Originally Posted by Wogsterca
Glycerin is a component of natural soap, for cleaning purposes, soap that contains glycerin is probably the best way to get your hands on some, check out a drugstore or cosmetics shop, they probably have all kinds of glycerin soap in all kinds of colours and scents. Pick up a couple of bars, it should be good for grease on hands too. For clothing it's probably best to test on a small insonspicuous section to make sure it doesn't add to the problem.
Okay, campers, it's time for a chemistry lesson. One, there is no such thing as 'natural soap'. Soap is the reaction between triglycerides (commonly obtained from animal fat) and a base. The most commonly use base is lye more properly known as sodium hydroxide.
To make the soap, you react fat that has been rendered (heated) with lye and you do a reaction called saponification. The base causes the carboxylic acid to form a cation (pronounced cat-ion) which is water soluble. There is also formed from the saponification glycerin which was combined with three of the carboxylic acids. At this point in the reaction, you can skim the glycerin off, let the soap solidify and start washing things with it. According to my Mom, who made this stuff as a kid, it's a great cleaner but it will rip the hide right off you! The cake that is formed is hard and harsh. This is called lye soap.
With the glycerine that is left over, you can make a softer, gentler soap by adding the glycerine back in. Unfortunately, you have to mix it with the lye soap which most of the old timers didn't want to do or didn't have the equipment to mix so they just kept the glycerine to put on their hands during those harsh winters.
I would doubt the ability of pure glycerin to do a good job as a degreaser. Pure glycerin is an odorless, liquid that is too polar to dissolve grease very well. Most of the 'excellent' glycerin degreasers I've found on the web are byproducts of homebrew biodiesel. As such, they are more soap then they are glycerin (most of them are very, very brown). It's the soap that cuts grease, not the glycerine.