What it is?
Freckles are essentially pigment spots. They can be light yellow or dark yellow in color. Such marks appear in places where a special coloring pigment is deposited in the skin - a substance called melanin. Classic freckles have a regular round shape, most often they are concentrated in the central part of the face, as well as on the top of the back and in the décolleté area. Sometimes you can count them on your fingers, but in some cases the number of such marks goes beyond a hundred.
The main difference between freckles and moles or pronounced age spots is the absence of a significant number of melanocytes—cells that produce melanin—in the former.
How to get rid of freckles on your face
In order to get rid of freckles, you can use folk cosmetics or modern medications - they are equally effective.
The best folk recipes for eliminating freckles are:
- Tea and milk. Strongly brewed tea is rubbed with light massaging movements into the areas of the skin where the largest number of freckles are present. Then, after 15-20 minutes, the face is washed in sour milk, after which it is washed again in ordinary warm water without using soap.
- Dandelions. It is necessary to collect fresh dandelion leaves, grind them in a wooden mortar, and then rub the resulting mixture on your face. After 15 minutes, the skin is washed, after which a nourishing cream is applied to it.
- Lightening agents. Getting rid of freckles is quite difficult; it is much easier to lighten them, making them almost invisible. To lighten freckles, you need to wipe areas with age spots with fresh juice of lemon, cucumber, onion, parsley or strawberry, and then thoroughly wash your face with warm water.
- Sour cream and cottage cheese. To prepare a mask for freckles, you need to mix sour cream and cottage cheese in equal quantities, then add a teaspoon of hydrogen peroxide to them. All ingredients are thoroughly mixed, after which the mask is applied to the face. After 15 minutes, the mask is washed off with warm or cool water and delicate soap.
- Almond. Place several almonds in boiling water and boil for 15 minutes. Then the nuts need to be cooled, peeled and ground. Add a tablespoon of water and a teaspoon of honey to the resulting nut gruel, then mix thoroughly. The resulting mixture is applied to the face for 10-15 minutes, and then washed off with cool water.
- Honey and parsley. To prepare the mask, you need to chop fresh parsley leaves, mix them with honey and add a few drops of fresh lemon juice. The resulting mixture is applied only to those areas that are most affected by age spots, and for a period of no more than 20 minutes. The mask is washed off with warm water, after which you need to apply a nourishing cream to the skin.
Also, a variety of modern cosmetics that can be purchased at any pharmacy are perfect for eliminating freckles. In addition to various cosmetic preparations, there are also more modern high-tech methods for eliminating freckles, namely:
- Laser removal of freckles. The skin of the face is exposed to a special powerful beam, which can lighten or completely eliminate freckles without causing harm.
- Cryosurgery. The method involves low-temperature removal of pigment spots; the affected areas of the skin are exposed to liquid nitrogen. As a result, freckles disappear almost completely, but often the skin of the face is severely damaged by extremely low temperatures.
- Quartzization. A method of influencing facial skin using radiation from quartz lamps. This method takes quite a long time, but it actively eliminates freckles and at the same time protects them from their subsequent occurrence. The essence of the method is that under the influence of quartz rays, the old layer of skin is exfoliated, and new skin is formed that is more resistant to ultraviolet rays.
- Phototherapy. A method of exposing the face to strong light rays, which stabilize the production of melanin in all skin cells, as a result of which they acquire a perfectly uniform shade. The only drawback of this procedure is its high cost.
- Chemical peeling. This procedure consists of actively cleansing the skin of all unnecessary elements. This procedure not only eliminates age spots, but also actively removes all dead, non-viable cells.
Why and how do they appear?
Freckles are often hereditary. Scientists have concluded that they can sometimes be caused by the recessive gene MC1R. But sometimes freckles appear in those with curls of a completely different color, often light. Some experts are confident that spots on the skin can appear regardless of heredity, but their number is determined mainly at the genetic level.
The mechanism by which hemp appears on the skin is associated with the effect of ultraviolet radiation on the body. When exposed to sunlight, the body reacts by depositing melanin. In this case, existing freckles become darker, and new spots form. Sometimes in winter the skin clears up and becomes absolutely even in color, but with the first rays of the sun the same spots may appear again and become brighter.
Freckles are not considered a disease or disorder. However, they directly indicate a person’s increased sensitivity to the aggressive effects of ultraviolet radiation.
What causes them to appear on the face in spring?
Most often, freckles appear in the spring, when the first sun begins to warm up. Skin that has become unaccustomed to ultraviolet radiation over the winter instantly reacts to it. But instead of an even tan, the face becomes covered with spots.
