The Basics Of Skin

Alrighty then! Out with the high school biology books. Well, maybe not quite. But I promised you a rundown of the basics of skin. So here it is. No apologies if I miss out some stuff as I'm not getting into the micro-cellular level of detail. My aim is to be just informative enough for you to grasp the fundamentals but not put you to sleep.

We usually don't think of our skin as an organ, but it is. And it's the largest organ of our body. It makes up about 15% of our body weight.

Our skin is made up of three layers, each playing it's own important part. The layer on the outside is called the epidermis. Underneath this is the dermis. And below this lies the third layer, the subcutaneous fat.

The World Sees Your Epidermis

The epidermis is usually about 0.5 to 1mm thick. At the bottom and lower sections of the epidermis, new skin cells are growing. These cells begin moving toward the top of your epidermis. The skin completely renews itself every 2 to 5 weeks. As the new cells move up to the surface of your skin, the old cells at the top die and flake off. It's estimated that every minute we lose about 35,000 dead cells (give or take a few hundred).

So when you look adoringly at your partner's face, you're really looking at dead skin. (Hmm, I'd better not ponder on this thought too long - I could come up with some very good wise cracks!... So, moving right along...)

While your skin is continually busy making new skin cells to replace the old ones, it is also making melanin. This gives your skin its color. I won't go into too much detail here as I'll be covering this in another post. However, when you go outside into the sun, additional melanin is made to protect you from getting sun burn by ultraviolet rays.

The Dermis Lies Below The Epidermis

The dermis consists of a taut lattice of collagen and elastin fibers. These are important skin proteins. Collagen is responsible for structural support and elastin gives flexibility and resilience to our skin.

It is the thickest of the skin layers and also contains nerve endings, blood vessels, oil glands and sweat glands. The tiny blood vessels keep your skin cells healthy by supplying nutrients and removing waste. The oil glands, or sebaceous glands, produce sebum. This is the skin's natural oil and helps keep the surface of the epidermis protected.

The dermis is in charge of the skin's structural integrity. Wrinkles develop in the dermis. Thus, any anti aging treatment only has a chance of being successful if it can reach down to the dermis.

The Subcutaneous Layer

The third and base layer of the skin is called the subcutaneous layer. It consists mostly of fat and assists your body to stay warm. The subcutaneous layer also helps hold your skin to tissues beneath it.

The loss of subcutaneous tissue, primary due to age, leads to sagging skin and heightened wrinkles.


So there you have it. Now that we know the fundamentals of skin, we can move on towards a better understanding of what to look for in anti wrinkle creams and covering a few tips for achieving and maintaining younger looking skin.