Natural Anti Aging Skin Care Treatments

Skin discoloration is one of the major skin concern to most of the people.  In order to have a radiant glow healthy skin, we need to understand skin care basic, the causes and 3-phase process of skin discoloration.

Causes of Skin Discoloration

• Sun damage:  Exposure of skin to sunlight is one of the main causes of developing skin discoloration.  These pigments will fade when sun exposure is reduced at minimum stage.

• Stress:  Stress is one of the activators of the skin pigments production.  So, it is important to maintain a healthy level of stress hormone like cortisol besides applying a good range of skin care treatments.

• Hormone Imbalance:  It is one of the causes that lead to skin discoloration since estrogen over-stimulates pigment-producing cells, causing them to generate excess color when exposed to sunlight.  Besides, hormonal change due to pregnancy will also cause skin discoloration.

• Other causes:  Irritation, poor lifestyle, genetic factor and environmental aging.

How does skin discoloration happen?
In fact, skin discoloration is a result of dark pigmentation on skin surface due to 3-phase process:  Activation, Synthesis and Expression phase.

1) Activation Phase
When skin is exposed to skin stressors such as UV, stress or irritants, this will trigger the activation of the melanin cells (melanocyte).  When this happens, signal molecules become active and will bind to their receptors, and thus cause cells to initiate melanin synthesis.

2) Synthesis Phase
Once the melanin cells (melanocyte) are activated, chemical reaction will start at the lowest part of the epidermis within the melanin cells.  The enzyme named tyrosinase becomes active and will convert amino acid tyrosine to a molecule called Dopa, which will be converted into Dopaquinone afterwards.  Through a series of reactions, Dopaquinone is converted into either dark melanin, associated with dark skin, or light melanin, predominant at fair skin.  This will cause the skin discoloration looked at expression phase.

3) Expression Phase
At this stage, melanin or skin pigments are transferred to the skin cells nearby and through normal cell turnover, these pigments migrates upwards to the skin surface and become visible through the expression of the skin discoloration.

Please have a look on below video clip on the 3-phase process of skin discoloration.

In fact, melanin is photo-protective pigment that functions in the skin to absorb UV light, helping to prevent against the damaging effects of UV exposure.  Anyhow, skin discoloration can be an annoying problem as all of us would like to have a silky smooth and healthy skin.

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