The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age;
Dylan Thomas’s grand portrayal of the universal life force is an apt sticker for the action of glycerine. For what usually preserves dead tissue will usually harm life (e.g. Formaldehyde, alcohol) and what ordinarily promotes life will typically lead to decay in the inanimate (e.g. Moisture, oxygen).
Vegetable Glycerin Uses
Not so with glycerine. In enthralling explore published in the December 2003 issue of The Journal of Investigative Dermatology, Dr. Wendy Boilag and Dr. Xiangjian Zheng, researchers at the medical College of Georgia, found that glycerine makes skin look, feel and function great by attracting moisture and by helping skin cells mature properly.
The researchers discovered glycerine’s role in skin cell maturation while learning phospholipase D, an enzyme that converts fats or lipids in the external, protective membrane. All cells have this layer, but skin cells secrete extra lipids to form a protective barrier. Says Dr. Boilag, “Think about it. If there was not some sort of barrier, when you took a bath, all the water would go into you and you would blow up like a balloon.”
This explore is not news to natural soap makers who for years have been extolling the virtues of real soap over mass-produced chunks of chemicals that are cheap, but not skin-friendly. For while natural soap makers return the glycerine that is a normal by-product of the soap development process back into the soap, and often add even more, usually from vegetable oils such as coconut or other nut oils, market soap manufacturers remove the glycerine to add to more profitable products such as hand creams and other cosmetics.
It wasn’t until 1889 that a viable way to cut off out the glycerine from soap development was discovered. In those days the traditional use of glycerine was to make nitro-glycerine, which was used to make dynamite. Suddenly, market soap development became a lot more profitable, which gave birth to the mass found of cheap soap, to the detriment of the small local soap maker.
But what exactly is glycerine? It is a sweet-tasting, colourless, viscous liquid, which can be dissolved in water or alcohol, but not oils. It is a trihydric alcohol with the chemical formula C3H5(Oh)3. Glycerine (sometimes spelled “glycerin”) makes a good solvent and is very “hygroscopic,” which means that it absorbs water readily.
Glycerine was first discovered in 1779 in the saponification (the conversion of fats into soap via the addition of an alkali such as lye) process of olive oil. Today, glycerine is found in and sourced from animal fats, vegetable oils and synthetically from petrochemicals.
The uses of glycerine are many. In addition to soap and cosmetics it is used in restorative ointments, sometimes thickened with finely powdered starch. It is lubricating, emollient, soothing and medical to the skin. When mixed with floral waters (e.g. Rose or lavender water) and borax it makes an effective wash for chapped skin. In this form glycerine is toning and astringent. When added to pills, suppositories and lozenges, glycerine will preclude them from becoming hard and mouldy. Glycerine suppositories are an excellent remedy for consistent constipation and haemorrhoids.
Glycerine is antibacterial and is a considerable food preservative, being used extensively in the food processing industry. Although not quite as effective as alcohol for extracting the active ingredients in herbal tinctures, glycerine based tinctures are recommended for children or anyone wishing to avoid alcohol.
Finally, to bring us back full circle to the Dylan Thomas quote, glycerine is marvelous for preserving flowers, enabling them to enounce pliability and avoiding the brittleness of air-dried flowers. Dye can be added to the glycerine solution to withhold or turn the traditional plant colour. It can take up to a week for the plants to suck up the solution, but they will then last for years. Check with your local craft supply store, bookstore or library for information on how to do this effectively.
Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment hub has some excellent online instructions on how to withhold flowers using glycerine. The information can be downloaded from [http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/library/hort2/mf2446.pdf].
One word of caution: If you’re adding dye to the solution, don’t place the flowers in a bathroom, kitchen or any other area susceptible to moisture. The glycerine will attract this moisture. The plants will weep and you’ll have an indelible mess on your hands.
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