There has been a lot of talk on glycerin (glycerine) on a board, and I was just wondering what the Dr.'s take on it was. The method is to buy pure glycerin such as you can get at the drugstore and apply it on damp skin or dilute with water. It does make the skin very soft. My question is, is glycerin safe for skin like this, especially since it's from sugar (right?) Would it have a glycating effect on skin? Thanks.

Interesting questions. Thoughts on this, anyone?

Glycerin attracts water and will wet your skin proteins. But this also degrades your skin barrier. Then those nasty bugs get in easier.

Keeping the skin wet also slows the replacement of the upper skin layers.

Dr. Pickart, thank you very much for your response.

Wow...this is scary because even though Summerwave is referring to glycerin by itself...the fact is that glycerin is an ingredient in many cosmetic items. Looks like I'll have to go through my arsenal and start chucking the products with glycerin.

This is such valuable information, and the cosmetic companies did a great job of brainwashing me for many years on how "natural" glycerin is supposed to be.

Would glyceral stearate be the same thing? I've been using the Mlis tissue repair cream for 7-8 years around my eyes and don't have any wrinkles yet, but one of the ingredients is glyceral stearate.

I saw that glycerin is listed as an ingredient in Super CP serum. Why is that?

It is at about 1% glycerin to help spreading.

The problem with pure glycerin is that it will attract moisture to the skin. At 1% it does very little.