The other more common pathway through the skin is via the intercellular route. Drugs crossing the skin by this route must pass through the small spaces between the cells of the skin, making the route more tortuous. Although the thickness of the stratum corneum is only about 20 µm, the actual diffusional path of most molecules crossing the skin is on the order of 400 µm. The 20-fold increase in the actual path of permeating molecules greatly reduces the rate of drug penetration.