There is a very popular Advertising Campaign that uses the slogan “Love The Skin You’re In” and I for one don’t disagree with the sentiment that women should be happy with how they are and not spend an inordinate amount of time and money in an attempt to conform with how the models in magazines and on billboards look.

The use of cosmetics, skin care and beautifying products stretches back through history to the dawn of civilization.  Rites involving the skin have, since time immemorial, been used to identify members of different tribes, ethnic and cultural groups. The skin also plays a dominant role in the different languages and cultures found around the world.

But your skin is much more than just a wrapper for your body—it actually has many jobs.  The skin is the largest of all human organs.  In the evolution of organs, skin came first. The discovery that even sponges have a proto-skin shows that the separation of insides from outsides in multi-cellular animals was key to their evolution.

Your skin is your body’s largest organ and it plays a vital role in maintaining your health and wellness. It’s wonderfully resilient and can survive a great deal of punishment. The skin is the body’s boundary layer, tough enough to resist all sorts of environmental assaults, yet sensitive enough to feel the slightest touch. The skin creates the first line of defense against possible invasion of bacteria and germs, while maintaining the body’s internal environment within a few degrees of normal throughout our lifetime.

Of course, the skin also helps us experience the world. Through our skin we feel the sensations of heat, cold, pain, and pressure (touch). The skin has thousands of sensory nerve fibers specialized just for these purposes.

Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is 
as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip 
of my words. My language trembles with desire.

While the skin is very complicated, there are some simple but very important concepts that should be understood before buying skincare products. Remember that the skin is an advanced organ working 24 hours a day for your entire life to maintain itself in the best state possible. While it seems to work against your (cosmetic) desires when it creates rashes, acne, hyper pigmentation, redness or whatever, it is, in fact, doing its best to perform at optimal levels in the conditions that you created in your body.

What may seem baffling at times is that every mole, spot, bump, and/or scale is in a very specific spot on your body based on numerous conditions. These include your mental state (stress, anger, guilt, hatred all negatively impact your skin and body health), environmental influences (bad lighting, excessive sun exposure, pollution, poor water quality, damaging skin products), and diet, which we believe to be the biggest contributor next to stress.

…If it is not good when put IN the body, then it is not good when put ON the body.

Images have profound effects on people’s beliefs, perceptions and understanding of the world around them. Often the images received by the masses of the public do not depict reality truthfully. They are often bias and manipulated as well as layered with hidden meaning. Deception of reality can be detrimental as one tries to define his or her own sense of person.

But what lies beneath a person’s skin, other than the guru-inspired forensic images mentioned above, is what counts. Values, ethics, feelings, compassion, and personality all live under our skin. Our hearts, souls, and spirits live inside of it.

Skin serves as a boundary that we have been gifted with and ultimately it is up to us to decide whom we will let get under ours.

If we weren’t meant to be separate, God wouldn’t have created skin. It keeps our mushy stuff inside and other people outside (unless they are invited in, figuratively and literally).

Where my skin starts, everyone else stops, or they should.

The skin plays a dominant role in the different languages and cultures found around the world. Rites related to skin are found on all continents. Skin is a vehicle to display ethnicity, to seduce someone. How surprising, to discover the numerous idioms dealing with skin. Skin is a book, giving a marvelous account of the cultural diversity.

Skin accommodates us and stretches and expands without popping, no matter how big we get. It starts out covering our baby body and keeps on growing (sometimes too much). It gets scratched, cut, and burned, and it keeps on healing.

We underestimate this 1.5 mm-thick organ. It can give us incredible pleasure or the most excruciating pain (kind of like love). It can be an indicator of sexual and romantic chemistry and pheromonally speaking, the scent of a person’s bare skin can be intoxicating or enhanced by cologne or perfume.

All of this occurs in an organ that covers nearly 20 square feet, and weighs about 6 pounds.

Our skin reflects the life we lead.  The skin is the body’s largest, smartest and most responsive organ, and what goes on our skin is absorbed into our bodies. On average, a woman using synthetic skincare will apply 168 chemicals every day.  We can no longer ignore the growing evidence of the harmful cumulative effect of these chemicals on our health.

The natural world is constantly moving towards balance. Green quickly returns to fire-devastated forests, natural filtration purifies water and dammed streams find another way.

Your skin is no different. Its power of rejuvenation means it renews itself every month. But it can’t do it alone.

Throughout your life, your skin will change constantly, for better or worse. In fact, your skin will renew itself approximately once a month. So celebrate your skin’s imperfections because you know that it is telling you to look deeper. Consider it a warning sign. Do not punish the messenger; support it.

Live and Learn. We All Do.

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