Wrinkly Fingers in Water

I went swimming this week; as I came out of the water and noticed my wrinkly fingers, I wondered why. Since I’ve been very young, I’ve always questioned myself this; however, I’ve never been determined enough to find out the answer. Well, not until this time – I came home with one sole goal in mind: figure out why fingers become wrinkly in water. This blog is proof that I did search for it J.

Here it goes –

We all have an oily substance that protects our skin – water washes away this oily substance. When this happens, a type of dead cells on your outer layer of skin will start to swell up the water. However, the inner layer of skin will remain the same, and so will the connections between the two layers. Therefore, when the outer skin swells up, the places where it is connected to the inner layer will remain closely bonded whilst the places which are not connected are free to swell.  

You may be wondering – why do skin cells on fingers and toes swell, and not skin cells all over the body? Cells do swell and absorb water all over the skin layer of our body, just that they aren’t as visible. The reason is that fingers and toes contain a thicker layer of both the inner and outer layers of skin – which, noticeably, cause the skin to swell up more due to more cells absorbing the water.

Hope you enjoyed my mini lesson of the week J -  

Izzie