Table of Contents
- Key Points
- The Case for a Fall Skin Check
- What Ultraviolet Radiation Changes Beneath the Surface
- Signs of Sun Damage Worth Noting After Summer
- How to Perform a Post-Summer Self-Examination
- Treatment Options for Sun Damage
- Protecting Your Skin Through Fall and Winter
- Schedule Your Post-Summer Skin Assessment Today
- Frequently Asked Questions
- References
Key Points
- The visible signs of a summer spent outdoors—spots, rough patches, lingering redness—surface in the weeks after the exposure itself, which makes early fall the most informative time to evaluate the skin.
- A structured self-examination can identify many of the changes worth investigating, but it cannot distinguish a benign sun spot from an early precancerous lesion.
- Fall is also the practical window for corrective treatment, because most resurfacing and pigment-directed procedures require a period of reduced sun exposure afterward.
Many adults assume the sun did its worst work before they finished high school—long days at the pool, a summer job spent outdoors, one memorable burn at the beach. The arithmetic says otherwise. Only about 23 percent of a person’s lifetime sun exposure has accumulated by age 18, meaning the majority happens later, one summer at a time, throughout adulthood.1
The season that just ended was not a footnote to a childhood total. It was potentially a significant addition to it.
At Rogers Dermatology, we don’t want to scare our patients, but we want them to be as informed as possible. The reality is that skin damage is cumulative and often silent while it accrues. September, as your tan begins to fade, is the right moment to look closely at what damage may have occurred and what you can do about it.
The Case for a Fall Skin Check
Summer is a poor season for evaluating the skin. Regular sun exposure—even for those who are diligent about applying sunscreen—so often obscures pigment irregularities. The surface flushing that follows repeated heat and UV exposure can mask the fine vascular changes a clinician would otherwise notice. Likewise, as melanin production tapers off in the weeks after peak exposure, the contrast returns and the underlying pattern can become legible.
Fall carries a second, more practical advantage. Nearly every corrective intervention for sun-related skin damage—chemical peels, laser resurfacing, intense pulsed light, prescription retinoids—leaves treated skin temporarily more photosensitive. Beginning that work as daylight hours shorten and UV index readings decline in the Upstate gives the skin a longer, safer recovery window than a spring or midsummer start would.
What Ultraviolet Radiation Changes Beneath the Surface
Sunlight reaches the skin as two biologically distinct wavelengths, and the distinction explains why summer produces both immediate and delayed consequences.
- UVB radiation: Absorbed primarily by the epidermis, the outermost layer. UVB is the wavelength responsible for sunburn and for the direct DNA lesions that drive most keratinocyte cancers.2
- UVA radiation: Penetrates into the dermis, the deeper layer where collagen and elastin reside. UVA passes through window glass and cloud cover, drives oxidative stress, and does most of the structural work behind wrinkling, laxity, and uneven tone.3
- Cumulative effect: Natural biological repair mechanisms handle a great deal of this damage, but not all of it. Unrepaired changes persist, and their consequences appear years or decades after the exposure that caused them.
This delay explains a common frustration: the skin looks worse in the years after heavy sun exposure. That is because roughly 80 percent of visible aging in the skin is attributable to sun exposure rather than chronological age.4 The lines and mottling most people attribute to getting older are, in large part, a record of accumulated ultraviolet exposure. Sun-damaged skin ages on a visibly different schedule than protected skin, which is why the forearms, chest, and backs of the hands often appear older than areas that stay covered.
Signs of Sun Damage Worth Noting After Summer
Post-summer changes range from purely cosmetic to genuinely consequential. The following are the findings most commonly identified in early fall:
- Solar lentigines: Flat, evenly pigmented brown spots — often called sun spots or liver spots — that appear on the face, chest, shoulders, and backs of the hands. They are benign, but they mark areas of concentrated lifetime exposure.
- Actinic keratoses: Rough, scaly, sometimes tender patches that may be easier to feel than to see. These affect millions of people in the United States, and some progress to squamous cell carcinoma if untreated.
- Persistent redness and visible vessels: Fine broken capillaries (telangiectasias) across the cheeks, nose, and chest that do not resolve once the season ends.
- Melasma: Symmetric patches of gray-brown discoloration, typically across the cheeks, forehead, and upper lip, that frequently darken over summer and require ongoing management rather than a single treatment.
- Textural change: A leathery, coarse, or crepe-like quality—the visible surface expression of degraded collagen and elastin in the dermis.
- New or changing growths: Any lesion that has appeared, enlarged, changed color, itched, or bled since spring warrants professional evaluation regardless of how ordinary it appears.
How to Perform a Post-Summer Self-Examination
The American Academy of Dermatology recommends that individuals regularly check themselves and their partners for new or suspicious conditions.5 If you have forgone this recommendation, a full, head-to-toe self-examination following the summer is a good time to start. Do so in good light with a full-length mirror and a handheld mirror, and focus on the following areas:
- Face, ears, neck, chest, and torso, lifting the breasts to check underneath
- Both sides of the body with arms raised, then the forearms, underarms, palms, and fingernails
- Backs of the legs and feet, the spaces between the toes, the toenails, and the soles
- Scalp, parting the hair in sections, and the back of the neck using a handheld mirror
- Back and buttocks, using the handheld mirror against the full-length mirror
For any mole or pigmented spot, employ the ABCDE criteria for determining potential issues:
- A – Asymmetry: One half does not match the other.
