Swimming and Skin Care – Repairing the Skin Barrier
Often pool swimmers complain of water related skin problems. Chlorine has a caustic effect, causing a disruption to the Stratum Corneum (the outermost layer of the epidermis) the skin’s barrier. This skin barrier, was coined by Dr. Peter M. Elias of the University of California, San Francisco, an expert on skin barrier and epidermal biology. The Stratum Corneum functions to form a barrier to protect underlying tissue from infection, dehydration, chemicals and mechanical stress. Desquamation, the process of cell shedding from the surface of the stratum corneum, balances proliferating keratinocytes that form in …
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