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| This attentive beauty takes her skin care seriously. |
Perhaps, your skin has no problem with any discoloration. However, chances are that at some stage in your life that you’ll probably experience some form of a dark spot or pigmentation issue with your skin such as hyperpigmentation or melasma.
The Difference Between Hyperpigmentation and Melasma
Hyperpigmentation is a common skin condition caused by external factors to produce dark patches on the skin. Usually these dark areas have irregular shapes and occur on the face, hands and exposed skin for both women and men. The biggest culprit is the sun with how it works against the skin. In self-defense, the skin releases an enzyme called tyrosinase that produces melanin. The more exposed the skin is to the sun, the more of that brown pigment floods the skin to eventually cause hyperpigmentation such as age spots from years of accumulated skin damage.
Another type of the same thing is post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation that comes from other sorts of trauma to the skin. The darkened skin often results from pimples, insect bites, burns to cuts that could cause altered color when healing the skin.
On the other hand, women can only develop melasma. Commonly, this problem usually shows up on the cheeks and lips with a fairly even shape when compared to each side where it’s located. This skin discolors in areas of darkened skin as a result of internal causes from hormonal changes such as during pregnancy to overproduce melanin. Any new medication or contraception that you may start or be using can also cause drastic shifts in female hormones to cause this condition.
How to Deal With Either Type of Skin Discoloration
Regardless as to what brought the hyperpigmentation or melasma about, it is crucial to incorporate a broad spectrum sunscreen of least SPF 30 or higher into your life to prevent darkening the discolored areas further. Wearing a broad-brimmed hat always and sunglasses also help limiting the damage from the sun’s rays. Sun protection is also the best preventive measure that you can take to keep your skin safe.
Dark spots from hyperpigmentation can be brightened by looking for whitening agents to bleach the skin. Such ingredients that can help lighten are kojic acid, licorice root, alpha hydroxy acids, and vitamin C. Hydroquinone is another skin bleaching ingredient that has been used for more than 55 years in the United States, but has been banned in some European and Asian countries due to links to cancer. Nevertheless, the case to its safety is still being studied here.
You can also turn to natural ingredients for help whitening the skin. Raw potato has an enzyme called catecholase that can bleach skin and help with puffy eyes. Milk and yoghurt have lactic acid that work to lighten skin the same way. Tomato or tomato juice has fading potential with all its vitamin A and lycopene to guard against the sun. Turmeric has curcumin that has the ability to whiten hyperpigmentation and protect from sun. Lemon juice with its citric acid is another that can help lighten skin.
Moisturizing the skin is more important than ever when your skin in under siege. You might want to look into moisturizers that can also brighten or help speed skin renewal with ingredients like retinol. When using retinol products, you may experience more sensitivity. After all, the skin will be extra vulnerable so sunscreen can’t be stressed enough.
What else that you may want to look into is changing your current facial cleanser for one with niacin or any of the above brightening skin care ingredients. This ingredient is also known to help brighten up darkness.
I hate to break it to you, but hyperpigmentation is known to return. This is why it is vital to never leave the house without taking precautions with sunscreen. You need to be on the defensive when it comes to your skin.
Depending on the degree of your hyperpigmentation, you also might look into a chemical peel or visit a dermatologist to get a professional opinion or, perhaps, a laser treatment. This can help lighten and improve that rougher texture that your skin may have acquired.
Those with melasma are more than likely to find their skin discolorations clear up in time.
How to Conceal the Dark Spots With Makeup
If you have ivory or beige in your skin tone and have any deep brown areas of discoloration, using a yellow concealer can help counteract the color. I recommend painting over the discoloration with a brush to best target it. You can also try taking a sponge and dabbing over the darkness as well. Still, you get the most accurate results by painting individual spotted areas from the way you can control blending to finish the line.
In all probability, the darker in beige that you skin is, the darker your brown discoloration will be. Therefore, you need a dark peach or orange concealer to help cancel that color out. You can even try one of your orange lipsticks for a really deep brown spot against deep beige skin.
If you have ebony skin, I suggest picking up a concealer with gold and orange tones to it. You can also try that lipstick trick I suggested.
Tell me if you ever had any skin discolorations problems and how you went about solving it. If you have anything else to add, let me know.
