98 Fun Facts About Skincare

Where on the body is human skin at its thinnest?

The eyelids. Their skin has no layer of fat beneath it, which is why fluid makes them puff up so readily.

What are the three primary layers of the skin, from outside in?

Epidermis, dermis, hypodermis. Stretch marks form in the middle one: the dermis tears when skin is stretched beyond the limits of its elasticity.

Which of these does the epidermis lack entirely?

Blood vessels. The epidermis has none of its own, so its living cells depend on nutrients that diffuse up from the dermis underneath.

Which cells produce the pigment that gives skin its colour?

Melanocytes. People of every skin tone have roughly the same number of them; what differs is how much pigment each one makes.

Which inherited condition leaves the body unable to turn the amino acid tyrosine into melanin?

Albinism. In its most severe form one enzyme, tyrosinase, doesn't work, and because it handles the very first step of the chain, no melanin gets made at all.

Pheomelanin, one of the two main forms of melanin, dominates in which natural hair colour?

Red. Pheomelanin doesn't shield skin from ultraviolet light the way the darker eumelanin does, which is why redheads tend to burn rather than tan.

Which oily, waxy substance do skin glands release onto hair?

Sebum. Its output surges at puberty as hormone levels climb, which is why oily skin and spots so often arrive in the teenage years.

Which two parts of the body have no oil glands in their skin?

Palms and soles. They make up for it in sweat: the same skin is among the most densely packed with sweat glands anywhere on the body.

Which acne treatment is known for bleaching towels, pillowcases and clothing?

Benzoyl peroxide. It is a bleach, used industrially to whiten flour and textiles, so users are warned to keep it away from fabric and hair.

What is the medical term for a clogged hair follicle, seen as a blackhead or whitehead?

A comedone. Left open to the air it shows as a blackhead, and despite appearances that dark tip isn't trapped dirt.

Which oral drug for severe acne was sold for decades as Accutane?

Isotretinoin. It can cause severe birth defects, so in the US it is dispensed only through iPLEDGE, a registry that patients, prescribers and pharmacies all have to join.

Salicylic acid, a common acne ingredient, takes its name from which tree?

Willow. Salix is the tree's Latin name: the acid was first made from salicin, a compound in willow bark, and chemists later reworked it to create aspirin.

Niacinamide, used in serums for redness and dark spots, is a form of which vitamin?

B3. Niacin, the vitamin's other common form, is known for the hot flush it brings to the skin; niacinamide does the same nutritional job without it.

Retinol, the anti-wrinkle ingredient, is a form of which vitamin?

A. The eye uses the same vitamin to make the light-catching pigments of the retina, which is why a shortage shows up as night blindness.

Which moisturising ingredient is also injected as a gel to plump lips and smooth wrinkles?

Hyaluronic acid. It swells with water into a gel, and because the body gradually absorbs it, the plumping fades and the injections have to be repeated.

Which protein in skin takes its name from the Greek word for glue?

Collagen. Glue was once made by boiling animal hides and sinews, and the sticky protein that came out of the pot gave the word its meaning, 'glue producer'.

Which acid in peels and toners occurs naturally in sugar cane?

Glycolic acid. It is the smallest of the alpha hydroxy acids, so it slips into the skin more easily than its bulkier cousins.

Lack of which vitamin causes scurvy?

C. The Royal Navy gave its sailors citrus juice to keep scurvy at bay, which is how the British came to be nicknamed 'limeys'.

On a sunscreen label, what does SPF stand for?

Sun protection factor. It rates how much UV it takes to burn protected skin, not how long you can stay out: the idea that SPF 30 buys thirty times longer in the sun is a common misreading.

A sunscreen's SPF number mainly rates protection against which sunburn-causing part of sunlight?

UVB rays. They are the main cause of sunburn; UVA, the rays behind wrinkles and age spots, is why a label should carry the words 'broad spectrum' as well.

Which two minerals are the active ingredients in 'physical' or mineral sunscreens?

Zinc oxide and titanium dioxide. In 2021 the FDA proposed them as the only two of sixteen sunscreen filters it could call safe and effective, and asked for more data on twelve others.

Dermatologists' Fitzpatrick scale sorts skin into six types by how it reacts to what?

Sun exposure. The same scale is the basis for the skin-tone options on emoji, which offer five shades because its two palest types are merged into one.

