Only skin deep

What do you know about your skin?

Don’t think i am weird about this, but skin is a very important part of each of our bodies. We live in this flesh suite every moment of our life… but what do you really know about it? Here are 10 interesting things you should know about your skin:

1. Our skin has three layers! (top layer is the epidermis, middle layer is the dermis (this is 90% of the thickness of the skin), and the deepest layer is called subcutis.
2. Skin is a temperature regulator for our body – We sweat when its hot, so the moisture evaporation on our skin cools us down. When it is cold the blood vessels in you skin contract to prevent the cold from chilling your blood, and your body temperature.
3. Our skin is covered with bacteria! (Don’t freak out though- most of the bacteria is a force of protection against those bacteria that are harmful. (This might be a point to mention that those alcohol gel hand sanitizers can have an adverse affect by weakening and killing off the good bacteria along with the bad).
4. Skin is an indicator of our health. Dull, grey looking skin could be a sign that you are run down, flushed skin could mean that you have a fever or feeling stressed out. Any noticeable changes in your skin could be as a result of another underlying health issue.
5. Melanin is what gives our skin its color. Interesting fact- the amount of melanin produced, varies from person to person. That’s why some of us have darker skin than others. Darker skin provides better protection from ultra-violate light, which is why darker skinned people originated from the sunnier parts of the world.
6. sweat stinks! Yep, those armpits can offer quite harsh scents. There are larger sweat glands under Arms and around the groin… and bacteria (that cause the stink) thrive on theses moist regions.
7. skin makes up 15% of the body. One of interesting facts about skin is that, in addition to being the largest organ of the body, your skin makes up about 15% of the average person’s body weight. You have about 18.5 square feet of skin covering your body, so it’s no wonder that it is the largest organ you have.
8. Skin regenerates a layer every 28 days.
9. The most sensitive skin on our body is our lips, and medical journals suggest lips are 200 times more sensitive than fingers.
10. This is gross- over 80% of the dust that accumulates in our homes is from skin cells slugging off. (Eeek!!!)

Were there any surprises in this list?