Skin Deep

Brownish patches on the skin – often caused by sun exposure – are an unpleasant side effect of ageing. Tamsin Marshall looks at how to tackle them

Pigmentation is a common skin condition and is a particular concern for New Zealand women, due to our increased exposure to UV rays from the sun in the Southern Hemisphere. Around 80% of the signs of ageing can be attributed to sun damage. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to deal with the issue as it depends on which type of pigmentation you have and where it sits in the skin.

So we asked Lauren Harding, skin team leader at Auckland’s The Face Place clinic, to tell us more about what causes pigmentation and the different treatments available.

“There are different types of pigmentation sitting at different depths in the skin,” Lauren explains. “Superficial pigment sits nearer the surface and generally looks darker. Pigmentation that drops below the epidermis into the dermis is known as dermal pigment and tends to look lighter or more shadow-like.

“Pigmentation is defined as the brownish or black patches of discolouration on the skin that appear due to abnormal production or metabolism of the skin pigment, melanin, which create an uneven skin tone. Melanin is produced by special cells in the skin called melanocytes, and is what gives both our skin and hair its colour.

 “There are two types of melanin: eumelanin, which is a dark-brownish black colour; and phaeomelanin, which is a yellowish red. The different mixtures of the two melanin types gives the wide variety of skin and hair colour; white hair or skin has no melanin, while redheads have smaller clusters of phaeomelanin, and dark skin has larger deposits of eumelanin.

“Eumelanin is a strong free-radical scavenger and deactivates free radicals caused by UV damage. Phaeomelanin – the reddish-brown form – actually aggravates the effects of the sun, which is why red heads tend to be more sensitive to sun damage.”