When I started Olive & Joyce, my mission was simple, to create natural skincare that I’d be proud to put on my own skin and on my loved ones too. Like so many of you, I had tried product after product, only to find that my skin didn’t love the long lists of synthetic ingredients. I wanted to go back to basics, to ingredients you can trust, and formulas that truly nourish and support your skin’s natural beauty.
Over the past few years, I have loved sharing what I’ve learned through my blogs, whether it’s about skincare for different skin types, embracing pro-ageing, or exploring natural ways to support healthy skin. If you’re curious, you might enjoy Why We're Anti Anti-Ageing, In My Mother’s Skin - Should Genetics Effect Our Skincare Routine?, or When Did Men Start Caring About Skincare?
However, the more I’ve written about skincare, the more I have realised to really understand how to care for your skin, it helps to know what it’s actually made of. After all, if you are building a house, you need to know what the foundations are made of before choosing the materials for the walls. The same goes for your skin: when you understand its layers, structure and role, it becomes much clearer why natural skincare is the best way to support it.
So today, I thought I’d share 12 fascinating skin facts that will help you appreciate this amazing organ and make more informed, skin-loving choices in your daily routine.
Let’s Talk Skin – 12 fascinating skin facts
1. Your skin is your body’s largest and most beautifully complex organ
Let’s start with the basics. Your skin is an organ, just like your heart or liver. In fact, it’s the largest organ you have covering around 2 square metres and weighing up to 4.5kg. It works hard protecting you, regulating temperature, and helping you sense the world around you.
Your skin itself is made up of three beautifully layered sections.
Firstly, we have the Epidermis, which is your protective outer shield. Under that is the Dermis, home to collagen, elastin, hair follicles and sweat glands. And finally, sitting on top of your muscles, is the Hypodermis a deep cushion of fat and connective tissue that helps keep you warm and protected.
Together, these layers form your incredible skin barrier helping to keep the good things in, and the harmful things out.
Your skin is incredibly complex and varied too. It is not the same thickness all over, the skin on your eyelids is just 0.5mm thick (which is why this area needs extra gentle care and fewer skincare products), while the skin on your heels can be up to 4mm thick, helping it withstand more wear and tear.
Just as your skin varies in thickness, it also varies in tone. The amount of melanin in your skin produced by melanocytes determines the beautiful and unique colour of your skin.
It is important to remember, though, that all skin tones benefit from daily supportive care and sun protection helping your skin stay healthy, resilient, and glowing.
Not only this but our skin is super smart, as it even makes its own moisturiser. It produces a natural oily substance called sebum, which helps form a protective barrier to lock in moisture and keep out pollutants.
When sebum is balanced, it will be your best friend, however, when it is not, it can either clog up pores and cause acne, or won’t produce enough and cause dry, flaky and sensitive skin.
Harsh cleansing, over-exfoliation, acids, high strength vitamin c and factory made moisturisers can also disrupt this natural process. Supporting your skin with natural plant oils will help it stay calm, comfortable, and beautifully hydrated.
2. Skincare has been around for thousands of years
Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans were all huge fans of skincare. Cleopatra famously bathed in milk, as it was an early exfoliant thanks to lactic acid. This would have left her skin super soft and hydrated. Meanwhile, olive oil was prized as a natural moisturiser.
Though many of these ancient ingredients are wonderful for the skin, my particular favourite comes from Ghana, Africa and it dates back centuries.
Shea Butter is still made today by women using the same traditional methods passed down through generations. It’s a beautiful, rich natural ingredient that I continue to use in my own moisturisers, because it is so nourishing, deeply hydrating, and packed with skin loving vitamins.
Some ingredients really do stand the test of time and they still hold their place in modern natural skincare products.
3. Your skin renews itself every 28–40 days
Your skin is constantly regenerating and producing new cells deep down, moving them up to the surface, where they shed naturally. This process happens roughly every month, though it can slow with age. That’s why a little gentle exfoliation and a supportive natural skincare routine can do wonders for healthy skin.
4. Your skin protects and adapts to the outside world
Your skin is cleverly designed to protect you from the world around you acting as your personal bodyguard against pollution, bacteria, UV rays, and more. It forms a waterproof skin barrier, helping to keep your body hydrated while shielding it from harm.
But your skin is more than just a passive shield, it is constantly adapting. Take your fingers and toes for example: those fingerprints and ridges aren’t random. They are part of a sophisticated grip system, so when your hands and feet are immersed in water for a while, the skin wrinkles deliberately. It’s not your skin getting "waterlogged", it’s your nervous system triggering this effect to help you grip better on wet surfaces.
