What Causes Skin Redness?

Skin redness is a term used to describe when an individual's skin turns red due to an underlying condition or injury when it would typically be a light pink flesh color. An individual's skin tends to become red when their blood vessels dilate, and blood rushes close to the surface of the skin. The extra blood that rushes to the surface of an individual's skin can be the result of several mechanisms that make up the inflammatory process. While the redness of an individual's skin is not always a cause for significant concern, it can be uncomfortable and irritating. When an area of the body becomes injured, damaged, or diseased, the individual's immune system initiates a healing process that begins with dilation of the blood vessels and a rush of different immune components to the affected area of skin.