Sodium Lactate and Hair Growth: Mechanism of Action

Weak, brittle hair and a dry scalp are common issues troubling most of us. These conditions, although not harmful, cause discomfort and result in our hair losing its natural luster.

So what's the solution? Lack of moisture can be a common cause of dry skin and hair, so you need hair and scalp care products with the right mix of ingredients to hydrate and moisturize your scalp.

This is why Divi has produced our Scalp serum, Shampoo & Conditioner with key science-backed ingredients to promote a healthy environment for hair to grow and help combat female- and male-pattern hair loss.

One of these crucial ingredients is sodium lactate.

Sodium lactate is one of the unsung heroes of the cosmetics industry. This moisturizing and skin-replenishing chemical provides various hair and skin benefits. If you’re looking for natural compounds that can banish dryness, sodium lactate might be able to help.

Introduction to Sodium Lactate

Sodium lactate is the sodium salt of lactic acid found naturally in the skin as part of the skin’s NMF (Natural Moisturizing Factors). It is primarily used as a humectant. Humectants are helpful ingredients acting like a sponge to prevent moisture loss for dry or damaged hair.

Sodium lactate is an excellent moisturizing agent widely used in skin and hair care products thanks to its numerous beneficial actions, including acting as an antiseptic, and its revitalizing, thickening, emollient, and buffering properties.

Sodium lactate also acts as a pH regulator and balances the acid levels on our skin – including the skin of our scalps. Additionally, NMF consists of amino acids, electrolytes and carbohydrates working to keep the skin’s surface hydrated, supple and intact.

Sodium Lactate in Divi: How Does It Help With Hair Growth?

You can find sodium lactate in Divi’s Scalp Serum, Shampoo & Conditioner. While we can't promise to solve your hair loss cause, our products can help slow down and prevent hair loss symptoms, leaving you with a nourished scalp and a head of healthy, thick hair.

Here are the ways in which Divi's lineup of scalp care products can help promote hair growth.

Hydrates Hair and Scalp

In both leave-on and rinse-off applications, sodium lactate increases skin hydration. Its water-binding capacity hydrates your hair shafts and strands, leaving hair softer and stronger. It also helps in epidermal lipid synthesis, thus protecting the scalp and moisturizing it.

Divi’s Scalp Serum is a lightweight product infused with a powerful blend of clean ingredients, including sodium lactate, to support thicker hair and aid scalp health.

Our Scalp Serum also includes a variety of other clean ingredients that improve blood flow, combat hormone-related hair loss, clean and soothe the scalp, reduce inflammation, and help with conditions like alopecia areata and androgenetic alopecia.

Cleaner Scalp

Sodium lactate has exfoliant properties to help break down dead skin cells lurking in your roots and dissolve product build-up. Its antiseptic properties help in fighting against skin infections and dandruff, giving you a cleaner and more hydrated head of hair.

Dandruff is caused by a fungal infection, and the anti-microbial properties of sodium lactate can remove this fungus, which reduces the occurrence of dandruff. Divi's synthetic fragrance, PEG, and paraben-free Shampoo cleanses the scalp and improves its natural moisture while preventing dryness and breakage.

Fights Bacteria

Sodium lactate has bacteriostatic and antioxidant properties; therefore, incorporating sodium lactate in cosmetic formulations, like Divi’s Shampoo and Scalp Serum, can lead to more stability in bacterial growth and protect your scalp against free radicals.

Regulates the pH Balance

An unstable pH balance in the scalp can lead to dry and frizzy hair, as well as itchy scalp and irritation. Sodium lactate, together with lactic acid, in scalp care products like Divi’s Shampoo & Conditioner, helps regulate the pH value, allowing the product to care for the skin instead of attacking it.

Which Scalp and Hair Conditions Can Sodium Lactate Help With?

There are various causes of hair loss, from genetic conditions like male-pattern baldness or female-pattern hair loss to hormone levels, stressful experiences, and even nutrient deficiencies and certain medications.

The cause of hair loss can also determine whether your hair thins, falls out gradually or abruptly, can regrow on its own, requires treatment to regrow, or needs immediate care to prevent permanent hair loss.

While a humectant like sodium lactate cannot directly influence hair growth and cure hair loss, it plays a vital role in maintaining hydrated and strengthened hair.

Scalp Eczema/Dry Scalp and Hair

Sodium lactate's water-binding capacity hydrates your hair shafts and strands better. It protects the scalp and moisturizes it by helping in epidermal lipid synthesis – hydrating the skin's barrier function.

If you have scalp eczema, excessive scratching can cause temporary hair loss by damaging your hair follicles. Hydrating your scalp with products that have humectants, such as sodium lactate, can help soothe dryness and stop that awful itchy feeling.

Hair Breakage and Thinning

While dry hair or a dry scalp isn't a direct cause of hair thinning, the lack of moisture is certainly a contributing factor to hair breakage and thinning. Hair needs lubrication inside and out, and without it, hair can become dry and frizzy, breaking easily and halting hair growth.

The best possible way to help the skin and hair preserve moisture is to use products with humectants like sodium lactate. Humectants absorb water like a sponge, helping seal in the moisture and lubricate the hair follicle, which can lead to less breakage and strengthened hair density (greater hair count).

While humectants like sodium lactate will not directly affect hair regrowth, they play an important role in retaining moisture and supporting hair strength which can stimulate hair growth. Our Scalp Serum also contains hyaluronic acid, another humectant, to further help keep your hair moisturized.