Sometimes freckles appear on the body and face not in the spring, but in the hot summer, for example, with intense exposure to the sun. In this case, their appearance is explained by non-compliance with the rules of safe tanning. Such marks are also called sunspots; they are larger than classic freckles (from 0.2 to 2 cm), have a disproportionate shape and are too dark in color. They may disappear over time, but most often remain on the face and body for a long time.
It is believed that proper UV protection helps avoid the appearance of such spots.
Who has them?
Most often, freckles appear in children and continue to remain on the skin until the age of 30. Such spots are typical for:
- Owners of red hair.
- People with fair skin.
- People with blond hair.
Such people initially do not have much protective pigment in their skin, so their melanin often accumulates locally.
Types of Freckles
What are freckles from a medical point of view? The spots are formed due to an excess of the skin pigment melanin. Often the location of freckles is the face (nose, cheeks), but they can spread throughout the body, only in much smaller quantities.
There are two main types of age spots due to their occurrence:
- Efilides. Clusters of freckles in the classical sense. They are often observed in people with fair skin, brighter and more numerous in the warm season due to prolonged exposure to direct sunlight.
- Lentigo. They appear extremely rarely and have no connection with seasonality (they do not disappear even in winter). Lentigines are quite large in diameter - 5-10 mm, and they are also much darker than ordinary freckles. This phenomenon belongs to the class of diseases.
If you have a question about what freckles mean and whether they are dangerous preconditions for pathology, you should consult a dermatologist to diagnose the nature of their appearance.
Why do people need it?
Most experts are confident that freckles themselves do not have any function. They are simply a skin reaction to ultraviolet radiation. However, there is a fairly popular opinion that hemp, as centers of concentrated tanning, plays the role of a protective factor - they protect important areas of the human body from the aggression of ultraviolet radiation. This opinion is only a theory; it has no scientific evidence.
What do freckles and age spots mean?
Many people consider the “kiss of the sun” to be a harmless phenomenon. Yes, many are not happy, but small brownish spots do not pose a danger.
Many girls struggle with a “cosmetic defect,” which freckles often are not. Reddish spots are not a disease, just the melanin pigment appears on the skin under the influence of UV rays.
You need to be wary in the following cases when noted:
- sudden increase in the number of spots;
- change in shape and size of pigmented areas;
- noticeable darkening of certain areas;
- the appearance on the skin of not only small, but large spots, moles, especially dark or almost black;
- itching, burning sensation of unknown nature.
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Pathological causes on the body
Sometimes the sudden appearance of freckles on the body can be a symptom. In particular, if such pigmentation suddenly appears in an adult who has never had hemp before, it can warn of:
- Hormonal imbalance. A similar problem can occur in women of reproductive age due to a failure in the normal functioning of the ovaries. This disrupts the production of hormones, which leads to improper distribution of melanin. At the same time, a woman may also face the problem of an irregular menstrual cycle and painful sensations in the mammary glands. The presence of alarming symptoms should be considered as a reason to consult a gynecologist.
- Disturbances in the functioning of the liver or biliary tract. It is believed that the appearance of hemp in such problems is directly related to the level of bilirubin in the blood.
Sometimes the appearance of many small hemp on the body is accompanied by the appearance of pigment spots on the mucous membranes, which can warn of the development of a rare Peutz-Eghers syndrome, in which many benign polyps (sometimes more than a hundred) are formed in the digestive tract, prone to growth and malignancy. To date, this disease cannot be treated.
If freckles suddenly appear in an adult, it is worth undergoing a complete unscheduled examination by a doctor.
Appearance mechanism
The progression of freckles directly depends on age:
- The first spots usually appear at the age of 3–5 years. Over time, if you do not take care of your skin and with prolonged sunbathing, they darken and become even more saturated.
- Their most active manifestations occur during puberty due to a “hormonal” surge. A person looks as freckled as possible before the age of 25, after which the spots gradually fade.
- Freckles all over the body can appear after forty. They are called “age-related” or “liver-related”. Their number is gradually increasing. In this case, specialist advice is required.
Seasonally, freckles appear in early spring, when it gets warmer, due to increased ultraviolet exposure. Towards mid-autumn they become almost invisible. Sometimes freckles on the lips, nose, and cheeks do not go away at all, only fade a little in the autumn-winter period.
People with this feature tend to spend less time in the sun so that freckles do not appear in even greater numbers and become more noticeable.
