One of the biggest benefits touted for making your own homade lye soaps at home is that it's can be a wonderful as a moisturiser.

When you combine Lye and Fats or Oils, it goes through a chemical process called Saponification. This means that these two ingredients re-act, and make soap. One of the by-products of this process is Glycerine.

And Glycerine has been seen as a Humectant. This means it draws water from the air, and thus allows your skin to draw in the water and become hydrated. Sounds great, and glycerine has been used in many skin care products for exactly that reason - to act as a skin moisturiser.

So today I come accross a webpage that said:

"Glycerine actually draws water out of the skin, and dries it out from the inside out."

This takes everything that has been said for the last years and turns it inside out. The homemade soap industry prides itself on the fact that there is glycerine in the soap, and that it actually is good for the skin and for skin moisture.

Now, the problem that I have with that statement, is there was no scientific back-up. Just this single sentence, in the middle of no where stating that using Glycerine has the opposite effect of what has been said of glycerine's properties since 1779.

So, I scoured the Net - trying to find backup for this statement. I couldn't find anything out there to substantiate this. A few more pages on various other websites stating the same, but nothing out there backing this statement.

What I did find, is some scientific documents out there that confirm Glycerine to be an humectant. That is actually does draw water to it and that the skin can absorb the water.

One such document titled "Glycerol replacement corrects defective skin hydration, eleasticity, and barrier function in AQ3 deficient mice" by Mariko Hara and A.S. Verkman. This was done for the National Institute of Health.

Without going into the gory details, their findings ended with the following conclusion: "Our findings provide a scientific basis for the long-standing practice of including glycerol in skin cosmetic and medical formulations, as well as for a body of empirical observations about improved skin properties after glycerol exposure."

They then go on to list many of the benefits that have been seen with a topical application of glycerine like improved skin moisture and elasticity.

All in all, I'm not 100% convinced of either side as yet, and I'm still researching the subject. But it does show that one needs to be careful of what is being said on the Net and always research it deeper.