The Parts of a Skin Check a Mirror Will Never Show You
Most people picture a skin check covering the parts they can already see: face, arms, back, legs. Fewer realise it also includes the scalp and the nails, two areas a mirror will never properly show you, and two of the reasons a professional check matters.
The scalp
The scalp is a high-UV-exposure area that's genuinely difficult to check yourself, and hair can make it easy to miss during an exam too, unless it's specifically checked. That difficulty has real consequences. Peer-reviewed research has found scalp melanoma is associated with a melanoma-specific death rate around 1.8 to 2.2 times higher than melanoma found elsewhere on the body, and some of that gap comes down to timing rather than biology: scalp melanomas tend to be thicker and more advanced by the time they're found, simply because they're the hardest area to keep an eye on yourself.
That's why we ask patients to let their hair out on the day of a Full Skin Check, so the scalp can be properly examined rather than skipped.
The nails
Melanoma can also develop under and around the nail, known as subungual melanoma, somewhere most people would never think to look. It's rare, but it's frequently mistaken for something else, a bruise, a fungal infection, or nail damage from an old injury, which means it's often diagnosed later than melanoma found elsewhere. One of the clearest warning signs is a stripe of colour running the length of the nail that spreads onto the surrounding skin. It's why we ask patients to remove nail polish before their appointment.
Soles and between the toes
The soles of the feet and the skin between the toes are two more areas patients rarely examine themselves, and this is where a specific, less common type of melanoma called acral melanoma most often appears. It isn't caused primarily by UV exposure, which is exactly why it's easy to overlook if you associate skin cancer risk with sun exposure alone.
A Full Skin Check at SkinGP Woodend covers all of it, the parts a mirror can show you, and the parts it can't. Our Accredited Skin Cancer Doctors use dermoscopy and FotoFinder total body photography to examine and document every part of your skin.
No referral is required. You can book directly via our website.
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