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I’ve updated this post with interesting things I’ve learned in the past two years. The original post can be found here. Your skin is composed of three layers – the epidermis, the dermis, and the hypodermis or subcutis. Our main focus will be the epidermis or the outer layer of our skin. I find it interesting...
I’m still on a quest to figure out the answer to this question…so let’s review information I’ve found so far. What is a humectant? “Humectancy or hygroscopy is the tendency of a substance to attract water from the surroundings by absorption and adsorption at defined conditions (temperature, humidity).” (page 26, this review). Is glycerin a...
What are electrolytes? (And are they really what plants crave?) “An electrolyte is any substance containing free ions that make the substance electrically conductive. The most typical electrolyte is an ionic solution, but molten electrolytes and solid electrolytes are also possible. Commonly, electrolytes are solutions of acids, bases or salts.” (From Wikipedia). In other words, when you...
What the heck is osmosis? “Osmosis is the movement of solvent molecules through a selectively permeable membrane into a region of higher solute concentration, aiming to equalize the solute concentrations on the two sides. It may also be used to describe a physical process in which any solvent moves, without input of energy, across a...
What does it mean if something is a molecule? “A molecule is an electrically neutral group of two or more atoms held together by covalent chemical bonds.” (Wikipedia). In other words, a molecule is when you have two or more atoms bound together in some way. One atom does not make a molecule – hydrogen...