How does sodium tallowate work in cleansers?
How does sodium tallowate work in cleansers? When you wash your face, you’re actually using an invention that is more than 3,000 years old. Though soap in the ancient world was actually quite different from soap today, the essential ingredients are the same: fat and an alkali mixed together. In the ancient world, people mixed fat with ashes from fire to make soap [source: Soap and Detergent Association]. Now, making soap is an intricate process that may use ingredients that are either natural or synthetic. If it’s made with natural products, one of the ingredients listed may be sodium tallowate. Sodium tallowate is a true soap made by combining the fatty tissue (or tallow) of animals, such as cattle and sheep, with lye, typically sodium hydroxide [source: