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Everyone has melanin.It’s true.
Photographed by Vanessa Granda, Sittings Editors: Tchesmeni Leonard, Kat Thomas, Tascha Berkowitz, Hair: Chika F.K., Makeup: Rose Grace, Manicure: Leanne Woodley, Model: Giannie Couji
But not just people: Melanin is also responsible for the beautiful hues of butterflies and bird feathers.
Traces of melanin have even been found in dinosaur fossils.
A world without melanin wouldn’t look like our world at all.
Photographed by Wayne Lawrence
There are also melanocytes in yourhair follicles.
As with skin, it is the ratio of eumelanin produced that results in darker or lighter hair.
It’s estimated that worldwide more than 90 percent of people have brown or black hair.
(Comparatively, about 2 percent have red hair.)
As we age,hair color, of course, fades to white or gray.
Spot Check
Consider freckles a perma-reminder to wearsunscreen.
Photographed by Wayne Lawrence
Freckles can darken (and turn into hyperpigmentation) when melanocytes overproduce melanin following sun exposure.
He spent six years capturing portraits and subsequently published a book,Orchard Beach: The Bronx Riviera.
