Gender-related features of skin

There are subtle differences between the skins of men and women.

The stratum corneum tends to be thicker in men than in women. Moreover, in men the total skin thickness is about 25% greater than in women. The collagen content of skin is directly related to sex: male forearm skin, for example, contains more collagen than female skin at the same site at all ages.

There is also a difference in the composition of the sebum. Also, throughout their lives men produce more sebum than women do, and the lipid film on the surface of their skin is therefore more pronounced: as a result, desquamation in men is a slower process than it is in women.

There are also differences in sweat secretion between the sexes. Men have fewer sweat glands, both eccrine and apocrine.

Skin aging has different features in men and women. These are discussed in Chapter 4 ('Skin and aging').

These beautiful Caucasian children (brother and sister) come from the original Indo-Aryan stock, whose descendants have populated a region stretching from western Europe to the Indian subcontinent.

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