Amazing Facts About the Skin

1.) The area of skin of a typical adult is 1.7 square metres – slightly smaller than a single bed.

2.) Skin is the body's heaviest single part, or organ, with a weight of about 11 kg.

3.) Every month, there's a 'new you'. The entire outer surface of skin is replaced every four weeks.

4.) On normal healthy skin, the number of germs such as bacteria per square cm vary from 5,000 on the forearm to up to 5 million in the armpits.

5.) Most people have more hairs than a gorilla or a chimp – about 20 million in total. The reason why we look much hairy is that our body hairs are much shorter and thinner than ape hair.

6.) Hair is amazingly strong, with a tensile (pulling) strength greater than steel wire of the same thickness.

7.) The body has about three million sweat glands.

8.) In normal conditions the body produces one-third of a litre of sweat daily.

9.) An active body in hot conditions can lose more than two or three litres of sweat through a day.