I hadn’t intended to do a blog this week, I have two furniture projects in the works but wanted to wait til they were done to post but I thought I might do a little life update. 

  
(Sneak peak, I’ve also had a couple updates on my Facebook if you want to follow me there) 

I don’t really talk much about work on here. I had started this blog to talk a bit about skin care and beauty but I get enough of it in my job So I’ve avoided it to focus on projects around the house.  But today I was reminded that I probably should talk about it occasionally. 

My top inquiry is always, and has always been hyper pigmentation. And here I was outside, with fresh scars, and no sunscreen.

This is what I got in return for that 

   
  

Hyper pigmentation can come in many forms but it all has the same cause; malanocytes. Those are the cells in your body that produce melanin which is the substance in your body that gives your hair,  skin, and eyes their color. Melanocytes are “activated” by ultraviolet light and basically act as a natural sun block. You can see in the picture above how my sunburn is concentrated around the areas where my scars are, these are the melanocytes in action producing melanin to protect that new skin. 

Some times these melanocytes get all clumped together for no reason at all, because of scaring, or because of hormones in the case of a “pregnancy mask”and create hyper pigmentation. Sometimes they clump by genetics and you get freckles or birth marks. 

In the case of scaring you are exposing new skin to the sun and your melanocytes are running to the rescue to protect it from harsh UV rays. Yay for melanin, boo for cancer causing UV rays. In fact some forms of skin cancer occur when your malanocytes become mutated due to those UV rays. 

 I was only in direct sunlight for maybe 10minutes and not all at once. However I spent a good two hours in the shade. Yes you can get a sunburn in the shade, you can get a sunburn in winter, you can get a sunburn on a cloudy day. 

So. Wear sunscreen. And listen to your own good advice. 

Also get a good blender… This is why I’m getting nothing done this week, because it’s strawberry season and I have a new blender. Behold…