Now Valentine’s Day has come and gone, your skincare will not be focused on an individual occasion (unless you have a birthday coming up soon). This may be just as well because skincare is an ongoing matter and sometimes it needs skin specialist help that extends way beyond what you can apply at home or achieve with something you bought over the counter.
This time of year is significant because winter is fast approaching its end. The past few months will have been marked by colder and drier air, with lots of windy conditions that can blow the moisture off your skin, leaving you feeling dry and irritable.
At the same time, any sunshine you will have encountered will be weak and short-lived. Dryness will also have been caused by spending a lot of time indoors with the central heating on.
Now spring is fast approaching, it is time to adjust your approach to skincare. You will soon be feeling warmer, encountering much more direct sunlight and spending less time indoors. Instead of wind and central heating drying your skin, sweat and oil production will increase.
That will have an impact on anyone’s skin, especially if you have pale skin that could be at risk of sunburn from as early as late April if there is a sunny spell. But for those with particular skin conditions, the sun may have a much greater impact.
A good example of this would be hyperpigmentation. This is a condition that can manifest in different ways, from darker patches in specific areas to coverings all over the body. It can often be a symptom of another condition, so it cannot be thought of as one thing with a single cause. Even things like pregnancy can cause it.
While that fact may provide a good reason for getting your general health checked out, the hyperpigmentation itself is usually harmless. However, it may alter your appearance in ways you dislike. Moreover, it can be more pronounced in the sunnier, warmer months of the year, when it is triggered by sun exposure.
This is likely because one of the most common causes of hyperpigmentation is sun spots, which are caused by a lot of sun exposure over time. For this reason, they usually appear on exposed areas of skin like the face and hands.
It is not damaging events like sunburn that cause hyperpigmentation in this way, but the way exposure stimulates the production of more melanin, the pigment responsible for darker skin. This effect can be strengthened by drugs that make skin more sensitive to the sun, as well as the use of oral contraceptives and burn injuries.
Should hyperpigmentation or any other condition that is affected by a lot of sun exposure be something you worry about as spring arrives, come and see our specialists to see what we may be able to do about it.
As the weather gets warmer, the last thing you want to do is have to stay out of the sun because of the effect it has on your skin.
