Skin Pigmentation Treatments

In this week’s Skincare Edit I am going to be talking to you about the “Age Giveaway”.

You see with all of the age-reversing, collagen-inducing, muscle-relaxing and wrinkle-filling treatments available nowadays, it’s actually quite difficult to correctly guess someone’s age!  

Seriously!! 50 year olds look like 30 year olds, and 40 year olds well who can guess??

There’s one Age Giveaway that every skincare specialist will know. Because despite all of the Botox and Fillers and even other more natural collagen inducing treatments that are tightening, lifting and firming, this one is still apparent.  Pigmentation.  Discolouration on the skin, uneven skin tone, sun spots and photo damage will always giveaway your real age unless… Well, read on to find out!

First, this is what pigmentation looks like:

Melasma appears as symmetrical patches most often on the cheeks, chin, upper lip and forehead. It can be related to genetics, pregnancy, medications and hormone imbalances. If you ever met me when I was pregnant, I had these patches on my upper lip, both times.

Post-Inflammatory Hyperpigmentation (PIH) is found in areas of the skin that have had some kind of blemish, irritation or trauma. Your immune response combined with the cells that produce melanin cause an increase in pigmentation, it’s the body’s healing response from trauma.

Photodamage can present in the form of freckles, age spots and a general uneven skin tone. These are caused by prolonged and repeated exposure to UV rays.

Take a look at the image below:

You can see the pigmentation marks on the surface of the skin.  These come from Melanocytes, the strange, alien-looking, purple things.   Melanin is transferred from melanocytes into our skin cells, which you can see more clearly here:

Our skin cells are in a constant upwards motion towards the surface.

 

SIDE NOTE: Look how plump and juicy they are compared to how flat they are by the time they reach the surface of the skin. That’s why hydration is so important, we don’t want flat Walker’s crisps, we want plump, round, juicy grapes.

Sorry I was saying, our skin cells are in a constant upwards motion towards the surface, bringing with them melanin.

When melanin accumulates on the skin’s surface, it presents as darkened patches and dark spots.

Now I’ve gone into quite a lot of depth here, but there is a reason for that. I want you to understand the complexity around this process because it explains how complex pigmentation is to treat! And most importantly, that in the case of pigmentation  prevention is much better than cure.

The usual products that aim to “lighten and brighten” pigmentation marks can have an affect when used alongside an in-clinic treatment plan with an experienced skin specialist, but what about if we could stop pigmentation in it’s tracks?

What about if we could suppress those melanocytes? Stop them from transferring melanin to our skin cells in the first place?

A preventative pigmentation treatment plan? One to stop the age giveaway?   You know the drill by now, click to book!

Selina x