The reason behind those fabulous freckles

ALTHOUGH they may seem like it, freckles are not angel kisses, nor are they stars of the night sky sparkling on your cheeks.

YouTube series SciShow explains the real reason some people have freckles and it’s all down to melanin.

According to the channel, freckles are small patches of skin that contain higher levels of melanin – the pigment that is responsible for our skin, eyes and hair colour.

The pigment is produced by melanocytes – skin cells that act as a natural sunblock – darkening your skin and protecting you from the sun’s dangerous UV rays.

That’s right, freckles help to protect you from the sun!

Melanin is evenly distributed throughout the skin for some people.

For freckles to appear, melanin forms in little clumps which get darker when exposed to sunlight and this why your freckles tend to fade in the winter time.

Another myth is that nobody is born with freckles. Instead, they appear after spending time in the sun.

But freckles are not to be confused with lentigines (liver spots).

In lentigines, the skin contains more melanocyte cells and they don’t normally change much depending on your exposure to sunlight.

Freckles are also linked to a key genetic player in regulating your skin and hair colour, the gene MC1R.

This gene is said to control which kind of melanin you produce, either eumelanin or pheomelanin.

Eumelanin leads to darker hair and skin that protects against the sun. On the other hand if you have pheomelanin, you’re most likely to have fairer skin, blonde or red hair, and freckles.

But this does not mean that all people with red hair have freckles, nor do all freckled people have red hair.

Apart from their protective measures, freckles have become a growing make-up trend, with more people drawing them on!

As make-up blogger Sharifa Easmin puts it, ‘Maybe she’s born with it… maybe she drew them on.’