Black Skin Care - Aferican American Skin Care

African American skin care is mostly overlooked, yet is still very important. It can be a great challenge since it is influenced by a lot of variables such as geography, eating habits and the level of skin darkness. Dark skin contains more melanin than light skin. For this reason African Americans are more equipped to cope with the sun than Caucasians and other ethnic groups. With that said, black skin care must not be neglected.

Let's take a little side trip and talk about melanin. It's a skin pigment that gives color to your skin. If you see a light-skinned person with freckles, what you are seeing is a person with little spots of melanin. A freckle is created by small concentration of melanin. When you become tanned by the sun, what is actually happening is that the sun triggers melanocytes which are cells in your skin to produce more melanin. The melanin moves to the outer layer of skin and creates a darker skin color.

Melanin aids black skin care since there is more of it in dark skin. Another benefit of having a large amount of melanin manifests in appearing younger than your age. Melanin aids in skin protection in the aging process. Although it seems that having more melanin has great advantages, there are some draw backs to it. Higher melanin count promises higher amount of water loss for the skin. When the skin loses water it losses elasticity and nourishment. Studies have showed that even in a young age, African American skin is less elastic and nourished than in any other ethnic groups of the same age. African American skin care must be observed in all ages for keeping the skin healthy.

While skin comes in dry, normal, and oily regardless of the color or level of melanin, there are elementary fundamental differences in the skin's ability to protect itself. The extra melanin creates a barrier to the skin that protects it but at the same time, it also makes it very difficult to have a skin care treatment penetrate deep into the skin. This means that you might need heavier oil as the base of the skin care treatment so that it can treat the skin and yet not be too oily. In different words, your skin does not need more oil quite as much as it needs oil that can work into the layers of your skin. In short, smaller molecules.

Fortunately, there is emerging technology that addresses just this problem of creating precise ingredients with small molecules for greater penetration of the skin. The bad news is that only the very high end product lines have yet to utilize this technology, which means higher prices.

The essential thing to watch for is that your skin care treatment is designed for deep penetration. Black skin care is important. Don't think that just because your skin has good natural protection it does not need tender loving care that is customized for your skin type. Keep searching for African American skin care treatments that work for you.