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You've always been somewhat of a dreamer. You love to lose yourself at the beach in a good book , and you've spent more hours daydreaming than you can count. You're an adult now, but somehow you've never lost that childlike innocence.

Well, it's time to face reality now, as well as your annoying freckle situation. When you were younger, you had only a couple of those strange little dots on your skin, and you thought nothing of it. Now, it seems that each new day brings a freckle.

You wonder what, exactly, a freckle is, and decide to do a little research on the topic. You find out that a freckle happens when there's an excess of melanin in the skin. Now, we all have different skin pigments. Some of us are far lighter than others, and that's mainly due to where we live, as well as genetics.

Melanin is the body's way of protecting the skin against the effect of sunlight. The darker your skin is, the more melanin it has. For example, Africa is a very hot climate with lots of sunlight. Africans have such dark skin, because this way they are adapted to their climate.

So, how do people with lighter skin end up with those little dots of melanin? Those who have lighter skin should, as a rule, stay out of the sun, because they burn easily. People with darker skin tones tend to not burn as easily, skin their skin is better protected.

When a person with light skin sits out in the sun, the body starts producing more melanin, and the result are those extra little dots of melanin that pop up here and there. Ironically, people seek out tans now, when tans are just an example of damaged skin.

In Victorian times, the lighter a person's skin was, the more aristocratic they were. To have a sunburn meant that you had to work outside. Thus, aristocratic women made special efforts to wear hats and protect their skin from the sun with parasols.

Being their rather dramatic person that you are, you tend to make more of what you consider to be a skin problem than it actually is. As long as those silly little dots of melanin aren't irregularly shaped or oddly colored, then you have nothing to worry about, as those would be indicators of skin cancer. So, what can you do to keep more of those little melanin spots from showing up?

It's simple: Stay out of the sun! Or, if you do plan on being in the sun, make sure that you're wearing an SPF of 30 or higher. Also, you might think that the artificial light in tanning booths is far less harmful, but they aren't. Just face the fact that getting a nice tan isn't worth the health risks. After all, you always have the option of getting a fake tan! With the hole in the ozone layer getting bigger, it's certainly very important to protect skin from sun rays that are getting stronger all the time.