SKIN DEEP

The stratum corneum, the outer layer of the skin (epidermis), is made up entirely of dead cells. “It is an interesting thought that all that makes you lovely is deceased,” Bryson writes. “Where body meets air we are all cadavers.” The cells are replaced every month, 25,000 skin flakes shed every minute. “Run a finger along a dusty shelf and you are in large part clearing a path through fragments of your former self,” Bryson says.