The Epidermis Explained

We all have one, for the most part most of us know a little something about it. But overall, the average person doesn’t really pay much attention to the protective layer our bodies created to save us from hazards, our skin.

Hopefully after reading this article, you will not only understand why our skin is so awesome, but also what the epidermis is, why you should take care of it, and most importantly how to take care of it. Let’s start with some basics of the epidermis and it’s functions and layers.

The skin is made up of many, many layers. For simplicities sake, let’s think of the skin as a three-layer sandwich made up of the Stratum Corneum, the Epidermis and the Dermis.

The outer layer, also called the Stratum Corneum, is composed of flat, dry, scaly skin cells and help make up your armor-platting protecting you from the environment and all those hazardous debris we pick up in the world.

The Stratum Corneum helps to supply the scales for your skin’s barrier known as the Acid Mantle. The next layer is your Epidermis which supplies fresh, healthy skin cells, while also attracting and preserving moisture to keep skin healthy.

The bottom of your sandwich is the Dermis and that is where Dermatologists work, not Estheticians. Think epi-dermis = estheticians and d-ermis = dermatologists!

The epidermis is a workhorse, it provides new, plump baby cells from the Basal Layer, which mature and flatten out, loosing water as they move up to the surface of your skin and become the scales that create your Acid Mantle.

In your 20’s and early 30’s, and if you’re healthy, this process of cell migration happens in 28 days. Every decade after your 30’s, you want to add 10 days to the growth cycle, a sign of aging and our cell production slowing down.

In functioning healthy skin, there is a process called desquamation, where the new skin cells help to push off, “desquamate”, the older skin cells at the top. It’s your bodies natural exfoliation process, but it doesn’t always work perfectly.

If this process has a breakdown and isn’t working right, you might see flakiness on the skin, redness and irritation and a sensitivity even to the most mildest products.

So what about the Dermis? What does that do for us? Glad you asked! This is the skin’s lowest layer and where our best friends collagen and elastin are made, amongst other awesome things the Dermis does.

These proteins help give our skin firmness, structure and elasticity. Down here you will also find Sebaceous Glands (oil glands), a network of blood vessels and capillaries which supply nutrients and give skin that rosy glow.

Fun fact about oil glands, they are usually attached to a hair follicle and that hair inside that follicle acts as a wick allowing the oil to move up and out supplying the Acid Mantle with lubrication and food for the flora and fauna up there.

When that hair is removed or other factors don’t bring the oil all the way to the surface, you can get a breakout, blackheads or red bumps. That is why after face waxing you will sometimes have a small breakout, the oil is trapped creating food for the bacteria in the bottom of your follicle.

Luckily, there are products you can use to help draw the oil out, and spot treatments to help heal or prevent breakout post-wax.

When explaining the epidermis to clients, what I want them to know is that each part has a specific function, and a breakdown in any one of those parts can lead to a failure in the whole system.

Using improper product, harsh exfoliants, lack of sun protection, smoking, insufficient water intake and even certain medications can affect how your skin functions, or doesn’t. What you put on and in your body affects the whole thing, it is important that you value yourself enough to care about what you're putting on and in your body.

Remember, your body is a temple and you are the groundskeeper to your temple, so be good to it so it doesn’t turn into ruins!

In taking care of the outside, not all skincare products are the same, and it might be a trial and error in finding what works for you, this is where an Esthetician can come in and help you navigate the sea of skincare. In the meantime, there are some key players who support skin health, keep reading to find out what they are!

The Acid Mantle is comprised of dead skin cells (stratum corneum cells), lipids (oil) and bacteria that help give your skin antibacterial protection. Your skin’s surface should be slightly acidic (4.5 to 5.5 pH) and a little dewey from the protective oil which feeds the bacteria present.

Important note: if there is not enough oil production on the surface of the skin, the bacteria present will migrate down into the follicle to eat. They eat triglycerides which are a byproduct of oil, leaving behind fatty acids which help keep your Acid Mantle acidic adding to the barrier protection. If those bacteria are forced down into your follicle to find food, you might notice redness, dry patches, more breakout and even deeper breakouts.

This is why you’re more likely to see breakouts on an oiler skin, the bacteria are active and proliferating! Drying agents, like clay and salicylic acid (BHA), help to slow down the proliferation of bacteria by restricting their food, but not cutting it off.

If you cut off the bacteria’s food supply, they will just find another source, which happens to be at the base of your follicle. Down there is where the oil is coming from, however that is not where we want our bacteria.

We need them at the surface protecting our skin, if they are in the follicle they are likely to result in deep, painful acne. When they are not on the surface, we leave our skin unprotected by the bacteria meant to fight off disease and illness, it’s important to maintain balance in our skin’s ecosystem.

Another benefit to the Acid Mantle is that if it is functioning well, your blackheads (which if you are living you will always have so think management not prevention) will come out easier as the follicle is hydrated and the skin can purge.

If your Acid Mantle is damaged, there might be cracks in it ranging in causes from improper product, stress, lack of use of product or environmental reasons, you will feel the tingle of product when you shouldn’t. This means product is getting too deep into the skin and going where it isn’t suppose to.

