Skin Facts: Anatomy of Your Skin

Let's learn something about the skin!

Did you know that the skin is the largest organ of the body?

Well, it is our major barrier between the inside an outside of your body, and has an area of around 2 square metres (22 square feet) in adults and weighs about 5 kg.

It is made up of three main layers which are the Epidermis, Dermis and Hypodermis (or Subcutaneous according to which book you read).

The Epidermis is the outer layer, and this is the part of the skin that you see. It has a natural shredding process, that we increase by cleansing and massaging. As your skin matures, sadly, the shedding slows down making the skin appear dull and dry looking. Skin care manufacturers have researched many processes to develop products to aid cell removal or renewal. This is often called exfoliation, or if you need deeper skin renewal, you can you a skin peeling product.

The True Skin or the Dermis is often known as the living skin. It is thicker than the epidermis and contains nerve endings, blood supply, hair follicles and glands, like the sweat glands. The dermal tissue is formed by proteins like collagen and elastin. These protein fibres are important, giving the skin its plumpness and elasticity, and their production slows down as the skin matures and can be badly affected by UV radiation when over-exposed with sunbathing or using sunbeds too regularly.. The elastin losses its spring and the collagen hardens and this can show as pre-mature ageing, where as under normal conditions this ageing process takes quite a few decades.

The hypodermis or subcutaneous layer is the most inner layer, that forms a padding between the skin and underlying structures, such as the bones, muscles and organs. This layer is made up of a mixture of collagen, elastin and subcutaneous fat cells, with the blood vessels and nerve fibres that travel from the main supplies of the vessels and nerves.

Understanding the skin's structure helps you to understand how the skin functions and how it indicates your skin type and condition which we will start to look at in my next SkinBlog.