- B – Border: Edges are irregular, notched, scalloped, or poorly defined.
- C – Color: More than one shade is present—brown, black, tan, red, white, or blue.
- D – Diameter: The lesion is larger than a pencil eraser (though keep in mind that some melanomas can be smaller).
- E – Evolving: The spot has changed in size, shape, color, or elevation, or has begun to itch, crust, or bleed.
In addition, keep in mind that most moles on a given person resemble one another. A lesion that looks conspicuously unlike its neighbors deserves attention even when it satisfies none of the ABCDE criteria.
A final tip: photographing anything questionable creates a baseline for comparison, and areas people routinely overlook—the part line of the scalp, the rim of the ear, the lower lip, the back of the neck, and the tops of the feet—receive substantial sun exposure precisely because they are rarely examined or protected.
Also, remember that, if there is any doubt, scheduling an examination with a trained, experienced Greenville dermatologist is the best thing you can do.
Treatment Options for Sun Damage
Once damage has been characterized by a dermatologist, treatment can begin. Options for sun-damaged skin range from single-lesion procedures to therapy applied across an entire affected region, and commonly include:
- Cryotherapy: Targeted freezing of individual actinic keratoses.
- Topical field therapy: Prescription creams applied across an entire affected region to treat both visible and subclinical lesions.
- Chemical peels: Controlled exfoliation for pigment irregularity, superficial texture, and diffuse actinic change.
- Laser and light-based treatment: Intense pulsed light for vascular redness and mottled pigment, resurfacing lasers for texture and fine lines.
- Prescription retinoids: Topical agents that increase cell turnover and, over months of consistent use, improve tone and texture.
- Surgical excision: Removal of confirmed skin cancers, with technique selected according to tumor type, size, and location.
Protecting Your Skin Through Fall and Winter
Even though we are heading into the fall, the sun can still cause damage. In fact, it may be most dangerous on cool, overcast days, when strong UV rays still penetrate cloud cover. A solid post-summer routine generally includes:
- Broad-spectrum sunscreen of SPF 30 or higher applied daily, including on overcast days and throughout winter
- A prescription or over-the-counter retinoid at night, introduced gradually to limit irritation
- An antioxidant serum in the morning to reduce oxidative stress from residual UV and visible light exposure
- Barrier-supporting moisturizers, since indoor heating lowers ambient humidity and compromises the skin barrier
- A scheduled annual skin examination, timed consistently so it is not deferred
Schedule Your Post-Summer Skin Assessment Today
The findings that follow a summer outdoors are easiest to evaluate now, while they are still new and while there is a full season ahead for treatment. If you have noticed a spot that has changed, a patch that will not smooth out, or discoloration that has not faded with the tan, a professional evaluation will tell you what you are looking at.
Rogers Dermatology provides comprehensive skin examinations and treatment for sun-related skin damage for patients across Greenville and the surrounding Upstate. Contact our office today to schedule an appointment with the best dermatologist Greenville, SC, has to offer.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should I have a professional skin examination?
It depends on individual risk. Adults with a history of significant sun exposure, blistering sunburns, atypical moles, previous skin cancer, or a family history of melanoma are generally advised to be seen at least annually—and perhaps more often, depending on your risk factors. We can recommend an interval appropriate to your history.
Is a sun spot the same thing as an actinic keratosis?
Not quite. A solar lentigo is flat, evenly colored, and benign. An actinic keratosis is rough or scaly, is often easier to feel than to see, and is considered precancerous. The two can appear in the same region and are not always distinguishable without examination.
Can sun damage be reversed?
Partially. Pigment irregularity, surface texture, and actinic keratoses respond well to treatment, and consistent retinoid use improves the appearance of photoaged skin over time. Cellular DNA damage cannot be undone, which is why prevention and early detection remain central.
Do I still need sunscreen in the fall and winter?
Yes! UVA radiation, which drives most photoaging, remains present year-round and passes through cloud cover and window glass. Daily application through fall and winter is the simplest way to protect the results of any corrective treatment.
References
- “Skin Cancer Facts and Statistics,” The Skin Cancer Foundation, March 2026. https://www.skincancer.org/skin-cancer-information/skin-cancer-facts/.
- “Ultraviolet Radiation,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, July 2026, https://www.cdc.gov/radiation-health/features/uv-radiation.html.
- “Ultraviolet Radiation,” John Hopkins Medicine, retrieved on September 2, 2026, from: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/ultraviolet-radiation.
- Frederic Flament, Roland Bazin, Sabine Laquieze, et al., “Effect of the sun on visible clinical signs of aging in Caucasian skin,” Clinical, Cosmetic, and Investigative Dermatology, September 2023, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3790843/.
- “Infographic: Check Your Partner. Check Yourself,” American Academy of Dermatology Association, retrieved on September 9, 2026, from: https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/skin-cancer/check-your-partner