Dark spots on the skin are flat or slightly raised areas that appear darker than the surrounding skin. They range in color from light tan to dark brown, black, or even blue-gray, and they can be as small as a pinpoint freckle or as wide as several centimeters. About half of all adults report having at least one type of pigmented spot, making them one of the most common skin concerns worldwide. What your dark spots look like depends on what’s causing them, how deep the pigment sits in the skin, and your natural skin tone.
The General Color Spectrum
Dark spots fall across a surprisingly wide color range: brown, black, gray, red, and pink. The exact shade depends largely on where the extra pigment is deposited. When pigment accumulates in the outermost layer of skin, spots tend to look tan to dark brown with well-defined edges. When pigment drops deeper into the skin, the same spot takes on a gray-brown or blue-gray tone and often looks more diffuse, almost like a bruise that never fully clears.
Your baseline skin tone also shapes what you see. On lighter skin, dark spots often appear as distinct brown or tan marks. On darker skin tones, they’re more likely to show up as deep brown, dark gray, or almost black patches. People with deeper complexions are also more prone to developing dark marks after any kind of skin injury or inflammation.
Age Spots (Sun Spots)
Age spots are flat, oval areas of pigmentation that range from tan to dark brown. They typically show up on areas that get the most sun: the backs of your hands, your face, shoulders, and forearms. They range from freckle-sized to about half an inch (13 millimeters) across, and they can group together over time, giving the skin a speckled or mottled look.
The borders of age spots tend to be sharply defined, sometimes with an irregular or scalloped edge. They don’t fade in winter the way freckles do. Once they appear, they persist year-round, though they may lighten slightly without ongoing sun exposure. If you run your finger over one, it feels completely flat and smooth, no different in texture from the skin around it.
How Freckles Differ From Sun Spots
Freckles are smaller, usually less than 3 millimeters across, and they behave differently with the seasons. They darken and multiply in summer, then fade considerably or disappear entirely in winter. Sun spots, by contrast, are larger, more sharply outlined, and stay visible all year. If you notice small brown dots that seem to come and go with sun exposure, those are freckles. If the spots are bigger, more defined, and don’t budge in the off-season, you’re likely looking at sun spots.
Melasma
Melasma looks different from most other dark spots because it forms large, symmetrical patches rather than small individual dots. The patches typically appear on the forehead, cheeks, temples, and above the upper lip. The hallmark feature is that the darkened areas show up on both sides of the face in a nearly identical pattern, almost like a mirror image.
The color ranges from light brown to a deeper grayish brown. The edges are less sharp than those of age spots, blending more gradually into the surrounding skin. Melasma is strongly linked to hormonal changes, so it’s especially common during pregnancy, with hormonal birth control use, or during hormone therapy. Sun exposure makes it visibly darker, sometimes within hours.
Marks Left After Skin Injuries
Post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation, or PIH, is the dark mark left behind after acne, a burn, a cut, eczema, or any other skin irritation. These spots take the exact shape and location of the original injury. A healed pimple leaves a small round mark. A scrape leaves a larger, irregular patch. The color spans a wide range, from light pink or tan to dark brown or blue-gray, depending on the severity of the initial inflammation and how deep the pigment was deposited.
Shallow PIH (pigment in the outer skin layer) tends to look tan to dark brown and responds better to topical treatments. Deeper PIH appears gray-brown to blue-gray and takes significantly longer to fade, sometimes months or even years. The marks are flat and smooth to the touch. If the area is raised or textured, that’s scarring rather than pigmentation.
Seborrheic Keratoses: The “Stuck-On” Spots
Not all dark spots are flat. Seborrheic keratoses are round, dark, and raised growths that look as though they’ve been stuck onto the skin like a piece of gum. They have a waxy or slightly rough texture and can range from light tan to nearly black. They’re extremely common with age and are completely benign, but their raised, sometimes crusty appearance can make them look alarming at first glance. The key visual clue is that they sit on top of the skin rather than blending into it the way age spots or PIH marks do.
When a Dark Spot Looks Suspicious
Most dark spots are harmless, but melanoma (skin cancer) can disguise itself as an ordinary-looking spot. The ABCDE criteria, developed by the National Cancer Institute, outline the visual red flags to watch for:
- Asymmetry: One half of the spot doesn’t match the other half in shape.
- Border irregularity: The edges are ragged, notched, or blurred, and pigment may seem to spread into the surrounding skin.
- Color variation: The spot contains multiple shades, such as brown, black, tan, white, gray, red, pink, or blue, all within the same mark.
- Diameter: The spot is larger than 6 millimeters (about the size of a pencil eraser), though melanomas can sometimes be smaller.
- Evolving: The spot has changed in size, shape, or color over the past few weeks or months.
A normal age spot or freckle is uniform in color, symmetrical, and stable over time. A spot that checks even one of the boxes above, particularly one that is actively changing, warrants a closer look from a dermatologist. The “evolving” criterion is often the most telling: benign dark spots tend to stay the same, while dangerous ones don’t.
Quick Comparison by Type
- Age spots: Flat, tan to dark brown, sharply defined borders, up to half an inch wide, permanent.
- Freckles: Flat, small (under 3 mm), fade in winter, darken in summer.
- Melasma: Large symmetrical patches on the face, light to grayish brown, blurred edges.
- Post-inflammatory marks: Flat, match the shape of a prior injury, tan to blue-gray, fade slowly.
- Seborrheic keratoses: Raised, waxy, round, look “stuck on,” tan to black.