Dark spots on your face are more than just freckles or minor discolorations. Spots can be brown or gray-brown discoloration, causing embarrassment, questions, and anguish. You ask, what are brown spots, and how do I get rid of dark spots?
Dark spots appear due to the overproduction of melanin in the skin. Pigment or melanin gives your hair, eyes, and skin color and is produced by melanocyte cells. You may have been born with more melanin cells than someone else. If you have more melanin cells, you have a higher incidence of problematic pigmentation.
Think of the spots on your faces as sponges that drink sunlight. The more you expose your skin to ultraviolet or UV light, the more melanin your sponges drink. However, there are even more reasons you have dark spots on your skin:
- Sun exposure
- Genetics
- Age
- Hormonal Changes
What are These Annoying Dark Spots?
Medically, dark spots are solar lentigo and come with age. However, reports state that about 75 percent of light-skinned people over 60 have one or more of these solar lentigo spots. These spots result from sun damage at some point in your life when you did not protect your skin with sunscreen, hats, or clothing.
Women often have dark spots on their skin due to hormonal changes, particularly during pregnancy or when taking birth control pills. These particular dark spots are known as the mask of pregnancy and appear on your forehead, cheeks, and upper lip. Shortly after delivery or when you stop taking birth control pills containing estrogen and progesterone, you will notice the spots fading.
How Can I Prevent Dark Spots?
The trigger for sunspots or dark spots is sun exposure. You can prevent dark spots by using UV protection or sunscreen with an SPF 30 or higher, wearing sun-protective clothing, using a hat that shades your face, and keeping the sunscreen on your face every two hours when you are out in the sun.
You may need to experiment with different sunscreen products to find the one that feels best on your face. One dermatologist says that the best sunscreen for you is the one you will use. Wise advice!
How Can My Dark Spots Be Treated?
Note that dark spots on your skin are not harmful. They are sometimes unsightly, and you want to get rid of them to improve your appearance but treating dark spots can be difficult and expensive.
Laser treatments are available in medical spas. Find a provider who is an expert in performing laser treatments to avoid complications or scarring. In addition, laser technicians need to be familiar with settings for your skin tone – especially if you are dark-skinned. Laser light energy is designed to be safe and gentle to the skin surrounding the dark spot.
One way to get rid of dark spots is with the GentleLase laser. It is the most innovative laser for giving you safe, dark spot treatment. The GentleLase is FDA and TGA approved. When your laser technician uses the GentleLase laser, mild energy and light focus on your dark spots. These energy pulses break down the dark spot or pigment in the skin, cause the spots to break up, and gradually leave behind a clear and spotless complexion.
Chemical peels can lighten dark spots. Chemical peels remove and exfoliate the top layer of your skin where dark spots reside. Do note that chemical peels do carry some recovery time, but that is just an inconvenience that goes away within a few days.
Retinoids or Vitamin A derivatives are helpful in the fight to rid your skin of dark spots. Retinoids trigger collagen production and exfoliate the skin by speeding up cell turnover. However, retinoids may irritate the skin, so start out using retinoids slowly.
Product from SkinMedica like Lytera® 2.0 pigment correcting serum can be used to lighten dark spots; Bella Med Spa Koji C Cream is a skin brightening cream.
Do you want to lighten your dark spots? Contact Bella Medspa in Clarksville, TN, at bellamedspa.com or 931-245-0500. The professionals at Bella Medspa will schedule a complimentary consultation so you can discuss your dark spots and get them off your face safely.
