Why do your fingers get wrinkly in the pool?

Question

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Answer 1

Lack of sebum (the epidermis oil). It gets depleted off your skin if you spend too much time in the water.

Once this happens, the concentration of water in the pool is higher than in your body. The water flows from the pool to your skin by osmosis (from high concentration to low concentration).

Answer 2

Even though you can't see it, your skin is covered with its own special oil called sebum. Sebum is found on the outermost layer of skin. Sebum lubricates and protects your skin. It also makes your skin a bit waterproof. That's why getting caught in the rain, hopping in the shower after a game, or washing your hands before dinner won't leave your skin soggy. Sebum is there to keep the water out.

But what happens when you spend a long time in the water? Well, there's only a particular amount of sebum on your skin at a time. Once the sebum is washed away, the water can make its way into the outer layer of skin. The water does this by osmosis. This is when water actually moves from one thing into another, from a place where there is more water to a place where there is less water. There is more water in the pool than there is in your body, so it naturally moves to the place where there is less water - you!

Although your fingers may look shriveled like raisins, they aren't really shriveled - they're actually waterlogged! The extra water in your fingers causes the skin to swell in some places but not others, and that's what causes the wrinkles.

It isn't just pool water that washes away the sebum. Sitting in the bathtub for a long soak can also wash away the sebum and leave a kid with soggy skin. Washing dishes for a long time, scrubbing and rinsing your puppy, cleaning the gravel in your aquarium - anything that keeps your hands in water long enough will give you wrinkly fingers.

Answer 3

After spending about half an hour soaking in a nice, hot bathtub you look down at your hands and feet and realize that you have been attacked by a case of wrinkly, raisin skin. Especially the tips of your fingers and toes have shriveled up like prunes. What happened to your skin to make it wrinkle?

Your skin is made up of two layers. The outer layer is called the epidermis and the lower level is the dermis. The outer layer (epidermis) produces an oily substance called sebum. You can see this substance when you touch a window or mirror and your "oily" fingerprint is left there. One job sebum does is it keeps water out of your skin—a job that it does very well. However, after long periods of time in a swimming pool, shower, or bathtub, much of the sebum is washed off and your outer layer of skin starts to absorb water. As it absorbs water it swells, but since the epidermis is "tied" down to your dermis in certain spots, it expands more where it is not "tied" down and this causes your skin to wrinkle. The difference between your skin and a raisin is that raisins wrinkle because they shrink, but your skin wrinkles because it is getting bigger.

Once you get out of the pool or tub, the water that your skin absorbed will evaporate, your skin will return to its usual size, and you body will produce more sebum. Your fingers and toes will be back to normal in no time.