There is a plethora of options available for skin lightening today. Various skin care products promise to brighten up your skin and restore your youthful glow. Choosing the right skin lightening option can be tricky, and in some cases, harmful to the skin. Here’s what you need to know about skin lightening treatments that actually work.
When we talk about lightening the skin, it simply means having the skin a few shades lighter, an even-tone complexion and reducing the excess pigmentation within the skin. Besides this, skin lightening treatments are also beneficial for treating skin issues such as sun damage, dark spots, liver spots and melasma.
Without further ado, let’s get down to the details of the treatments available to lighten your skin.
Treatments Available for Skin Lightening
Skincare Products and Creams
In most cases, skincare products or topical creams are enough to lighten the skin. Whether you want to target a specific area or lighten the whole body, these product works by infusing the skin with proven skin lightening ingredients. You can expect improvement in within a few weeks of consistent use.
While most lightening products are deemed safe for the skin and can be used for the long term even after you achieved the desired results, products that come with bleaching components should only be used with prescription and for a short time only.
When choosing your skin lightening products, look for ingredients such as vitamin C, arbutin, glutathione, retinol, niacinamide and green tea. And depending on the ingredient, if you can, try to get it in the form of serum, as the formulation is more concentrated for quicker and effective results.
Chemical Peel
Chemical peels are an excellent treatment to begin with your dermatologist. These skin lightening procedures contain a much higher concentration of active ingredients such as arbutin, kojic acid and glycolic acid for the fastest results. They are also customizable depending on your skin type and other skin problems that you may want to improve.
Depending on how bad the problem is, you may need multiple sessions of chemical peels to see desired results such as lightened and even skin tone, with supple-looking skin.
Laser Treatment
Laser treatments are also a widely known option for skin lightening. By using high energy emitted from the laser machine, the light penetrates multiple layers of the skin, breaking down melanin pigment in the targeted area. This allows your skin to clear out the accumulated melanin pigment effectively.
Laser treatments are quite a popular choice for lightening the skin as they can be tailored to your specific needs. These treatments cover a wide range of pigmentation issues such as dark spots, sun damage, tan skin or dull-looking skin.
Skin Lightening Supplements
Many beauty and health supplements are now available to help you lighten your skin from within. These are available in the form of tablets and capsules containing antioxidants such as vitamin C, N-acetyl cysteine, alpha lipoic acid, grape seed extract and astaxanthin. Besides these, oral sunscreen tablets are now available which contain fern extracts.
These beauty supplements can help you achieve that inner radiance that everyone desires. But make sure you follow the recommended dosage to avoid any unwanted effects.
Skin Lightening Injections
Skin lightening injections are procedure that uses glutathione as the main ingredient, injected into the blood stream. The procedure is just like a regular vitamin drip. Ingredients such as glutathione, vitamin C, collagen, antioxidants and multi-vitamins are used to inhibit an enzyme known as tyrosinase. Tyrosinase is responsible for pigmentation of the skin, and this treatment converts dark melanin to lighter melanin thereby giving you a lighter skin tone.
Depending on your current skin tone and the goals you want to achieve, you may need a specific dose, in several sessions.