All You Need To Know About Dark Knuckles and Brown Knuckles

What comes to mind whenever we see someone with brown knuckles is, “oh! She has been bleaching.” Maybe…or maybe not. The essence of this article is to educate you more on the issue of dark knuckles, dark elbows, dark knees, and whatever part is dark in your body.

Dark Knuckles And Skin Whitening Creams

As I said earlier, brown knuckles are not always there because of bleaching. Although, using a melanin-impeding cream (skin bleaching cream) can also leave the knuckles, toes, knees, elbows, and some other parts of your body darker than the rest of your body. So you have the stop the quick assumption of “she is bleaching” anytime you see a person with dark knuckles.

The skin around the elbow, knuckles, and knees is usually concentrated with a high amount of melanocytes – cells responsible for producing melanin (the pigment that determines our skin, eye, and hair color).

Another fact is that these areas are the friction points. We tend to rest these areas on a platform, such as kneeling with our knees, making the areas darker than the rest of the body over time.

Causes of Brown Knuckles (Hyperpigmentation)

Let’s face it, brown knuckles are as irritating as a long queue in front of the ATM. Apart from bleaching, below are some of the prevalent causes of dark knuckles:

Hereditary
Fungal infections like Tinea versicolor
Use of some medications like minocycline
Exposure to sun – If you read my article on sun exposure and the dangers of sun exposure you’ll understand that the sun does more harm than good to the whole body. And when you even try to be cautious by applying your sunscreen, you tend to omit the elbows, knees, or these areas receive little of the sunscreen.

Also, we constantly make use of our hands for our day-to-day tasks. The moisturizer containing our protective sunscreen may not stay on the knuckles for a long period of time before they are washed off or wiped away. Hence, exposure of these areas to the sun tends to tan it over time.