Any substitute for Sodium lactate ?

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SunRiseArts

SunRiseArts

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To make the bars harder? I think I read somewhere sea salt would work?

Any information, specially if it could be already in my kitchen cabinet will be much appreciated.
 
My goal is to formulate a recipe with fats that make a soap that's hard all by itself. I don't use sodium lactate, salt, etc. for reasons of adding hardness. My soap seems to be sufficiently hard and lasts plenty long enough. I always wonder why people do this, so maybe this thread is my chance to learn.
 
deeanna said:
my goal is to formulate a recipe with fats that make a soap that's hard all by itself. I don't use sodium lactate, salt, etc. For reasons of adding hardness. My soap seems to be sufficiently hard and lasts plenty long enough.
Click to expand...
ditto.
 
I use silicone molds, and I think it helps being able to unmold the next day if soap doesn't gel. I try to always get my soaps to gel, but am not always successful. I forgot to add SL to my last batch, though, and it came out of the mold just fine and is plenty hard...but it also did gel.
 
DeeAnna said:
My goal is to formulate a recipe with fats that make a soap that's hard all by itself. I don't use sodium lactate, salt, etc. for reasons of adding hardness. My soap seems to be sufficiently hard and lasts plenty long enough. I always wonder why people do this, so maybe this thread is my chance to learn.
Click to expand...

you give me a project DeeAnna to find out just how good my soap stands on its own legs with out the salt . when i started soaping i used it for hardness coming out of the mold and for longevity . but now that i think about it i also use hard oils [butters] at 25-30% of my soap weight coupled with 5-6 weeks cure [ even longer before i give away bars to family] so it will be nice to see how they match up against each other .
 
Sometimes when a Soaper makes a choice not to use animal products or certain other oils/products in soaps, the dilemma of how to make a harder bar comes into play. I understand this because when I first started soaping I used only soft oils.

I can't say I noticed a huge difference with SL or with salt, but I also probably didn't pay close enough attention. But I didn't buy the SL to make a harder bar anyway. I got for earlier removal from molds.

The biggest change in hardness in soap for me has come from substituting vinegar for some of the lye water. This made a huge difference in every recipe I have tried.
 
earlene said:
Sometimes when a Soaper makes a choice not to use animal products or certain other oils/products in soaps, the dilemma of how to make a harder bar comes into play.....
Click to expand...

I appreciate your point, but some soapers, new ones especially, have a tendency to depend on additives to solve basic problems that really are caused by the blend of fats in the recipe and/or their method of soap making. Sometimes the problem is caused by the soaper choosing to not use certain fats or deliberately not using certain techniques to make soap, but IMO the problem is far more often caused by a lack of understanding of how to formulate and make soap.

It's always good to look at the basic recipe and method first to see if there is room for improvement there. If the answer is "no" then maybe additives are needed, but I wouldn't turn first to additives for the answer.

While additives can be useful, they can also create unexpected new problems -- cutting lather, reducing hardness, odd texture, weeping in humid weather, etc.
 
earlene said:
The biggest change in hardness in soap for me has come from substituting vinegar for some of the lye water. This made a huge difference in every recipe I have tried.
Click to expand...
Interesting. If you wouldn't mind, Earlene, could you please share the ratio of vinegar to water you use? And... do you use white vinegar or cider vinegar?

TIA :bunny:
​
 
DeeAnna said:
My goal is to formulate a recipe with fats that make a soap that's hard all by itself. I don't use sodium lactate, salt, etc. for reasons of adding hardness. My soap seems to be sufficiently hard and lasts plenty long enough. I always wonder why people do this, so maybe this thread is my chance to learn.
Click to expand...

I think it's mostly for unmolding purposes. I am very happy with the hardness of my soap once it's aged, but I really hate the bent corners at the ends of the loaves from unmolding.
 
I use vinegar.
I also use a lot of soft oils. The use of soft oils for me is based in cost effectiveness.
While vinegar will not kill the slime in a Castille soap it does help harden a Bastille type soap so it lasts longer and unmolds easier.
I like a low cleansing value and lots of lather. I tend to not put much value on the "conditioning" value listed in a calculator.
I use prepared vinegar water as half of the liquid in most of the recipes I make.
Obviously I do not need vinegar in soleseife ( salt brine) or salt bars so I usually remember to not waste it there.

I also use sodium citrate which by itself tends to soften soap. DeeAnna can explain the chemistry involved better than I can but I do realize that citric increases the soap's affinity for water ( makes it dissolve faster). I also like the effect that adding sugar at around a 2% ratio to the oils in the liquid. All of this means that my "lye water" is kinda like a recipe of it's own with vinegar, sugar etc added in.

All of this gives me the soap that I am looking for. Nice lather the rinses off easily, doesn't strip the oils from my old hide and a lasting bar of soap.

There are recipes with enough hard oils that can be used that will not require any SL, salt, vinegar etc...
It is worth the time to study the fatty acid properties and profiles of oils by playing with a good lye calculator for a few hours.
 
Zany_in_CO said:
Interesting. If you wouldn't mind, Earlene, could you please share the ratio of vinegar to water you use? And... do you use white vinegar or cider vinegar?

TIA :bunny:
​
Click to expand...
Sorry, I didn't see this until today. I was traveling and not reading the forum as frequently as when I am at home. Kchaystack provided the link I used when I began testing out the process. There are other threads as well, and they can be found with a search of the site for vinegar usage in soap.
kchaystack said:
http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=59148
Click to expand...
Thank you, kchaystack, for providing the link.
Steve85569 said:
I use vinegar.
I also use a lot of soft oils. The use of soft oils for me is based in cost effectiveness.
While vinegar will not kill the slime in a Castille soap it does help harden a Bastille type soap so it lasts longer and unmolds easier.
I like a low cleansing value and lots of lather. I tend to not put much value on the "conditioning" value listed in a calculator.
I use prepared vinegar water as half of the liquid in most of the recipes I make.
Obviously I do not need vinegar in soleseife ( salt brine) or salt bars so I usually remember to not waste it there.

I also use sodium citrate which by itself tends to soften soap. DeeAnna can explain the chemistry involved better than I can but I do realize that citric increases the soap's affinity for water ( makes it dissolve faster). I also like the effect that adding sugar at around a 2% ratio to the oils in the liquid. All of this means that my "lye water" is kinda like a recipe of it's own with vinegar, sugar etc added in.

All of this gives me the soap that I am looking for. Nice lather the rinses off easily, doesn't strip the oils from my old hide and a lasting bar of soap.

There are recipes with enough hard oils that can be used that will not require any SL, salt, vinegar etc...
It is worth the time to study the fatty acid properties and profiles of oils by playing with a good lye calculator for a few hours.
Click to expand...

I also use half now. I tried it with some variations of amounts and found that getting it out of the mold was an extremely time-sensitive issue and if I waited too long, cutting the soap became quite a challenge and my soap would end up more like uneven rock formations rather than smooth sided evenly cut bars of soap. It does harden up a lot, regardless of the uneven cuts, but using less vinegar makes for a better cutting experience and makes the soap plenty hard.
 

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