GLORIOUS GLYCERIN

The way people talk about humidity! You’d think it was the devil’s work. But try a winter in the American Southwest – feeling like a dried up prune is no picnic! We’ve got humidifiers running 24/7 just so we can complain when April comes around and we get a bit of moisture in the air. Dew is good, people. Okay, it’s best known for its sparkly appearance on swimsuit models but the element of water in in the air actually benefits us all.  

Because parched, in the winter, lotions, creams and balms are our skin’s best friends. And, if you’ve ever had the good fortune to feel particularly moisturized or cared for by a a cosmetic or topical body application, glycerin is the unsung muscle behind the lubricated nature of your skin’s blissful sigh. Just what is glycerin and what’s it got to do with hand-crafted bar soap? Well, it comes from glycerol and here’s the scrub.   

For the academics: Glycerol is a simple triol compound – a colorless, odorless, sweet-tasting viscous liquid. It’s used as a sweetener in foods and as a humectant in pharmaceutical formulations like lotions, conditioners and soaps. Glycerin is a preparation containing about 95% glycerol. Typically it comes from soybeans, palm or tallow, though there are also synthetic varieties. 

And for the rest of us laypeople:

Why do we care? The unparalleled benefit of glycerin is that it’s a humectant. Humectants actually attract moisture. It can cause a barrier on the skin that not only locks in existing moisture, but draws moisture from the atmosphere. Thank you, humidity. Many cosmetic products will boast their ability to “lock in” this or “secure” that, but glycerin is the real deal, and it needs to be high up in the ingredient roster to make an impact.

While you can buy pure glycerin in natural grocery stores, applying it this way is tricky and sticky. Hint; The best way is to apply it in the shower onto moist skin, pat dry and voila – you are truly moisturized. There’s no scent and when used with water, it’s not sticky. 

Or, more fun and definitely more indulgent, you can turn to artisanal hand made bar soaps whose natural formulas include glycerin as a byproduct of the saponification (soap making) process. In soap, glycerin can leave your skin feeling smooth and you feeling good that you’re attracting moisture from the air all day long. It’s a truly unique phenomenon.

Industrial soap manufacturers remove almost all of the glycerin from their products. Why would they remove this naturally derived chemical miracle? Because it is a miracle of chemistry, it’s expensive. So, they replace it with synthetic compounds and fillers that result in what is essentially a detergent, requiring the use of additional post-cleansing moisturizers, which themselves contain synthetic properties – and maybe some of that left-over glycerin – but mainly convince consumers to spend more to bring back some elasticity. It makes sense from a strictly profit-driven model: dry the skin with the detergent-like cleansers then provide other lines of moisturizing products needed to add moisture back to the skin.  

Because glycerin is derived as a part of soap making, artisanal bar soaps, such as those hand-crafted at Blnded Bliss, contain all of the moisture-drawing glycerin from the saponification process. It’s why their aromatic blends will leave you feeling soothed and silky versus the dry, taught sensation often experienced with commercial bars. If you’ve ever felt after bathing like your skin might simply crack if you don’t get lotion on it immediately, this is the effect of the harsh chemicals added to manufactured soaps to mimic the creamy post cleanse from a true glycerin-rich bar soap.

Your skin is the body’s largest organ, after all. It makes sense that we’d want to treat it to the best possible ingredients nature has to offer. Keep glycerin on your radar – it’s a gentle and effortless path to the smooth, velvety sensation of a healthy cleansing routine that allows you to attract and hold moisture all day long. Who knew? Now you do!