What Is Skincare? | PEAK SOAP

What Is Skincare? | PEAK SOAP

Peak Soap - 16.10.2022

What is skin-care? What does it actually mean today? The conception of skincare has of course changed over the decades. Taking care of your skin means more than keeping it clean. It also means taking preventative measures to improve the overall condition of your entire skin surface. To know how to do that, we first need a heads-up. What actually IS skin?

Skin is a most remarkable organ. Skin is an organ like the heart and the lungs, a soft protective, waterproof one. It is unusual amongst the organs in that it is impervious to the external environment. Most organs are soft and mushy and would shrivel up and die if exposed to the air for too long. The sometimes benign nature of skin obscures magical qualities.

Skin protects, regulates and senses the external environment and can affect it by growing and deploying scales, feathers, hooves, nails, horns and hair on its surface. Skin is a pathogen fighting motile multi-sensory environment detector with a multi tool surface and as such requires a huge array of resources to keep it in a healthy condition.

PLATE 1: Collagen fibres. Composition of corneocyte under electron microscope.

This is skin. Pictured using a scanning electron microscope. As you can see, it looks like hair. Thats because it is. A miniature version of hair. Specifically they are Corneocytes. Corneocytes themselves are terminally differentiated Keratinocytes. However at the macroscopic level, groups of corneocytes manifest as a reptilian looking scale (see PLATE 2 below).

The toughness of this convenient packaging affords us the luxury of not having all our insides fall out and is structurally just like the muscles. Our skin can bend and flex without breaking. It is however very complex, expensive and nutrient hungry. Such efficiancy and utility requires lots nutrients, vitamins, water, minerals and care to maintain effectively.

PLATE 2: Corneocytes under electron microscope. You can see the collagen fibres.