VEGETABLE GLYCERIN: FROM CANDLE SCRAPS TO SKIN SAINT

If you look in a yellowed 1872 soap-maker’s diary, the first entry might read, “Saved the sweet oil from the tallow candles—makes a softer soap for mother’s hands.” That “sweet oil” was crude glycerin, born as a by-product of saponification and once tossed aside as waste. It took a world war, a sugar shortage, and a handful of stubborn chemists to flip the script and turn this cast-off into the skin-care staple we now call vegetable glycerin.

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