Skin Trivia Quiz: Myth vs Fact

"Your skin renews itself every 28 days." You have heard it. It is printed on packaging and repeated in beauty columns. When researchers actually measured how long a new cell takes to reach the surface, the answer came out at 40 to 56 days — close to double. That is the kind of question this app is built from. Not "what is good for your skin", but "what did people measure, and what did they find". Most of the things we repeat about skin have been tested by someone. The findings are often stranger than the advice. Rinse a face wearing sunscreen with water alone, and more than half of it is still there. The black dots in the pores on your nose are not dirt at all — they are sebum that has oxidised in contact with air, which is why scrubbing does not shift them. The outermost barrier that holds water in and keeps bacteria out is about as thick as a single sheet of kitchen wrap. Three choices a question, and an explanation after every one. [1] Questions that contradict what you thought you knew The main thread is popular belief against measured result. A driver's face after 28 years at the wheel, published in a medical journal, aged on one side only. Thin cloud overhead barely reduces the ultraviolet reaching the ground. Fresh snow throws back up to eighty percent of it. Each answer is a small correction to something you were fairly sure about. [2] Written for skin in East Asia Pigment spots, not wrinkles, are what shows first — that came out of a study comparing Chinese and French women matched for age. Marks left after acne tend to stay brown. Around half of people surveyed in Japan, Korea and China call their own skin sensitive. Questions are drawn from research done on these populations, rather than translated from material written about someone else's skin. [3] The explanation is the best part Every question carries one. Right or wrong, what follows is where the number came from: who ran the study, on how many people, and what they concluded. Try not to stop at the answer. [4] Eight areas How skin works, ultraviolet, sunscreen, washing and care, ingredients, the cosmetics industry, individual differences, and daily life. Questions are spread evenly, so it never becomes an app about sunscreen alone. [5] Three difficulty levels Bare Skin, Glow and Skin Pro. Start at Bare Skin, or go straight to Skin Pro if that feels slight. Either way you clear one stage at a time, five questions a stage — short enough for a queue or the few minutes before you sleep. [6] Works without a signal Every question is stored in the app. Open it on the underground or on a plane without thinking about your connection. No sign-up, no account. Checked against sources Every question is written from a published source: peer-reviewed dermatology journals, material from public bodies such as the WHO and the American Academy of Dermatology, and published regulations on cosmetics. Where a finding is still argued over, the explanation says so. Who it is for - People who like being told that something they believed is not quite right - People who read the back of the bottle and wonder what the words mean - People curious about how skin actually works - People who want something to talk about Please note This is a trivia app for entertainment and general interest. It is not medical advice, and it does not diagnose, treat or recommend products. For anything about your own skin, ask a dermatologist. Start with one stage — five questions. The reason scrubbing never clears those black dots is in there.