At Jersey Beauty Company, we are all about understanding our skin - that a once size fits all approach to skin care doesn’t exist. Just like your fingerprint, your skin is unique and deserves to be treated in the best way for its needs.
Scientist Chris agrees with us, and told us about a tool, the Fitzpatrick Scale, which scores skin type from one to six, depending on the type of melanin in the skin - one being pale white, for example, a redhead complexion, with more pheomelanin in the skin, to six being deeply pigmented, with more eumelanin, with the skin being very dark brown to black.
- When you tan, your body is producing melanin to fight the sun.
- People at the further end of the scale, so towards the four, five, six, have more eumelanin, which means as you go in the sun, your body is producing more dark pigment which is why you tan.
- Someone at the lower end of the scale, with more pheomelanin, can be in the sun their whole life but their body doesn’t have that tanned pigment color to produce. It just produces red.
Understanding where we are on the Fitzpatrick scale is important, Chris says, because that will drive both how likely is it we may tan but also, more importantly, what kind or level of protection we will need. If your skin is pale and unlikely to tan, you need to stay safe in the sun. We don’t mean wrap yourself in bubble wrap, but we also know it can be tempting to make the mistake of burning your pale skin to get a tan. This can cause untold short and longer term damage to your skin at every layer.
At the other end of the scale, no matter how pigmented your skin is, it’s important to remember you can still burn and your skin will also be affected by UVA rays. So although you may be naturally better protected than someone with paler skin, this doesn’t mean you don’t need to wear protection. It means you might not see the damage as easily. But your skin deserves sun cream protection just as much as your friends with paler skin tones.
