The skin is the frontier against the external environment and continuously exposed to the environmental oxidative stress such as ultraviolet (UV) irradiation. Protein carbonyls are the major oxidative products of protein and may be introduced by reaction with aldehydes derived from lipid peroxide. Acrolein is one of the most reactive aldehydes generated during degradation of lipid peroxides and protein-acrolein adducts have been found in the oxidatively damaged lesion including UV-damaged skin. Recent studies revealed that protein carbonyls are also detected in thin outermost layer of the skin, the stratum corneum (SC). However, the effect of protein carbonylation on the function of SC was still unclear. In this study, we treated the SC sheets of reconstructed human epidermis and porcine epidermis with acrolein in the experimental conditions to explore the influence of protein carbonylation on the SC. Human and porcine SC sheets treated with acrolein showed less transmission at visible light than untreated SC sheets. Attenuated total reflection-infrared spectroscopy with curve fitting analysis of amide I region showed that acrolein induced alterations in protein secondary structure of the porcine SC sheets, which were accompanied by diminished fibrous keratin structure observed by transmission electron microscopy. These results show the possibility that carbonylation of the SC caused by environmental factors is one of factors altering the fibrous structure of keratin and decreasing the light transmission of SC, which changes the quality of the skin appearance. © 2008 The Authors.