Not Viscous Drag but Matric Forces Are Responsible for Skin Barrier Function

Abstract The outermost layer of the skin, the stratum corneum is only about 20 microns thick, yet plays an important role in preventing an excessive loss of body fluids to the dry environment. By damaging the stratum corneum (mechanically or chemically) the transepidermal water loss (TEWL) increases. For instance removing the whole stratum corneum by stripping the skin with adhesive tape increases the water loss by 10 times (Lo et al., 1990), and after two successive exposures of skin to a detergent solution water loss is almost twice the basal value (Barel et al., 1995).