Beauty Basics for Teens: The Complete Skin-care, Hair-care, and Nail-care Guide for Young Women - Dianne York-Goldman - Paperback - 1ST PBK

Skin 101: The Basics These days, the subject of skin is definitely in. If you doubt it, just surf the channels on your cable TV or scan the pages of nearly any popular magazine. Our guess is that you'll catch everything from glossy cosmetics ads and dire skin cancer warnings to intricately tattooed torsos and piercings in places no woman has dared to pierce before. Here in America, especially, it seems obvious that we're showing more skin, decorating it more elaborately, and-in some extreme cases-stretching it to the absolute limit for the purposes of beauty and self-expression. Now, on a certain level, none of this should come as too huge a shock to anyone. After all, people throughout history and across cultures have always preoccupied themselves with the appearance of their skin. We understand almost intuitively that what others see first is neither our warm heart nor our razor-sharp mind but our skin. Skin is a badge we wear day in and day out: It delivers telltale messages about our overall health, acts as a pipeline for all of our senses, protects us against the elements, and influences profoundly not only how others perceive us but also how we perceive ourselves. To that extent, our timeless fascination with skin (and skin care!) is both natural and healthy. This book tells you how to achieve great-looking skin. Despite the old saying that "beauty is only skin deep," we assume that most people would like to look great-or, at a minimum, better than they did the day before. So we've combined the medical expertise and technical knowledge of a leading dermatologist (Mitch) with the aesthetic sense and beauty savvy of a professional model and actress (Dianne) to put you on the path to skin nirvana. Some of the ideas we'll share with you have been around for ages. Others are the product of the most recent scientific research. Some of the topics we'll cover are chiefly medical in nature. Others deal with strictly cosmetic issues. But no matter what the content of a specific section or chapter, our objective throughout is to present the kind of balanced, in-depth advice that will help you enjoy beautiful skin now, and for years to come. Step one in that process is to learn more about how our skin is constructed and how it functions in the human body. An Overview of the Skin Among the most commonly asked "trick" questions used on television game shows and in biology pop quizzes is this little gem: What is the largest organ of the human body? The answer, as you might have guessed, is the skin. The question often stumps people because when we think of bodily organs we tend to picture the dramatic action of, say, the heart pumping blood or the lungs processing oxygen. The skin, in comparison, appears to be nothing more than a protective wrapper for all the important work being done by the "real" organs inside. Of course, it's true that protection of internal organs is a key function of the skin. But this passive view of how it works couldn't be further removed from reality. Just like other major bodily organs, our skin operates nonstop in an active, dynamic fashion. It helps keep us properly hydrated by regulating retention of salt and water through the sweat glands. It assists in flushing impurities from our system through the action of the blood vessels, oil glands, sweat glands, and pores. It constantly renews itself by sloughing off dead cells and manufacturing new ones. It filters the sun's UV light rays so we don't get cooked like a burger on the grill. It reacts and adjusts to changes in temperature and humidity, acting as a thermostat for the body to cool us down when it's hot and warm us up when it's not. It . . . Well, we could go on and on about all the crucial tasks the skin performs-and we will discuss some of them in more detail later-but we think you probably have the big picture for now: The skin is one busy organ, despite what outward apGoldman, Mitchel P. is the author of 'Beauty Basics for Teens: The Complete Skin-care, Hair-care, and Nail-care Guide for Young Women - Dianne York-Goldman - Paperback - 1ST PBK' with ISBN 9780609807538 and ISBN 0609807536.