5. Your skin and emotions are deeply connected
Your skin is a sensory powerhouse, packed with over 1,000 nerve endings per square inch. It helps you sense the world around you, from the comforting warmth of a hug to the tickle of a breeze.
That same sensitivity also means your skin responds to your emotions and mental state. Stress, for example, can show up in a flash as breakouts, flushing, or temperamental sebaceous glands.
You might have noticed your skin blushing when you’re nervous or excited too, and here’s a silver lining: blushing increases blood flow, which can help stimulate collagen production. So the more you blush, the more youthful your skin may appear.
Positive touch is just as powerful. From a gentle facial massage to simply applying your moisturiser more mindfully (always massaging the skin up, not down), touch helps boost circulation, supports healthy skin, and brings a soothing moment of connection.
It’s the perfect reminder that caring for your skin means caring for your whole self and that good sleep, stress management, and a little self-care can have a visible effect on your complexion.
6. Your skin can make vitamin D
Your skin is your body’s very own vitamin D factory. With the help of sunlight, it converts cholesterol into vitamin D, a hormone essential for bone health, immunity and mood. Just a few minutes of sun on bare skin can do wonders (though in the UK, we often need a little extra help through the winter).
7. Your skin is home to trillions of microbes
Yes, really your skin hosts a thriving community of friendly bacteria called the skin microbiome. These tiny organisms help keep your skin balanced and resilient. However harsh soaps and synthetic ingredients can disrupt this delicate ecosystem, so it’s really worth choosing natural skincare products that help it thrive.
8. Collagen is the scaffolding of youthful skin
Collagen is the protein that gives skin its plumpness and elasticity. As we age, natural collagen production slows but antioxidant-rich natural skincare can help support and protect what we have got, allowing skin to age beautifully. (I wrote a lovely blog all about this click here.)
9. Your skin has its own immune system
Your skin isn’t just a passive barrier, it has its own network of immune cells that patrol the skin layers and help fight off infections and repair damage. Keeping your skin barrier healthy supports this natural immune system.
10. Your skin sheds around 30,000–40,000 skin cells every minute
Yes, every single minute! That adds up to about 9 pounds (4 kg) of dead skin cells per year. Regular gentle exfoliation supports this natural process helping to prevent your skin from looking dull or feeling rough and dry to the touch.
11. Skin has its own circadian rhythm
Your skin cells follow a circadian rhythm (body clock), which means skin behaves differently during the day and night. During the day, it focuses on protection; at night, it switches to repair and regeneration. This is why nighttime skincare is so beneficial.
12. Goosebumps are a throwback to your ancestors
Finally and one of my favourite fun skin facts! When you get goosebumps, tiny muscles at the base of your hair follicles contract. For our ancestors, this puffed up their hair to help retain heat or make them appear larger and more intimidating when threatened. Today, however, it is more of a leftover reflex but certainly a fascinating one nonetheless.
Why natural skincare matters
Your skin is a living organ, what you put on it matters. Go for products where, when you read the ingredients, you can picture the source a flower, a fruit, a seed, not something that contains numbers or cooked up in a lab. It’s a bit like food: a delicious homemade meal is easy for your gut to digest and will nourish you. Your skin feels exactly the same, if you feed your skin a steady diet of highly processed skincare, it can start to suffer, just like your gut would if you lived on fast food every week. Many mainstream products contain synthetic chemicals that strip your skin or disrupt its natural balance (sebaceous glands).
In contrast, natural skincare products, cold-pressed raw plant oils, flower waters, and botanical extracts are rich in the kinds of vitamins and nutrients your skin understands and welcomes. They help maintain your skin barrier, support a healthy skin microbiome, and are much gentler on our sensitive or mature skin.
A personal note from me
When I first started Olive & Joyce, I wanted to create products that I felt happy putting on my own skin and that I’d happily share with my mum, my friends, and my children. Nature knows best when it comes to nourishing and protecting the skin we live in.
It is why I created our famous motto: "Skincare So Natural You'll Want To Eat It."
So next time you apply your favourite natural face oil or cream, take a moment to appreciate just how incredible your skin really is and how much it does for you, every single day.
And if you’re looking to treat it to something special, our nourishing 100% natural oil cleansers and creams are packed with plant-based goodness to support your skin’s natural glow. A little drop or dollop of nature’s magic, made with love.