Time to Glow: Understanding and Treating Skin Pigmentation

Not only is skin pigmentation one of the most common skin conditions it is also complex. You'll see tangible results to treat pigmentation when your using the right treatments that stem from science and knowledge. 

So what is pigmentation? 

Let's break it down, there are two types of pigmentation, hyperpigmentation and hypopigmentation. Hyperpigmentation is having too much pigmentation in an area of the skin while hypopigmentation is having too little. All skin contains some level of the pigment melanin and the variety of melanin molecule in our body determines our skin tone. Melanin is produced in response to both internal and external stimuli, some which lead to access melanin production. 

Melanin production and how it appears on the skin

Melanin is produced by melanocyte cells, when they are stimulated by melanocytes-stimulating hormones, this triggers the process of melanin production and when it migrates to the upper layer of the skin it forms a 'supernuclear' cap, protecting our DNA from UV damage. 

So why do we see pigmentation at dark marks or spots? It's essentially the melanin deposits building up in the upper layer of the skin. Hyperpigmentation offer appears as melasma, age spots, and post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation.

Now we've talked about the source lets talk about the causes of hyperpigmentation.

Causes of Hyperpigmentation

External causes

Melanin protects are cells it acts as a barrier but extended UV exposure i.e sun exposure cause the over production of melanin. Blue light which is a high energy, high frequency component of natural light spectrum also leads to pigmentation. The highest degree of blue light occurs in natural sunlight.

Internal causes

As well as external causes our hormones can cause pigmentation, oestrogen can stimulate overproduction of melanin when exposed to sunlight which contributes to melasma a type of pigmentation.

Research continues to discover other causes such as stress, pollution and lack of sleep can lead to melanin production.

Now we've got through the scientific part let's dive into the effective treatment and protection again hyperpigmentation.

Treatment and Protection

Improving pigmentation can be challenging it is often caused by years of damage and improvements don't happen over night. However, with smart treatment, consistency and crucially time it can make significant improvements for pigmentation.

There are various triggers for pigmentation so in a similar manner it's important to treatment it with a holistic approach. 

Oral and topical treatments with differing functioned can be combined to create a pigmentation treatment plan and there has been research to show the effectiveness of nutrition supplements, particularly first-hand from the Advanced Nutrition Programme.

Professional microneedling treatments combined with active nutrient plan can drastically improve pigmentation. One study say 80% of participants seeing improvements. Microneedling also has been shown to reduce the signs of photoageing. 

The key takeaway to note about how to effectively treat pigmentation is to combine various therapies in the form of nutrition, microneedling and sun protection. Treatment can't happen without protection and it's important to protect against the sun when you are treating pigmentation, we recommend the Heliocare SPF protection or the Environ RAD Antioxidant Sun Cream which offers high-level, full-spectrum sun protection for all skin types.