Where Do Freckles Come From?

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Kelly. I'm an aesthetician, and makeup artist, at Ulta Salon & Cosmetics, and I'm going to talk to you a little bit about where freckles come from. Basically, freckles come from UV damage from the sun. Basically, what happens, is in our skin cells, we have a product called melanin, which is what gives skin its pigment, its color, and within our skin cells, we have the melanocytes, which produce the melanin, so basically, melanin is our first line of defense against the sun, so when you get a tan, a lot of people think a tan is really healthy, but actually what a tan is, is your skin in defense mode. It's your skin shooting up basically, little umbrellas of melanins, and trying to protect itself from getting damaged, so what happens when you get freckles, is basically, you've had a melanocyte within your skin cell, produce too much melanin, and it's actually formed a discoloration on the skin,and basically it can be many forms. It can be slight freckling, or it can be a larger area of discoloration, so in short, freckles basically come from the sun."