Red Vet Pet, the wartime sun protectant developed in 1944, was commercialised as which brand?

Coppertone. Pharmacist Benjamin Green's lotion was sold to deepen a tan, and its famous billboards showed a dog tugging down a little girl's swimsuit to reveal her tan line.

How often do sunscreen labels typically say to reapply?

Every two hours. A higher SPF doesn't buy extra time: it wears off the skin just as fast, and swimming or sweating shortens the interval further.

Which became the first US state to ban sunscreens containing the UV filter oxybenzone?

Hawaii. Lawmakers acted after studies linked the chemical to damage in coral reefs, and the ban covers a second filter, octinoxate, as well.

Which claim are US sunscreen labels barred from making?

Waterproof. Every sunscreen eventually washes off, so the most a US label may claim is 'water resistant', for either 40 or 80 minutes of swimming or sweating.

The invention of cold cream is credited to which second-century physician?

Galen. He blended beeswax and oil with rose water, and the recipe has lasted so well that French pharmacists still make a version named after him.

Which cream, sold in a flat blue tin, takes its name from the Latin for snow-white?

Nivea. Its makers chose the name in 1911 because the finished cream came out a pure, snowy white.

Lanolin, a rich grease used in lip balms and skin creams, comes from which animal?

Sheep. Lanolin is the wax that helps their fleece shed rain, and it is extracted from the wool once it has been shorn.

Which product did chemist Robert Chesebrough develop from 'rod wax', a residue oil drillers rubbed on cuts and burns?

Vaseline. He is said to have built the name from Wasser, German for water, and elaion, Greek for oil, in the belief that petroleum formed from water underground.

Atopic dermatitis is better known by which everyday name?

Eczema. The name comes from a Greek verb meaning to boil over, a vivid picture of skin that flares up and breaks out.

Which is the world's largest cosmetics company as of 2024?

L'Oréal. It grew out of a hair dye that a young chemist, Eugène Schueller, mixed himself and sold to the hairdressers of Paris before registering his company in 1909.

Clinique launched in 1968 billed as the first dermatologist-created cosmetics line that was also what?

Allergy-tested. The line began with a Vogue article in which a beauty editor asked a dermatologist 'Can great skin be created?', and both were recruited to help build it.

Which Procter & Gamble skincare brand was first sold in South Africa in 1952?

Olay. For decades it wore a slightly different name in each market, such as Oil of Ulay in Britain and Oil of Olaz in Germany, before the 'Oil of' was dropped altogether.

Which healthcare giant bought the skincare brand Neutrogena in 1994?

Johnson & Johnson. It kept the brand for almost thirty years, then in 2023 spun Neutrogena and its other consumer names off into a separate company called Kenvue.

Which fats in the skin's outer layer act as the grout holding its cells together?

Ceramides. Skin replaces them more slowly with age, which is one reason it dries out and why so many moisturisers add them back in.

TikTok 'skinfluencer' Hyram Yarbro's 2020 videos helped make which drugstore brand sell out?

CeraVe. The plain pharmacy range was nearly fifteen years old when before-and-after videos on TikTok suddenly made it the thing every teenager wanted.

Elizabeth Arden, born Florence Nightingale Graham, opened salons known for what signature feature?

A red door. The first opened in New York in 1910, and the door became the brand: her salons took the name Red Door, and so later did the company's signature perfume.

Elizabeth Arden's stable Maine Chance Farm won which race in 1947 with Jet Pilot?

The Kentucky Derby. Jet Pilot went to the front at the start and was never passed, holding on by a head in a three-horse photo finish.

Which cosmetics pioneer built her empire on a face cream first launched in Melbourne?

Helena Rubinstein. Born in Kraków, she arrived with a milky complexion that local women, their skin coarsened by sun and dust, envied, and an admirer put up the money that opened her first salon.

The toxin used in Botox is better known as a deadly hazard of which food?

Home-canned vegetables. The bacterium behind it makes its toxin where there is no oxygen, such as a badly sterilised jar, and that toxin is among the most lethal substances known.

Botox smooths wrinkles by doing what to the facial muscles beneath them?

Paralysing them. The toxin stops nerves telling the muscle to contract, and because the muscle recovers within months, the injections have to be repeated.

Venetian ceruse, a fashionable white face paint of 16th-century Europe, was made from which poisonous metal?

