A Study of the Age Differences in Skin Pigmentation in Males

Abstract

Skin reflectances were obtained at 426, 550 and 685mg wavelengths (employed in the E.E.L.spectrophotometer) from medial arm and forehead sites among 414“Baniya”males to study the changes in skin pigmentation with age during 10-16 years-an important growth period. It was not possible to arrive at any general conclusion using together the three reflectance scales-Log R426mμ, R550mμ, and“Anti-log”R685mμ, because they exhibited some significant differences in their results“Anti-log”R685mμ, scale was finally adopted to study this problem.The observations for the unexposed medial arm site were used as indicator of the changes in skin colour with age. It was found that during the period between 10 and 16 years, the males first exhibit an increase in the pigmentation which is then lost through the adolescent years even to a significant extent.The forehead pigmentation was found to increase with age, so also was the forehead tanning but it is realised that from such studies it would be difficult to demarcate the effect of age on skin tanning