Skincare nourishes and treats the Acid Mantle and stimulates new skin cell production, but it shouldn't sting or go all the way into the Epidermis to the Basal Layer, we leave that to the Dermatologists. But when it comes to taking care of your Acid Mantle and your Epidermis, the estheticians are your experts!

I get this question a lot: what’s the purpose of a facial? The easy answer is to address skin concerns, give a good exfoliation to help your Acid Mantle function better and hydrate skin. But what does that mean?

Over the years, understanding the skin and broadening the scope of what estheticians can do to treat the skin has allowed us to better affect the skin. If you would have asked me ten years ago (or whenever you’re reading this, before I went to beauty school) I would have told you, “It’s where they use fancy product and pop your pimples”.

So inaccurate.

Skin Therapists first need to understand your skin and what you are doing at home. So many of our clients use product everyday on their skin but have no idea what it is or why they are using it. This is where we come in and are able to explain your skincare and why you need, or don’t need, what you’re using. I like charts so let’s visually see the benefits of a facial:

Looking at ingredient lists is a little overwhelming at first. Everything looks like an alcohol and a skin irritant, but actually most of those are fillers and help give product its spreadability, that might be the inspiration for my next “Explained” Blog! (It actually inspired me to make my 'Ingredients 101' series which will be here soon!)

I will list some ingredients that are key in keeping the Acid Mantle balanced, but when looking at an ingredient list you want to look at the first five ingredients. Those are the ones with the highest concentration and typically those are what are doing the work in your product. After that, they vary in amount and there is no requirement by the FDA to list them in order of concentration. So what are you looking for?

Bisabolol

Commonly known as chamomile, this is technically the main component of chamomile essential oil. Known for it’s anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial properties, this little ingredient is a big relief to an irritated Acid Mantle. Here’s a great list of Bisabolol’s benefits I found while researching:

Hyaluronic Acid

This one I am pretty sure I have mentioned before, you definitely have heard of this if you are one of my clients and reading this. Hyaluronic (pronounced “Hi-ya-lure-onic”) Acid is not an acid in the sense of exfoliating, but more for feeding your Acid Mantle. The chances that your skin’s surface is really dry and your Acid Mantle is impaired are high, and this ingredient is just what the doctor calls for.

Like a big, giant drink of water, this ingredient delivers a huge dose of hydration to your skin’s surface. Did you know that your body naturally makes hyaluronic acid to keep joints and your eyes lubricated? It also increases in amount when your body needs to repair itself. So this guy is doing a whole lot more for your skin than just hydrating it:

Benefits Of Hyaluronic Acid

1. Encourages Healthy, Supple Skin Resulting In Less Visible Fine Lines

2. Evens Out Skin Texture

3. Aides In Healing Of Skin

4. Reduces Redness And Irritation In The Skin

5. Can Help Repair Damaged Acid Mantle

 Using a product that is going to help rebuild and repair your skin’s surface will result in your whole ecosystem of the skin working correctly. This is crucial as we age, all our body systems begin to slow down and the most noticeable for most of us is in our reflection.

Now we can’t stop Father Time, but we can age gracefully and in a way where our skin and bodies can function at their best. So this last ingredient is not only helpful for the flora and fauna of your face, but also a major supporter in the battle against aggressive aging, CoEnzyme Q 10 aka CoQ 10. What is CoQ 10 you ask, even though I know you have seen it in countless Lancome and Oil of Olay commercials?

Yes, another thing that our body just makes naturally to keep us healthy and functioning. The more I research for this blog, the more in awe and in love with the human body I become, it is truly amazing how it all works!

Also known as “ubiquinol”, this ingredient packs quite a punch. Alas though, as we age, production of this also slows down, and sometimes sooner than we want. As a major antioxidant, this ingredient works day and night to fight the effects of UV damage and repair our body cells.

UV radiation does more than just damage our face, our whole body needs antioxidants to keep us working like the well oiled machine we are. You can get a lot of this from a well rounded diet, but if you are using Co-Q 10 topically these are a few of the benefits:

Benefits Of Co-Q 10

1. Reduces fine lines and wrinkles

2. Helps collagen and elastin production

3. Boost skin radiance and hydration

4. Balances and supports mitochondrial membrane which

5. Reverses sun damage and scavenges free radicals, neutralizing them which in turn slows down aging brought on by sun damage

You can see why this is something you would want to add to your skincare arsenal, anything that repairs and heals is par for the course when repairing the Acid Mantle and keeping it that way.

Striking a balance between your skin’s oil and water production is the optimal goal for your home skincare routine. This balance is achieved by having a functioning Acid Mantle, hydrated skin cells that are able to proliferate and also as they age desquamate so they don’t linger or get trapped in your follicle.

If you are still unsure about what products you need, please take the time to read the Back To Basics blogs which go over every portion of the skincare routine, one blog at a time starting with Cleansing and Exfoliating

By now though, you hopefully have an idea of what the difference is between the Dermis and Epidermis and how important the Acid Mantle is. You have your list of ingredients to keep an eye out for and if all else fails, go see your esthetician and get a handle on your skin’s imbalances. Thanks for reading and I look forward to our next journey in Skin Science!!

Till next time, be good to your skin and even better to yourself,

xx eri