Your skin is the largest organ of your body, and it’s incredibly resilient — the ultimate multitasker. But how much do you really know about the skin you are in?

Here are nine things you may not know about your skin and how to help it perform its best.

1. Replenish Dead Cells with a Skincare Routine

Nothing is more important for your skin than maintaining a regular care routine. Your body constantly sheds layers of skin throughout the day. Old cells are being removed so new cells can reproduce.

Your skincare routine will help to repair, hydrate, and improve your skin. Image Skincare has a great line of products that cater to every type of skin no matter what your needs may be.

2. Sweating is Your Body’s Temperature Control

Not everyone’s happy about breaking a sweat. But that’s your body’s method of controlling its overall temperature. When you exert more energy, your blood vessels widen. This enables heat to be released through your skin, all over your body. On the flip side, blood vessels constrict when you’re cold. This leads to what you know as “goosebumps.”

3. Babies Have Different Skin From Ours

Okay, we admit a baby’s skin isn’t totally different, but it does have different qualities. A baby’s skin when he or she is born usually has a blue-ish or purple tint. It’s also covered with a film called vernix. This was what protected them when they were inside the womb.

4. Your Skin Has Multiple Layers

You might not be aware that your skin doesn’t consist of just a single layer. It has an epidermis, the dermis, and the subcutis. Each constitutes a protective barrier for your body against environmental factors like the sun or — yes — even your makeup products.

Make sure you know which ingredients are in the makeup you’re applying to your skin to avoid creating further damage to the layers you can’t see.

5. Scars Are Evidence of Deeper Damage

Because your skin has multiple layers, wounds will vary in how they show up on the skin. A cut that happens in the epidermis usually will heal on its own. A cut that penetrates a deeper layer such as the dermis may lead to scarring. Happily, there are products that can either lessen or completely efface most superficial scars.

6. Sun Damage Shows Up Over Time

After all those years of hanging out in the sunshine without proper sunscreen, you may eventually start to see some repercussions. Aside from an initial burn, your skin typically doesn’t show the side effects from sun damage until much later.

These may consist of anything from small white blotches across your skin to moles that lead the way to skin cancer. Make sure to get your skin checked during regular health checkups or if you spot something that looks out of the ordinary.

7. Dry Skin Can Be Dangerous

A lot of people experience dry skin during the colder winter months. This might involve something more than just discomfort, though. Dry skin gets brittle and cracked, which leaves openings for bacteria to get into and through your skin, and could lead to infection, viruses, or fungi. It’s crucial to keep your outer layer extra hydrated during periods when you feel you have overly dry skin.

8. Skin Reacts to Stress

We all know the impact stress can have on our health. Aside from interior complaints, it can also exert a dramatic impact on our skin. Stress induces higher levels of cortisol and may cause inflammation. Both of these not only lead to acne, but reduce the elasticity of your skin, which in turn may progress to early onset of wrinkles.

9. Your Skin May Be Giving You Signals

Your skin is smarter than you may give it credit for. Issues happening with your skin might be your body’s way of signaling much larger concerns. Acne, for instance, might be hinting that your body is experiencing an influx of hormones that indicate polycystic ovarian syndrome, pregnancy, or even liver disease.

An incredibly wide range of conditions may be indicated by what happens with your skin, so it’s worth consulting a doctor if your skin isn’t behaving like its normal self.