Lead. Ceruse is simply white lead, the same pigment long used in paint and putty, here mixed with water and vinegar and worn on the face.

What eye cosmetic did the ancient Egyptians famously use?

Kohl. The word 'alcohol' comes from it: Arabic al-kuhl first meant this finely ground eye powder, and only later a distilled spirit.

Which everyday product does US law treat as a drug rather than purely a cosmetic?

Antiperspirant. Anything meant to change how the body works, here by reducing sweat, counts as a drug; a deodorant that only deals with smell is a cosmetic.

Which step of a skincare routine removes dead cells from the skin's surface, by scrubbing or with acids?

Exfoliation. The word comes from the Latin for stripping the leaves off a plant, from folium, a leaf, the same root as 'foliage'.

Besides skin, a dermatologist specialises in disorders of hair and which other part of the body?

Nails. Like hair, they grow out of the skin itself, so one specialist covers all three, after training that takes more than a decade.

Fresh sweat has almost no smell, so what creates body odour?

Skin bacteria. They break down the thicker sweat of the armpits and groin, which carries organic compounds that the watery sweat elsewhere lacks.

Squalene, the oil behind the moisturiser squalane, was originally obtained from the liver of which animal?

Sharks gave squalene its name, from the genus Squalus. Deep-water species store so much of the oil that it can make up 50 to 80% of their liver oil.

The traditional Japanese skin treatment uguisu no fun, nicknamed the 'geisha facial', is made from what?

Bird droppings from the Japanese bush warbler were first prized for lifting stains out of silk kimono. They became a beauty treatment only later, during the Edo period.

According to legend, Cleopatra bathed in the milk of which animal to keep her skin youthful?

Donkeys supplied the baths, 700 of them a day in one telling. Nero's wife Poppaea was said to travel with whole herds of she-asses for the same reason.

A natural loofah, the rough sponge used to scrub skin in the shower, is the dried skeleton of what?

A gourd from a tropical vine in the cucumber family: left to ripen and dry, the flesh disappears and only the fibres remain. Picked young, it is eaten as a vegetable.

Which fizzing bathroom product did Lush co-founder Mo Constantine invent in her Dorset shed in 1989?

The bath bomb began life as 'Aqua Sizzlers', inspired by Alka-Seltzer tablets and shaped in jelly moulds bought on the high street.

Eating very large amounts of which vegetable over a long period can harmlessly tint human skin yellow-orange?

Carrots are packed with carotenoids, pigments that build up in the outer skin when eaten to excess. The tint fades once the diet changes.

Argan oil, from the kernels of a tree that goats like to climb, comes almost entirely from which country?

Morocco supplies almost all of the world's argan oil. In some areas goats are left to climb the trees and feed on the fruit, and the hard kernels are gathered afterwards.

A 1930s French face cream, sold as the formula of a 'Dr Alfred Curie', boasted of containing which element?

Radium, along with thorium, went into Tho-Radia creams until 1937. The doctor was real but no relation to Pierre and Marie Curie: his name was a marketing device.

The skincare brand Aveeno takes its name from the scientific name of which cereal grain?

Oats are Avena sativa to botanists. The brand, founded in 1945, grew from the finding that finely milled colloidal oatmeal soothes dry, sensitive skin.

Swallowing preparations of which metal over many years can gradually turn a person's skin blue-grey?

Silver builds up in the skin and darkens where sunlight hits it, a condition called argyria. American Paul Karason made headlines in 2007 after a homemade remedy turned him blue.

Model Winnie Harlow and singer Michael Jackson both had which condition that drains patches of skin of pigment?

Vitiligo was something Michael Jackson obscured with costumes and makeup until it covered his body. The pale patches tend to show first around the mouth, eyes and nostrils.

Which fashion designer is credited with making the suntan fashionable in the 1920s after returning to Paris bronzed?

Coco Chanel is said to have come home from a cruise on the Duke of Westminster's yacht with a tan that became all the rage. Before then, pallid skin had been a marker of upper-class status.

Castile soap, named after a region of Spain, is traditionally made from which oil rather than animal fat?

Olive oil alone went into Castile soap. The far older soaps of Aleppo blended it with laurel oil, which soapmakers elsewhere around the Mediterranean could not easily get hold of.

Before its famous lip balm, Burt's Bees began in 1984 selling which handmade product made from leftover beeswax?

