At what age do freckles and moles appear?

Question

My 2 year-old has very bright red hair, and no freckles, etc. I was just wondering if he will end up red-haired and freckled. At what age do freckles usually appear?

Answer 1

As a guy who is very attracted to girls with freckles, I've research a lot about them.  Here is a little Q & A on what I know so far:

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About FRECKLES!

Q. What are freckles?

The simple answer is they are an uneven tan. Your skin color depends on the amount of a pigment called Melanin it contains. The more Melanin you have the darker your skin color. Albinos have no Melanin at all in their skin!

Melanin helps to protect you from the harmful ultraviolet rays in sunlight. When these rays hit your skin, the Melanin cells in your skin respond by releasing their chemicals which darken your skin and protect you better from the sun.

In some people, the Melanin tends to "clump" in areas which appear darker than the skin surrounding them. This is how freckles come about. Melanin is regulated by the MC1R gene, and a variant of that gene is believed to determine how freckly you are. When you spend lots of time in the sun, these clumps of melanin are stimulated to produce more pigment thus you get darker, or even more freckles! The tendency to have freckles seems to be inherited.

Q. Why do females and children seem to have more freckles than men?

My best guess about this is because women and children have thinner skin than men generally do. Thinner skin would not only allow your freckles to be seen easier, but also make it easier for sunlight to stimulate the Melanin Clumps into action.

Hormones may also play a role, as when pregnant women are said to get the "Mask of Pregnancy" which often is associated with more freckles.

Q. Do all skin types get freckles?

Every Race from Blacks to Asians, to East Indians can get freckles; but they are most common on White people. Freckles usually start to appear around the age of 5 years old, and generally peak during the Teenage years. They seem to fade during adulthood, which is probably due to hormonal changes and the fact that adults working jobs aren't outside exposed to the sun as much either.

Freckles ROCK!