Vispi Speaks: Did You Know This About Your Skin & Hair

An average adult’s skin spans 21 square feet, weighs nine pounds, and contains more than 11 miles of blood vessels.

The skin releases as much as three gallons of sweat a day in hot weather. The areas that don’t sweat are the nail bed, the margins of the lips, the tip of the penis, and the eardrums.

Globally, dead skin accounts for about a billion tons of dust in the atmosphere. Your skin sheds 30,000 to 50,000 skin cells every minute.

White skin appeared just 20,000 to 50,000 years ago, as dark-skinned humans migrated to colder climates and lost much of their melanin pigment.

As we age, the lips of both sexes begin the slow and inexorable process of thinning throughout the rest of the lifespan.

When the skin loses its elasticity, gravity causes drooping of the eyebrows and eyelids, looseness and fullness under the cheeks, causes “double chin” and longer ear lobes

Smokers tend to have more wrinkles than nonsmokers of the same age, complexion and history of sun exposure.

Sleep creases result from the way the head is positioned on the pillow and becomes more visible in aging skin which loses elasticity. These creases are commonly located on the side of the forehead, starting above the eyebrows to the hairline near the temples, as well as on the middle of the cheeks. Sleeping on your back improves these sleep creases or prevents them from becoming worse.

Hair is made up mostly of keratin. It is the same protein animals’ horns, hooves, claws, feathers, and beaks are made of. A single hair has a lifespan of about five years.

Hair contains information about everything that has been in your bloodstream, such as medicine, drugs, minerals, and vitamins. The only thing that CAN’T be identified by hair is gender.

All hair is dead, except for the hair that’s still inside the epidermis of your scalp.

Most people normally shed 50 to 100 hairs a day. This usually doesn’t cause noticeable thinning of scalp hair because new hair is growing in at the same time. Hair loss occurs when this cycle of hair growth and shedding is disrupted or when the hair follicle is destroyed and replaced with scar tissue.

It’s perfectly normal to lose about 100 hairs per day, no matter your age.

A physical or emotional shock can cause hair to loosen. Handfuls of hair may come out when combing or washing your hair or even after gentle tugging. This type of hair loss usually causes overall hair thinning and not bald patches.

Approximately a third of post-menopausal individuals may develop hair loss, usually at the front and on the top of the frontal scalp.

Abnormal Facial hair growth (facial hirsutism) is very common in post-menopausal women.

Hair goes gray when cells stop producing pigment, which happens naturally with age. The average person notices their first gray hair in their 30s and most people by their 40s. By age 50, almost 50 percent of people have gray hair.

About Vispi Kanga

Vispi Kanga was the principal scientist in global technology at Unilever and has more than 35 years experience in product development in dermatology and skin care formulations, working for multi-national companies in health and personal care industry. He has followed the evolution of the Health & Personal Care industry since the 70’s to it’s current stature as a $146 billion business in the United States.

His expertise has resulted in several patents in the development of new innovative products. He received his BS in Pharmacy from Ahmedabad India and did his postgraduation from Arnold & Marie Schwartz College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences (formerly known as Brooklyn College of Pharmacy).

Vispi has given numerous presentations in the area of skin care delivery systems and use of natural ingredients to the Personal Care Ingredients & Technology division of Health & Beauty America as well as other scientific organizations including Panacea, natural products expo India. He was the contributing editor of HAPPI magazine and also contributed articles and editorials in SpecialChem-The material selection platform. He was also an adjunct professor in the Graduate School of Natural Sciences at Fairleigh Dickinson University.