What is the resistance of dry, hard skin?

• A. As high as 10 ohms
• B. As high as 1 kilo-ohm
• C. As high as 1 meg-ohm
• D. As high as 100 meg-ohms

Answer: (C)

Dry, hard skin acts like a strong insulator because it has little moisture and a tough outer layer that resists current flow. In electrical safety practice, dry skin is typically about 1 megohm (a million ohms). That high resistance greatly limits the current that can pass if you touch a live source, which is why dryness reduces shock risk compared with wet skin. The other values aren’t typical for dry skin: ten ohms or a thousand ohms would allow much more current to flow, and one hundred megohms is higher than the common estimate used for dry skin. So the best answer is about 1 megohm.