Glowaiva · Phototypes IV to VI

Your phototype,
and what it changes.

Your phototype, and what it changes.

One day you read that "a little redness is normal at first." You kept going. And the redness became a mark that's still there.

That advice wasn't wrong. It just wasn't written for your skin.

Most skincare advice was built on fair skin, then transposed. But what changes from one phototype to the next isn't only colour: it's how skin reacts — and above all what it leaves behind when it does.

What a phototype is

The Fitzpatrick scale sorts skin by how it reacts to sun — not by its colour. It runs from I to VI.

• I and II — always or often burn, tan little
• III — sometimes burn, tan gradually
• IV — rarely burn, tan easily
• V — very rarely burn, tan deeply
• VI — practically never burn

Types IV to VI include African, Caribbean, Mediterranean, South Asian, Latin American and Middle Eastern skin, among others.

Two people of the same apparent colour can react differently: a phototype describes a reaction, not an origin.

Our three challenges

01 · Post-inflammatory pigment. After inflammation, skin makes more pigment at the affected spot. That's what leaves the marks.

02 · Supporting collagen. The actives that stimulate it are also the ones that irritate most. Hence the slow progression.

03 · Photoprotection. Daily, against UVA and UVB — and against visible light, which requires a tinted sunscreen. Without exception.

This page is for you if

• You tan easily and rarely go red
• Marks left by a breakout take months to fade
• You have darker areas at elbows, knees, around the mouth
• A new product sometimes leaves you a darker trace, not just redness
• The usual advice feels written for someone else

What I see most often

Someone who started everything in the same week — the serum, the acid, the retinol — because she was tired of waiting. Three weeks later the skin reacts, and there's no way to know which of the three caused it. So she stops everything, including the one that suited her.

What I'd do in your place: one new active a month. It sounds slow. It's the fastest way to get somewhere, because it's the only one that never sends you back to the start.

What that changes, concretely

The usual advice, and what we do instead:

• "Start strong, you’ll see results faster" → we start at the lowest concentration available, two nights a week, over three months.
• "Redness is normal at first" → redness on us can become a mark. We slow down.
• "Exfoliate twice a week" → once, and never the same night as retinol.
• "SPF 30 is enough" → tinted SPF 30 to 50, iron oxides, because of visible light.
• "Pop the spot so it goes faster" → don't. It's the best way to trigger a mark.
• "Try several products to see" → one new active at a time, or you won't know what reacted.

The three habits that prevent the most marks

Hold these, every day:

• One new active at a time, with a 48-hour patch test on a small area. Change two things and you won't know which one reacted.
• Don't scratch, don't rub, don't pick. Friction alone is enough to leave a mark — a spot, an aggressive scrub, a towel rubbed hard.
• Protect from the sun every day. Without it, everything else works at a loss: brightening actives slow pigment production, the sun starts it up again.

If a mark is already there

And next