SLSA in natural cosmetics | Article

SLSA - Sodium lauryl sulfoacetate. Sounds so chemical, doesn’t it?

And yet there is no need to be afraid of this substance, because it is purely natural – it is obtained from fatty acids of coconut and palm oil. Yes, it is not about “manually squeezing a fresh coconut”, you need to run that coconut through a certain process. However, this produces a substance that is gentle to the environment and is biodegradable. Moreover it meets the criteria of the ECOCERT certification company.

This raw material is called a surfactant or also a tenside – a surface-active agent. All these three terms denote the same substance, it is just that surfactant comes from French, tenside from English and povrchovoaktívna látka is already an expression from the Slovak language.

SLSA and its use in practice

Imagine that you would go to wash greasy hands with pure water. Water will not remove the grease from your hands, because it creates a film on your skin that does not allow water to pass through. However, the molecules of the tenside are partly lipophilic (they dissolve well in fats) and partly hydrophilic (they dissolve well in water), they are able to reduce the surface tension at the water-oil phase interface. This means that the tenside will reduce the surface tension of the water as a solvent, the water no longer just rolls over the greasy hand, but binds the dirt to itself, and thus beautifully washes it off the skin. In addition, if you choose the correct concentration, it acts on the cleansing process like soap, except that it does not disrupt the pH of the skin as soap does.

Moreover, its molecules are large enough, so they do not penetrate through the skin or mucous membranes and do not irritate like the soap itself.

In addition, in this process they create a beautiful foam, and that is exactly why they are used for the production of liquid and solid shampoos, conditioners, shower gels, bath bombs or bath foams, dishwashing detergents.

Also read and try the recipe for a solid shampoo with SLSA.

SLSA Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate and natural cosmetics

SLSA - Sodium lauryl sulfoacetate. Sounds so chemical, doesn’t it?

SLSA and its use in practice