batch size was 55oz, my mold size. It looked by the soap calc to be a hard recipe but it didn’t turn out hard. Too much super fat? What went wrong? Thanks

 

[DeeAnna]

I added two tsp of sodium lactate to a batch hoping to make the soap harder. It was a 33% lye concentration and 10% super fat. Batch size was 55oz, my mold size. It looked by the soap calc to be a hard recipe but it didn’t turn out hard. Too much super fat? What went wrong? Thanks

It's hard to say without an actual recipe (all ingredients, all in weights) and no info about your method of making the soap. More info would be nice.

 

[ewhitake]

I’ve read you add these additives to the water before adding lye. Is this correct? And if your soap is heavy on the lard/tallow side, do you need to add sodium lactic at all?

 

[dibbles]

I’ve read you add these additives to the water before adding lye. Is this correct? And if your soap is heavy on the lard/tallow side, do you need to add sodium lactic at all?

I make my lye solution for each batch of soap using mostly frozen distilled water or aloe juice, so I take some of the batch water to dissolve my sodium citrate and add it to the oils. I add the sodium lactate to the cooled lye solution.

 

[ewhitake]

I make my lye solution for each batch of soap using mostly frozen distilled water or aloe juice, so I take some of the batch water to dissolve my sodium citrate and add it to the oils. I add the sodium lactate to the cooled lye solution.

QQ - Add the sodium citrate to the liquid of choice and then add lye, let cool and add to oils?

 

[dibbles]

QQ - Add the sodium citrate to the liquid of choice and then add lye, let cool and add to oils?

You can do that - dissolve in your batch water before adding the lye. I dissolve in a small amount of my batch water (2:1 water to SC) and stickblend it into my oils before adding the lye solution. The sodium lactate I add to cooled lye solution before adding that to the oils.

 

[cmzaha]

As a side note, being a soap seller, although I no longer sell or even make soap these days, I wouldn't say I liked spending money when I did not need to I soaped with vinegar instead of SL. It added hardness so I could de-mold much quicker and even another boost to my chelator. But soaping with vinegar does require added math and extra lye to compensate for the extra acid. Some caculators such as Soapmakers Friends will caculate the addition of vinegar for you and DeeAnna has an article about it.