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Everything you need to write about
The Damaged Skin Barrier.
Fact sheet, author bio, quotable copy and downloadable assets for the mechanism-first book on skin barrier biology by biochemist Geraint Thomas. No products. No routines. Just the biology.
Written by Geraint Thomas and published by Lucidum Press.
At a glance
The details
Title
The Damaged Skin Barrier
Subtitle
A Biochemist’s Guide to Barrier Biology, Damage and Repair
Author
Geraint Thomas, MBiochem
Publisher
Series
A Biochemist’s Guide, No. 1
Publication Date
5 November 2026
Hardback ISBN
978-1-0667596-0-6
Paperback ISBN
978-1-0667596-1-3
Length
260 pages
Structure
11 chapters
Visuals
24 original figures
References
252 unique identifiers
Subject Areas
Skin barrier biology, biochemistry, skincare science, dermatology, cosmetic science, consumer health
The framework
Product-led advice stops at the symptom. This book reads the system.
An independent biochemist’s mechanism-first guide to skin barrier biology, built from primary literature and clinical texts. No product recommendations. No commercial ties. Written for intelligent non-specialist readers.
The aim isn’t to tell readers which brand to trust. It’s to give them enough biology to ask better questions.
Rather than organising skin around products or routines, the book uses 3 systems and one unifying framework:
Structure
The physical architecture of the stratum corneum. Corneocytes embedded in an organised lipid matrix, held together by corneodesmosomal adhesion. What gets in and what stays out is determined here.
Regulation
The biochemical operating systems that keep structure functional: pH, enzyme activity, ionic gradients, microbial balance. When they shift, structure starts to work against itself.
Pressure
The cumulative biochemical, environmental and systemic load placed on the first two: surfactants, UV exposure, hard water, cortisol, circadian disruption and stacked actives.
MOST SKINCARE
THE DAMAGED SKIN BARRIER
Organise by product category: cleanser, toner, serum, moisturiser, SPF.
Organises by biological system: structure, regulation, pressure, repair.
Cite ingredients in general terms.
Cites primary literature. Every claim links to the research behind it.
End with a universal routine that works for everyone.
Ends with a framework for reading your own skin.
Written by industry voices with commercial relationships to the products they recommend.
Written by a biochemist with no product relationships, no affiliate revenue, no brand partnerships.
For Journalists
A different kind of story
What if skin type is the wrong question?
Oily, dry, sensitive and combination describe what skin looks or feels like, but not necessarily why. Thomas argues that temporary barrier states are often mistaken for fixed identities, encouraging people to treat each new symptom instead of asking what their skin is responding to.
The skincare book that doesn't tell you what to buy
The skin is the active party
Skincare is usually sold as the star of the show. Thomas argues that the strongest interventions reveal the opposite: products and treatments alter conditions, remove obstacles or reduce pressure. The biological rebuilding is carried out by the skin itself. The skin is the active party.
The purge that became a book
Thomas spent months treating worsening skin as a retinoid “purge”, while adding more products to manage each new symptom. Eventually he stopped adding products and started reading papers. The book began as an attempt to understand why his own routine had failed.
What is coming out of your tap?
Consumers scrutinise cleanser ingredients while rarely questioning the water used to rinse them away. In hard water, calcium and magnesium can alter surfactant behaviour and promote deposition at the skin surface. Thomas asks why an exposure repeated hundreds of times a year receives so little attention.
When the product outruns the evidence
A biological mechanism can be true without proving that a consumer product reproduces it. Thomas traces the gap between cell studies, delivery through intact skin and finished products, using peptides, light devices, microbiome products and exosomes to show where scientific language travels faster than the evidence.
From cancer research to skin barrier biology
Thomas’ research background was in death-receptor signalling, apoptosis resistance and cell-survival pathways in breast cancer stem-like cells. His first book applies a related question to a very different system: how biology responds to pressure, and why relatively small regulatory changes can produce much larger downstream consequences.
