Did you know that our skin is the largest sense organ in our body? Yes, it is. If you think of it, after all it covers our body from top to bottom . So, it has to be. Skin forms a protective layer for our body.

Can you guess what all things skin protects us from?

• Every morning we bathe, to wash from our skin all the dust, germs, dirt and grime. Imagine without skin, they would all enter right inside our body to make us sick. Eeew!
• The skin helps in controlling our body temperature. In case we are feeling very hot, the sweat glands present in skin release sweat, which cools the body down.
• The skin does not allow our body to loose moisture.
• It also protects our body from harmful rays of the sun.
• Most importantly, skin provides us with a sense of touch.

Doesn’t skin has mighty tasks to perform? How does skin function? Skin is made up of layers. The topmost layer of skin that we see is Epidermis. Epidermis constantly produces new skin cells to replace the old ones. This process is constant though we can not see it with our naked eye. The dead cells or dead skin just falls off. Epidermis also produces a substance called melanin. Melanin is what gives skin its colour and also protects us from sun’s harmful rays . More melanin means darker colour. When we go out in sun, epidermis produces extra melanin to protect us from sun’s rays. That is why we get darker or tanned in sun.

The layer under epidermis is Dermis. Dermis has nerve endings that immediately send message to our brain about how you feel when you touch something. The dermis also has some oil glands called sebaceous glands that secrete oil to keep our skin moisturised.

The bottom most layer of our skin is called the Subcutaneous which is mostly fat deposit. This helps our body stay warm and absorb shocks, in case we have a bad fall.