Welcome to the second part of the series looking at skin disorders. In this part we will look at the next level of common skin diseases. Previously we defined diseases as abnormal appearance, feeling, or sensation of the skin requiring diagnosis by a medical practitioner, which may need treatment either by prescription medicines or procedures performed by a medical professional. This information is important for…

Gaining a New Perspective Both modern medicine and spa services have tended to be symptom-based in their approach to disease. Symptom-based approaches are short-term fixes that don’t affect the cause, or necessarily the recurrence, of the problem. If instead you develop an understanding of the underlying mechanisms of disease, and tune your perspective to eliminating them or protecting the body from them, you have turned…

The Melanocyte The melanocyte is a cell located within the basal layer of the epidermis. The primary role of this specialized cell is to produce pigment and provide color to the skin. There are approximately 1500 melanocytes per square millimeter in the skin. They produce two types of pigment melanin; Eumelanin, which is a brown/black melanin; and pheomelanin, which is a red/yellow melanin. Our individual…

In my article “Guidelines for Recognizing Common Skin Disorders," we looked at the most prominent skin diseases including acne, rosacea, atopic dermatitis, hyperpigmentation, and actinic keratoses. In this article, we will cover the next level of common skin conditions skin care professionals will face, which can be improved with or without the use of prescription topical therapies for which a physician, nurse practitioner, or physician’s…