Dry Skin, Dry Skin Care

Your skin structure, enveloping and potecting all your vital organs, remained basically unchanged since the begining of time, albeit adaptable to your internal and environmental needs. One needs to look at skin as an active structure- after all, it is the largest organ in your body, and posessing two surfaces: and internal surface and an extrnal surface. Failure to understand this fundamental concept will result in difficulty to understand also the functional and the structural aspects of your skin.

Here are some of the most basic descriptions that most accurately apply to skin:

Skin is dynamic -its constantly renewing, therefore changing, itself.

Skin is mosaic -meaning that the cells don’t grow at the same rate ( If this was not the case, we would molt our skin exactly like the snakes do)

Skin is slightly more that 6 pounds in weight and covers nearly 80 x 80 inches square, or roughly the area of a plywood sheet, or enough to cover a dining room table.

Skin is about 1.5 to 4 millimeters thick, depending on the location measured. It is thickest on the back and thinnest on the eyelids.

Skin’s outer layer (external structure), is only 75 to 150 microns! (The soles and the palms are slightly thicker, at 500 microns, or 0.5 millimeters.

This last fact is perhaps the most startling of this list. This tiny layer is our only protection against the outside world and its environment, and yet we tend to treat it like it is our body armor, exposing it to the elements without thinking twice about skin care.

Keeping these facts in mind will help you make a more intelligent choice for dry skin care, since not paying attention to it will be to leave it compromised to damages that can easily be prevented, and in some cases, even reverted.

Dry skin is the expression of a condition we call TEWL, or Trans Epidermal Water Loss, and merely treating it by the use of a moisturizer or a home remedy may not always be the wisest choice. During TEWL your skin is not only depleted of water, but it also expels vital lipids, nutrients and minerals, thus exacerbating the signs of aging by neglect.

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