Be Good To Your Skin!
What you put ON your body is just as important as what you put IN your body. Your skin absorbs whatever you put on it and sends it into your bloodstream, where it spreads through all your organs. Organic bodycare is just as important to health as organic food.
To understand the importance of the above statement, we must first understand what skin is and what it is intended to do. Besides being the largest organ that the body has, skin plays a very important part in attaining and maintaining health. It covers and protects everything inside the body. Without skin, people's muscles, bones, and organs would be hanging out all over the place. Skin holds everything together. Skin also:
- protects the body
- helps keep the body at just the right temperature
- allows us to have the sense of touch
The skins is made up of three layers, each with its own important parts. The layer on the outside is called the epidermis. The epidermis is the part of the skin we can see. Every day it is hard at work forming new skin cells at the bottom. When the new cells are ready, they begin to move towards the top. The trip from the bottom to the top takes from 2 weeks to 2 months. As newer cells continue to move up, older cells near the top die and rise to the surface of the skin. Actually, what we see when we look at our hands or any other part of our body is dead skin cells.
These old cells are tough and strong, just right for covering the body and protecting it. But they only stick around for a little while before they flake off. Even though we cannot see it happening, every minute of every day we lose around 30,000 to 40,000 dead skin cells off the surface of the skin. That adds up to about 9 pounds of skin cells every year.
About 95% of the cells in the epidermis works to make new skin cells. The other 5% of the cells make a substance called melanin. Melanin gives skin its color. The darker the skin the more melanin. When we are out in the sun the epidermis makes extra melanin to protect itself from the sun's ultraviolet, or UV, rays.
Layer number two - the dermis!
The next layer down is the dermis. The dermis contains nerve endings, blood vessels, oil glands, and sweat glands. It also contains collagen and elastin, which are tough and stretchy.
The nerve endings in your dermis tell you how things feel when you touch them. They work with the brain and nervous system, so that your brain gets the message about what your are touching.
The dermis is also full of tiny blood vessels. These keep the skin cells healthy by bringing them the oxygen and nutrients they need and by taking away waste. As the dermis gets older older, it gets thinner and easier to see through.
The dermis is home to oil glands. These oil glands are also called sebaceous glands, and they are always producing sebum. Sebum is the skins own natural oil that rises to the surface of your epidermis to keep the skin lubricated and protected. Sebum also makes the skin water proof so the skin does not absorb water and become soggy.
There are also sweat glands in the epidermis. We are actually sweating a tiny bit all the time. The sweat comes up through the pores in the skin. When the sebum meets the sweat, they form a protective film that is a bit sticky.
Layer number three - subcutaneous fat!
The third and bottom layer of the skin is called the subcutaneous layer. It is made mostly of fat and helps keep the body warm and absorbs shock. The subcutaneous layer also helps hold the skin to all the tissues underneath it.
This layer is where you will find the hair follicle. Every follicle has its roots way down in the subcutaneous layer and continues up through the dermis.
There are hair follicles all over the body, except on the lips, the palms of the hand, the soles of the feet. There are more hair follicles on some parts of the body than on others. The head, for instance, has more than 100,000 follicles. The hair follicles rely on the subaceous gland to bring on the shine. Connected to each follicle in the dermis layer is a tiny sebaceous gland that releases sebum into the hair. This lightly coats the hair with oil, giving it some shine and a little waterproofing.
The skins job is?
Now to recap, the skin's jobs are:
- to form a protective layer over the body to help prevent injury and disease
- to keep moisture in the body (water retention)
- to make vitamin D
- to regulate body temperature
- to excrete waste
Unlike other organs in the body, the skin likes a good washing. When you wash the skin, use water and a mild soap. This is just one way to be kind to the skin. This skin must last us a lifetime. Therefore, the products we use on the skin must enhance its job, not hamper its job. That is why we bring you the healing products from the African Aloe. Aloe Ferox has a history of bringing healing to the body both inside and out, and since the skin absorbs everything that touches it, we must be very conscious of what is in what touches our skin. That means sunscreen, hand and body lotion, soap, dishsoap, cleaning products and even the water we wash with. For all natural, non-toxic cleaning products, we use and highly recommend www.sunandearth.com.