Candles came first: Roxanne Quimby made them from beekeeper Burt Shavitz's spare wax, and an order for hundreds from a New York boutique pushed the pair to scale up.

Which succulent plant's clear leaf gel is widely sold for soothing minor burns, rashes and dry skin?

Aloe vera also turns up in tissues, shaving cream and shampoo, although the evidence that it actually helps wounds or burns to heal is conflicting.

Which volcanic rock, light enough to float on water, is used in pedicures to rub away calluses?

Pumice is so full of gas bubbles that rafts of it drifted across the Indian Ocean for up to 20 years after Krakatoa exploded. A Roman poem already mentions it for removing dead skin.

Which tiny plastic scrubbing particles did a 2015 US law ban from rinse-off cosmetics such as face washes?

Microbeads are small enough to slip through sewage treatment plants into rivers and lakes, which won a federal ban bipartisan support in Congress.

Which vitamin does human skin make for itself when the ultraviolet rays in sunlight strike it?

Vitamin D is made in the deeper layers of the outer skin, and for most people that home-made supply outweighs what they get from food.

Which Texas cosmetics company, founded in 1963, is famous for rewarding top sellers with a pink Cadillac?

Mary Kay Ash bought the first one in 1968 and had the dealership repaint it to match the blush in a compact she carried. It doubled as a rolling advert for the business.

Which brand launched in America in 1957 with a 'Beauty Bar' made from synthetic detergents instead of true soap?

Dove was formulated so that it would not leave a bathtub ring of soap scum, sparing people the chore of scouring it away.

In the ABCDE checklist that dermatologists teach for spotting dangerous moles, what does the letter A stand for?

Asymmetry comes first, followed by irregular Borders, uneven Colour, a Diameter over 6 mm, about the size of a pencil eraser, and Evolving over time.

Which tough protein makes up human hair, rhino horn, feathers and the outermost layer of skin?

Keratin also builds claws, hooves, wool and reptile scales, and even the slime threads of the hagfish.

In anatomy, the skin, hair and glands that cover the human body make up which organ system?

Integumentary is the name for the body's whole outer covering. In other animals the same system takes in scales, feathers, hooves and claws.

Kim Kardashian has spoken publicly about which condition, in which skin cells are replaced every few days?

Psoriasis cuts the turnover of skin cells to every 3 to 5 days instead of the usual 28 to 30, so they pile up in scaly patches. About 90% of cases are the plaque type.

Which long-term facial condition, marked by flushing and worsened by spicy food, can enlarge the nose in severe cases?

Rosacea usually starts as flushing near the centre of the face and is especially common in people of Celtic heritage. The swollen nose of severe cases is called rhinophyma.

Which skin condition, causing brown or grey patches on the face, is nicknamed 'the mask of pregnancy'?

Melasma is tied to hormones as well as sunlight, which is why it can also appear in people taking oral contraceptives or hormone replacement therapy.

A flat pink birthmark on the back of a newborn's neck is nicknamed the 'bite' of which bird?

Stork bite is the folk name for a mark doctors call a telangiectatic nevus. The same kind of patch on the forehead or eyelids is known as an angel's kiss.

Which is the most common type of skin cancer, also known by the old name 'rodent ulcer'?

Basal-cell carcinoma grows slowly and is unlikely to spread, mostly appearing on the head and neck. In Canada it makes up as much as a third of all cancer diagnoses.

A surge in which hormones at puberty makes skin glands grow larger and oilier, setting off acne in both sexes?

Androgens such as testosterone and DHT are at work in both sexes, and the hormonal swings of the menstrual cycle may also contribute to breakouts.

What turns the plug in an open clogged pore dark, giving the blackhead its name?

Oxidation is the cause: because the pore is open, air reaches the pigment in the plug and turns it black. Poor hygiene has nothing to do with it.

Which rich fat, a staple of body creams, is extracted from the nut of a tree of the West African savannah?

Shea butter is edible too: it is used in cooking in some African countries and occasionally mixed with other oils as a substitute for cocoa butter.

Which shrub of the Sonoran Desert yields a popular skincare 'oil' that is chemically a liquid wax?

Jojoba 'oil' is a wax ester, closer in make-up to whale oil than to vegetable oils. People cannot digest it; only Bailey's pocket mouse is known to manage that.

