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The skin offers an ideally suited, clinically relevant model for studying the crossroads between peripheral and systemic responses to stress. A ‘brain–skin connection' with local neuroimmunoendocrine circuitry underlies the pathogenesis of allergic and inflammatory skin diseases, triggered or aggravated by stress. In stressed mice, corticotropin-releasing hormone, nerve growth factor, neurotensin, substance P and mast cells are recruited hierarchically to induce neurogenic skin inflammation, which inhibits hair growth. The hair follicle is both a target and a source for immunomodulatory stress mediators, and has an equivalent of the hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal axis. Thus, the skin and its appendages enable the study of complex neuroimmunoendocrine responses that peripheral tissues launch upon stress exposure, as a basis for identifying new targets for therapeutic stress intervention.