Skin Structure

Want to know how to take care of your skin? How to defense your skin aging? The best way is go back to the basic, understand the skin structure and skin physiology. If you depend on other people, either the person who told you has misunderstand his basic or your are lack of basic understanding, both will mislead you to the healthy skin care. Therefore spend some time to understand this a basic and summarize structure. You don't has to study as detail as skin doctor do. Just has to have a idea what is skin and how is it life. For example you want to take care of a puppy or a baby, you first have to understand at least little bit of them right?

This is a 2D of a human skin diagram. There are 3 layers of the skin which are epidermis, dermis, and hypodermis (subcutameous tissue). In skin care, we focus more on epidermis and dermis layers. Skin is the largest and outer most organ of human body. It is divided into these 3 main layers. Over all, it is about 2mm thick and approximately 2722 gram (6lbs) in weight.

Epidermis:

Epidermis is the outermost layer of skin. It is a layer protect body or cell from bacteria, dirt, water and so on. There are 5 layers in epidermis actually. There are horny layer (stratum corneum), clear layer (stratum lucidum), granular layer (stratum granulosum), mulphigian layer (stratum spinosum), and basal layer (stratum germinativum). The clear layer is not in this diagram because this layer is not present in thin skin. It only exist in thick skin or hairless skin such as palm and soles.

When human age increase, the skin become thinner. Skin start to dehydrates superficially. Fine lines start to appear. Skin loss suppleness. Cell renewal and regeneration is reduce. Pigmentation start to appear.

In the epidermis, Langerhans cell locate in the Malpigian layer near Granular layer. It is a dendritic cell contain large granule called Birbeck granules. It function is to take up and process micobial antigens to become fully functional antigen-presenting cell.

Dermis:

Dermis is a layer of skin beneath epidermis. It is connected to the epidermis by a basement membrane. It contains hair follicles, sweat glands, sebaceous glands, apocrine glands and blood vessel. Dermis consist of two area which are papillary region and reticular region. Papillary region is a superficial area adjacent to the epidermis while reticular region is a deep thicker area.

When human age increase, fibroblast activities will slow down. Collagen and elastin become dry and hard. This result the skin become thiner and lack of firmness. Besides, deep dehydration cause deeps lines and wrinkles. When the skin weak on protecting the skin from the UV light, deep pigmentaion occurs.