Which North American shrub gives its name to a distilled astringent long dabbed on acne and skin irritations?

Witch hazel water is steam-distilled from the leaves, bark and twigs. In the United States it is regulated as an over-the-counter drug for soothing minor skin irritations.

Which sweet-tasting, syrupy moisturising ingredient is released as a by-product when fats are turned into soap?

Glycerin is sweet enough to be used as a sweetener in food, and since about 2010 the making of biofuel has left the world with a large surplus of it.

Which dry-skin cream ingredient became in 1828 the first 'organic' compound made from inorganic chemicals?

Urea was known only as a product of living bodies until Friedrich Wöhler made it in the laboratory, a blow to the doctrine that organic compounds had to come from living things.

Which term describes moisturising ingredients, honey among them, that work by attracting and holding water?

Humectants are hygroscopic, meaning they absorb water vapour from the air around them. Put to the opposite use, the same property makes a desiccant.

Which soft white clay, the key raw material of fine porcelain, is also a staple of face masks?

Kaolin takes its name from Gaoling, 'High Ridge', a place near the Chinese porcelain city of Jingdezhen, and reached English through French reports of 1712.

Which family of cosmetic preservatives, also used in food, do many 'free-from' beauty labels boast of leaving out?

Parabens fell from favour over worries that they might disrupt hormones, though the EU's scientific advisers judged the common ones safe within set concentration limits.

Sunless tanning lotions darken skin through which chemical process, the same one that browns toast and seared steak?

Maillard reaction is the name, after the French chemist who described it in 1912. In a fake tan, the active ingredient DHA joins up with amino acids in the skin's surface.

Traditional soap is made by boiling fats or oils with which caustic liquid, once leached from wood ashes?

Lye from wood ash is rich in potash and gives soft or liquid soaps, while soda lye, sodium hydroxide, makes firm bars. Soapmakers 'superfat' the mix so that none is left over.

Which model launched the skincare brand Rhode in 2022, naming it after her own middle name?

Hailey Bieber first tried to trademark 'Bieber Beauty' and was turned down, because her husband Justin had already registered the name in 2010.

Which beauty company did Emily Weiss found in 2014, building on a blog she wrote while working at Vogue?

Glossier grew out of the blog Into the Gloss and began online-only with just a balm, a facial mist, a sheer skin tint and a moisturiser.

Which cosmetics chain did Anita Roddick found in Brighton in 1976, pledging that nothing would be tested on animals?

The Body Shop's refill policy began by accident: Roddick bottled her first products in urine-sample containers bought from a nearby hospital and did not have enough of them.

The Japanese skincare brand SK-II grew from the observation that elderly workers brewing which drink had youthful hands?

Sake brewery workers spent years with their hands in fermenting yeast. An extract of that yeast, which the company calls Pitera, launched the brand in the early 1980s.

Which Japanese beauty giant, founded as a Tokyo pharmacy in 1872, bought the brand Drunk Elephant in 2019?

Shiseido was set up by Arinobu Fukuhara, a former head pharmacist to the Imperial Japanese Navy. It paid $845 million for the Houston-based newcomer.

Which acne brand, created by dermatologists Katie Rodan and Kathy Fields, became famous through celebrity infomercials?

Proactiv was first offered to Neutrogena, which turned it down. Its chief executive suggested infomercials instead, and buyers were signed up to a rolling subscription.

Which Procter & Gamble soap became famous through the slogans 'It Floats!' and '99 44/100% Pure'?

Ivory floated because air was whipped into the bars as they were made. The purity figure came from an independent laboratory analysis that Harley Procter commissioned.

Which transparent amber soap, first sold in London in 1807, was advertised using the Millais painting 'Bubbles'?

Pears owed its fame to Thomas Barratt, sometimes called the father of modern advertising, who bought the portrait of Millais's grandson in 1886.

Which skincare brand, begun in 1851 as a New York pharmacy, is known for the motorcycles in its stores?

Kiehl's shows the bikes in homage to former owner Aaron Morse, who collected 44 of them. The brand grew by word of mouth and generous free samples rather than traditional advertising.

Which skincare line did Toronto company Deciem launch in 2016, pairing cutting-edge formulas with moderate prices?

The Ordinary was the eleventh brand from Deciem, the self-styled 'Abnormal Beauty Company' founded by Brandon Truaxe, who had arrived in Canada as a refugee from Iran.