Aluminium lactate is a safe and easy cold and warm mordant for all fibers like cotton, linen, hemp, Tencel, and viscose. You can also use this mordant as a cold mordant for protein, especially wool. For aluminium lactate, the aluminium component is combined with lactic acid produced from natural and renewable food sources.
Aluminium lactate is a great alternative for aluminium acetate when mordanting cellulose fibers.
Aluminium lactate will give you very clear and bright colors which makes it a fantastic mordant for yellow and red natural dyes.
Aluminium lactate is certified to be compliant with GOTS 6.0.
As a single-step mordant, you use aluminium lactate at 5%-10% WOF for cellulose fibers.
No need to heat, dissolve the aluminium lactate in hand-warm water and top up with water at room temperature. Leave your fabrics in the mordant for at least 1.5 hours.
For a two-step process to create more mellow colors, use tara or oak gall tannin at 10% as first tanning and only then proceed using the aluminium lactate at 5-10% WOF.
Some people will dung with wheat bran or calcium carbonate after mordanting, I am still on the fence about it and usually, just rinse well.
Test results and full blog is here:
https://www.naturaldye.academy/post/aluminium-lactate-as-a-mordant-for-cellulose-a-comparison
Tech specs:
Appearance: very fine white powder.
Wear a mask while working with dry powder.
CAS 18917-91-4
MOLECULAR FORMULA : C9-H15-Al-O9
MOLECULAR WEIGHT: 294.22
HS code: 2918199090