Serious science, without the textbook voice
The book moves between dense biochemistry, personal observation and dry wit rather than flattening the science into simplified advice. Thomas uses humour sparingly, often just as the mechanism gets heavy, then returns to the evidence. The result is technical science written by someone who came to the subject through the same confusion the book sets out to resolve.
Quotable
The book in different registers
Positioning Line
“A book that bridges the gap between dense clinical literature and consumer skincare advice, explaining the evidential biology behind skin damage and repair rather than the oversimplified, often misinterpreted claims most marketing relies on.”
Mechanism First
“An independent biochemist’s mechanism-first guide to skin barrier biology, built from primary literature. No product recommendations. No commercial ties. Written for intelligent non-specialist readers, but built to hold up under clinical and formulator scrutiny.”
Consuming facing / feature
“Most skincare advice tells you what to use. This book explains what’s really happening underneath, why the barrier breaks down in the first place, and what restores true resilience. It turns skincare from a series of hopeful experiments into a process you can reason through. Geraint Thomas is a biochemist, not a brand, so there’s no product range attached, nothing to sell beyond the book itself.”
Punchy
“Your skin barrier is broken by biochemical overload, not a round of bad luck. Most advice prioritises the symptoms, not the mechanism. The Damaged Skin Barrier explains the biology: structure, regulation, pressure. 252 references. Zero product recommendations.”
The Author
A biochemist working in the space between research and explanation.
Geraint Thomas
Biochemist, science communicator and author.
Geraint Thomas holds a first-class integrated Master of Biochemistry degree from Cardiff University.
His research examined how cells under biological pressure survive, resist or are pushed toward death, including work on TNF-family signalling and apoptotic resistance in breast cancer stem cells.
After years working outside the field, he found existing skin barrier resources too product-led and too light on mechanism, and wrote The Damaged Skin Barrier to close that gap.
He founded Lucidum Press and geraintthomasbio.com to build an independent, evidence-first platform for skin barrier science.
Education
MBiochem, First Class Cardiff University
Research
European Cancer Stem Cell Research Institute, 2017–2018 — TNFα signalling, apoptotic regulation, cancer stem cell biology
Platform
Founder, Geraint Thomas Bio — self-employed, September 2025–present
Independence
No product partnerships, no affiliate revenue, no brand relationships
PDF / JPG / ZIP
Press Kit
Book overview, author biography, publication details, story angles and media contact information.
PDF · 2.4 MB
Reviewers
Review copies
Review copies are available for journalists, editors, broadcasters, podcast producers and other relevant media.
Digital review copies can be supplied where appropriate. A limited number of physical copies are available for editorial review.
Please include your publication, programme or platform and any relevant deadline when requesting a copy.
TRADE & INSTITUTIONAL ORDERS
Ordering the book
The Damaged Skin Barrier is available through normal UK book-trade channels in hardback and paperback.
The title can be ordered by booksellers, libraries, universities, clinics and other institutions using its ISBN.
Hardback
ISBN 978-1-0667596-0-6
Paperback
ISBN 978-1-0667596-1-3
Retail Links
Waterstones
PURCHASE HERE ↓
Blackwell's
PURCHASE HERE ↓
Amazon
PURCHASE HERE ↓
Trade Links
For wholesale or institutional ordering enquiries, contact Lucidum Press.
FROM THE BOOK
Skin that doesn't make sense is usually answering a question you haven't asked yet.
The mechanism doesn't need the marketing. The marketing needs the mechanism.
The biology doesn't change. Your understanding of it has.
MEDIA ENQUIRIES
Contact
For interviews, review copies, editorial questions, speaking enquiries or requests for high-resolution material
Geraint Thomas
Biochemist · Author · Founder, Lucidum Press
Website
geraintthomasbio.com
For time-sensitive editorial requests, please include the publication or programme name and deadline.
The Damaged Skin Barrier.
A Biochemist’s Guide to Barrier Biology, Damage and Repair
Published by Lucidum Press.