8 Answers

It is estimated that humans lose 30,000 – 40,000 dead skin cells each and every minute. Furniture fabric, bedding, and clothes release fibers every time they are used or disturbed. Pets also contribute to house dust by shedding skin cells and hair. If your home is carpeted, there are even more fibers being released into the air.

Dust is mostly dead skin cells. Indoor dust that is........

One of the frustrating things about house cleaning is that no matter how clean you try to keep things, household dust still accumulates. That grey dust, it turns out, is largely human skin. The tiny flakes of skin that we lose on a daily basis create over seventy percent of the dust in our home.

Dry skin is a translucent grey colour. Of course humans come in different colours, but the pigments which colour our skin are found beneath the layer that we shed. Blood vessels, too, are much deeper down, and are not lost as skin sheds. Therefore, there is neither blood nor pigment to colour the grey skin dust.

The epidermis, or outer layer of skin, sheds skin cells and replaces them with healthy new cells. The epidermis is completely replaced once a month. It's estimated that everyone sheds about half a kilogram of skin a year, as our skin cells are continually replaced. Unfortunately, we don't replace the lower layer of skin called the dermis where scars and stretch marks occur. Since this layer doesn't shed, the scars stay with us.

Beyond the seventy percent of skin dust, the remaining thirty percent of house dust comes in different colours because it's mostly wind blown soil, varying according to our geographic location.

So next time you dust, remember that grey powder is largely made up of members of yourfamily or friends who've left it behind.

Ducky

That's it dowsa...more time spent with you, means less time at home with the vacuum cleaner! lol

And did you also know that when a person leaves the bathroom after 'expelling' that the smell left behind is actually microscopic particulates of feces??   

Ducky

I don't think that we wanted to know that but thanks anyway. lol

that is way to much information!  I really glad my toilet and bathroom are seperate. Also what happens to those particulates -- do they float up,  or drop down?????

Ducky

Hey Dacia...don't encourage him, okay? :)

Dust is nothing but misplaced dirt.

know him well, you do??  Gross out his thing, is it?  What does Ducka know of this?