What is your guess for the largest organ of the human body? The brain? Liver? Intestines? Guess again.
The largest organ is the skin. Yes, the skin is an organ!
The skin has many functions. It protects against germs & other environmental challenges, prevents excessive water loss, and insulates our body temperature.
Skin is remarkable. The average human has:
✓ about 8 to 9 pounds of skin
✓ 300 million skin cells (19 million per square inch)
✓ 11 miles of blood vessels & 45 miles of nerve cells
Three main layers of skin:
- Epidermis: The outer layer that you see.
- Dermis: The layer that lies beneath the epidermis -- where blood vessels, nerve endings, and oil glands reside.
- Subcutaneous Layer: The layer of fat and connective tissue containing larger blood vessels and nerves that helps regulate body and skin temperature.
So, why are we talking about skin? Paige René Body Essentials produces natural lotion, natural soap, and other body care products for the skin. Naturally, we care about how our products interact with our skin and body.
Body care products have an effect through skin penetration and skin absorption. These two terms are often used interchangeably, in error.
- If a chemical or substance is applied to the skin, it may only penetrate the first of the three layers of skin. With penetration, the systems of the body are not affected.
- If a chemical or substance is absorbed through the skin, it goes through all three skin layers, reaches the bloodstream, and can affect internal body systems.
- For example, olive oil only penetrates the skin, while the drugs in a transdermal nicotine patch are absorbed.
- When choosing body & skin care products both concepts are important. While many chemicals can penetrate the deepest levels of the skin, many are too large to be absorbed directly into the bloodstream or their absorption rates are very slow.
- Chemicals come in different sizes and have different absorption rates over time. Also, we, as human beings have many biological differences. This presents a real challenge for accurate research on absorption rates of chemicals and their components in everybody.
Paige René Body Essentials was created from sincere concern about the chemicals present in body care products and the potential adverse effects of these chemicals on us and our planet.
We factor these challenges into our formulations to ensure you can safely enjoy our products inside & out.
