# Decomposition and Skin

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/decomposition-and-skin/960728>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 9, 2022, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/decomposition-and-skin/960728 "2022-03-09T06:05:06Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\
**Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/decomposition-and-skin/960728/1 "2022-03-09T06:05:06Z")

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Something that I have wondered about for some time now.

The outer layer of human skin is dead. Right? So why doesn’t it decompose?

When you die, from what I understand, your outer dermis starts decaying in one day. Often it turns bluish green, probably from fungi already present in the atmosphere, I would assume.

Considering the aforementioned fact, why doesn’t this process ever happen when you’ve alive?

🙂

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**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\
**Post date:** [March 9, 2022, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/decomposition-and-skin/960728/2 "2022-03-09T06:56:03Z")

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It appears that the outer layer of skin is not dead. You can read about it in [this Wiki article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_skin):

> It was previously believed that the stratum corneum was “a simple, biologically inactive, outer epidermal layer comprising a fibrillar lattice of dead keratin”. It is now understood that this is not true, and that the stratum corneum should be considered to be a live tissue.