This paper proposes the ‘skin effect’ of the machining-induced damage at high strain rates. The paper first reviews the published research work on machining-induced damage and then identifies the governing factors that dominate damage formation mechanisms. Among many influential factors, such as stress–strain field, temperature field, material responses to loading and loading rate, and crack initiation and propagation, strain rate is recognized as a dominant factor that can directly lead to the ‘skin effect’ of material damage in a loading process. The paper elucidates that material deformation at high strain rates (> 10³ s⁻¹) leads to the embrittlement, which in turn contributes to the ‘skin effect’ of subsurface damage. The paper discusses the ‘skin effect’ based on the principles of dislocation kinetics and crack initiation and propagation. It provides guidance to predicting the material deformation and damage at a high strain-rate for applications ranging from the armor protection, quarrying, petroleum drilling, and high-speed machining of engineering materials (e.g. ceramics and SiC reinforced aluminum alloys).