What is the meaning of skin deep?

What does it really mean to be skin deep?

Who remembers that, childhood song that goes a little something like, “foot bone, connected to the leg bone, leg bone connected to the knee bone…”? Well, just as your bones work with one another to keep you moving, your body also works to try and keep your skin looking gorgeous. That is, if you’re eating right, sleeping and drinking the adequate amounts of water. Let’s take a closer look, shall we?

Let me first start off by saying this is going to be long and healthy skin isn’t a quick fix. Skin is made up of (are you ready?) three layers of skin: The Epidermis, Dermis and Subcutaneous tissue. In fact, skin has its own metabolism. It takes in nutrients from the blood and produces by-products (such as; oil and dead skin) and sends what it doesn’t need back into the bloodstream. Our skin is an incredibly large and complex organ, the average square inch holds 650 sweat glands, 20 blood vessels, 600,000 pigment skin cells (called: melanocyte) and more than a thousand nerve endings (Green Beauty, 2008). Actually, when we think we’re clean, we’re really not, even after that hot hour long shower (which isn’t good for you by the way!) we still have bacteria, fungus, and yeast and parasites living in and on our skin that is supposed to be there, but when it gets disturbed by hormone changes; such as pregnancy and changes in our diet our body tends to break out in acne, rosacea, and rashes caused by bacteria overgrowth or imbalance (feed Your face, 2011). 

When most think of taking care of their skin, they usually steer to not having enough adequate moisture. Our skin doesn’t really need additional hydration, but sometimes could use it, if you have dry skin (which wrinkles less!); our skin can actually hydrate itself by our natural production of sebum, which is our body’s natural moisturizing factor.

*Sebum: A clear waxy substance made from lipids that acts as a natural emollient and barrier, it helps protect and water-proof hair and skin and keep them being from dry and cracked.

That brings up a conversation about normal skin and how it does not exist. It’s said that a slight dryness and shine in your T-zone is completely normal, but for some reason outside companies really want to convince us that it isn’t. Someone with oily skin, who produces only 2 grams of sebum a year, is told that it should not be there and convinces you to use harsh detergent to strip the natural sebum production and leaves our skin more vulnerable than before. "Squeaky clean is for kitchens, not for human skin!"

Alright, I hope that wasn’t too much for one day! I had to go all college student on yah! Have a great day. See you in the next post! 

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