Common Causes for Thinning Hair

Although Divi’s products cannot cure medical conditions or change your lifestyle to ensure your hair gets the best nutrients, the ingredients included by our experts can combat the symptoms of thinning or breaking hair.

Hair can thin because of your daily habits or you could be genetically predisposed to thinning hair. Health conditions can also cause hair to thin out.

Lifestyle Habits

Harsh hair products or treatments that use chemicals can cause your hair to thin. These treatments include perms, dying your hair, relaxing your hair, chemically straightening your hair, or using hair spray or gel.

Continuously wearing tight hairstyles, such as high ponytails or updos can tug at your hair, causing it to break near the scalp, causing thin patches to develop. An insufficient diet lacking in certain nutrients, like folic acid or iron, can also reduce the ability of your hair follicles to naturally produce healthy hair.

Daily, chronic stress or an acute stress event (such as a death in the family) can also cause hair to fall out or thin. This is because stress hormones cause a condition called telogen effluvium. This condition causes hair to fall out and prevents the hair follicle from producing.

Genes and Medical Conditions

Hair can thin as a result of genetic or medical conditions. These conditions include:

• Postpartum hormone changes
• Changes in hormones due to menopause or birth control
• Losing a lot of weight in a short period of time
• Treatments for autoimmune diseases
• Lacking vitamin D in your diet
• Skin disorders or infections

Although Divi’s products are not a cure for any of these conditions, Divi's Shampoo, Conditioner and Scalp Serum can help maintain a healthy scalp and provide optimum conditions for healthy hair growth.

Common Causes for Dry Scalp

If your dry scalp is caused by medical or environmental conditions, our products can't change these situations. However, they can still provide your scalp with the moisture it requires to maintain a healthy head of hair.

An itchy or flaking scalp is the main indication that you have a dry scalp. Here are some common causes of a dry, flaking scalp.

Washing Your Hair Too Much

If you wash your hair every day with a harsh shampoo, you are stripping the natural oil from your scalp which can dry out your hair – causing it to break – but also cause your scalp to become dry and itchy.

Using Toxic Hair Products

Your scalp can become red, itchy or flaky if you use hair products that cause an allergic reaction. Certain shampoos, soaps or hair dye contain harsh chemicals that could trigger the skin to become irritated or inflamed.

Our products use clean ingredients approved by dermatologists and will not irritate the skin.

Changes in the Weather

As the weather gets colder and the humidity drops, your skin begins to dry out all over the body. Once you turn the heating up in the house, your skin dries out even more – and the scalp is particularly affected.

When you combine using Divi’s products with the use of a humidifier in your house, you can help prevent your scalp from drying out.

Scalp Eczema

Eczema on your scalp is incredibly uncomfortable and can leave your scalp dry, red, itchy and even sore.

Atopic eczema is caused by an allergic reaction and can also be hereditary. It can be triggered by stress, weather changes, shampoos, soaps, or laundry detergent, and will appear as itchy, flaky patches on your scalp.

Divi’s Shampoo is not harsh and is unlikely to trigger an eczema flare up on your scalp.

Scalp Psoriasis

Psoriasis occurs when your immune system malfunctions and causes skin cells to multiply incredibly fast. These cells appear on your skin surface, causing scaly, itchy patches.

Psoriasis can occur anywhere on the body but often appears on the scalp or back of the neck.

A moisturizing shampoo and conditioner, such as Divi's Shampoo & Conditioner, can help to retain moisture in your scalp to soothe inflamed, irritated patches.

Possible Side Effects of Sodium Lactate

Humectants like sodium lactate are generally well-tolerated and cause no irritation or side effects, but if your skin is prone to sensitivity, a patch test is still recommended.

Sodium lactate is a Cosmetic Industry Review (CIR) and FDA-approved ingredient when used under certain concentrations and is considered safe when formulated.

In Divi’s products, all ingredients are measured carefully, dermatologist-tested, and have the right balance of compounds.

More About Sodium Lactate

Here are some more facts about sodium lactate:

• The main source of sodium lactate is the fermentation of lactic acid found in beets and cornstarch. This makes sodium lactate a vegan product.
• Sodium lactate is great for all types of hair, curly included. Sodium lactate is a strong moisturizer that acts like a sponge, drawing water into the hair follicles and strands. However, sodium in high concentrations can cause hair to frizz in humid climates.
• While sodium lactate is a great moisturizer that can help with the tensile strength and moisture retention of your hair, it does not directly affect the hair cycle. Sodium lactate as a superior moisturizer has the potential to help retain moisture in the hair follicle, which can prevent dry and weak strands.

Why Choose Divi?

Divi’s scalp care products have been dermatologist-approved and make use of clean, vegan ingredients while being cruelty-free (meaning they have not been tested on animals).

Divi aims to provide nutrition for your scalp and hair while combating the symptoms of androgenetic alopecia and other hair loss conditions.

Final Thoughts

As a moisturizing and skin-replenishing chemical, sodium lactate helps greatly if you have a dry and itchy scalp or dry hair prone to breakage. Sodium lactate plays an important role in keeping your hair and scalp moisturized and nourishes, which aids in hair growth.

If you want to achieve a more moisturized scalp and in turn, healthier hair, consider introducing Divi’s Shampoo, Conditioner and Scalp Serum to your scalp and hair care routine!