Smart Skins

.

002 | Research

     +  Mechanical Properties and Barrier Function of Healthy Human Skin 

This article investigates the relationships between the mechanical properties and the barrier function of the human skin through experiments on healthy individuals. The skin will go under several tests to test the complexity of the barrier function and the mechanical systems that lie within the epidermis. The skin will then be analyzed under  two main tests; the Wilcoxon signed rank test and the Spearman's rank correlation test. The purpose of this test is to understand how the skin reacts to stress in order to asses the functionality and structure of the dermis and epidermis layers.

• Mechanical Properties
• resides in the collagen and elastic fibers of the dermis

• Barrier Function
• resides in the upper-layer of the skin; the epidermis
• The exterior part of the epidermis has multiple creases and wrinkles
• set to act as a shock absorber
• helps with flexibility of the skin

     - Materials

• The test was conducted on 16 healthy individuals ( 5 men and 11 women). No one had any signs of infections or previous diseases.

• Test tools
• The Dermflex
• a suction cup to measure the mechanical properties of the skin.
• it further studies the distensibility, elasticity, and hysteresis
• The Dermalab
• it measures the permeability of the skin
• this test will be focused on the epidermis
• The Corneometer
• it measures the hydration levels in the epidermis

     - Method
     - Results