09/30/2026
Why does a bruise change color? 🟣🟢🟡
A bruise begins when tiny blood vessels break and blood leaks into the tissue beneath unbroken skin. As your body clears that blood, the pigment in red blood cells—hemoglobin—breaks down.
That process can make a bruise appear red or purple, then darker, greenish, yellow, or brown before it fades. The pigments biliverdin and bilirubin help explain some of those later colors.
Bruises don’t all follow the same color pattern. Their appearance varies with skin tone, the injury, and other factors, so you can’t reliably tell how old a bruise is by its color alone.
Which bruise color have you noticed most often? 👇