Skin Flakes and Clothing Fiber

The clothing fiber (cotton above and rayon below) is easily seen in this tapelift from a home by its birefingence. The human skin flake is the faint, isotropic, more equant, colorless particle at the upper center of the right margin of this image. The rounded particle to the left of the skin flake is a hydrated starch particle. The typical cross patern of the starch grain is absent because of the use of circular polarized light.