When it comes to treating hyperpigmentation, professional treatments are important and can help speed up the process, but what you do at home is just as important.
I often tell my clients to think of it this way:
What I do in the treatment room is about 20% of the work. The other 80% is what you do at home.
You need consistency.
And when building a routine for hyperpigmentation, I like to keep the same principle I use when talking about skincare in general:
In the morning, we protect. In the evening, we repair and correct.
Morning: Protect
Your morning routine does not need to be complicated.
Start with:
- Cleanser
- Antioxidant serum
- Moisturizer
- SPF
And out of everything you are using to treat hyperpigmentation, sunscreen is probably the step I want you to take the most seriously.
Especially if you have melanin-rich skin.
Having more melanin does not mean that you don't need sunscreen. You may not burn as easily, but UV exposure and visible light can still contribute to hyperpigmentation and premature skin aging. Daily sunscreen also helps prevent existing pigmentation from getting darker.
So if you are investing in brightening serums, professional treatments and corrective products but you're not consistently protecting your skin from the sun, you're making the process much more difficult.
Evening: Correct
The evening is where we start introducing our corrective ingredients.
One ingredient that I have found particularly interesting for hyperpigmentation is tranexamic acid.
One of the products I use is Circadia Serum 71.
It combines:
- 5% mandelic acid
- 2% tranexamic acid
- 0.3% azelaic acid
- Beta-glucan
- Peptides
These ingredients work in different ways to help improve the appearance of uneven pigmentation, redness and skin texture. I find this combination works beautifully because we are not relying on only one brightening ingredient.
If you are new to corrective products, however, I don't necessarily recommend jumping straight into using them every single night. I prefer starting slowly — for example, three evenings a week — and watching how your skin responds before gradually increasing the frequency.
Because remember: more is not always better. If something is irritating your skin, especially if you are prone to hyperpigmentation, that inflammation can end up creating more pigmentation.
What Do You Apply After Your Serum?
After your corrective serum, you can follow with a brightening treatment moisturizer. One that I really like is Circadia Radiant Veil Brightener.
This product contains several ingredients that target different parts of the pigmentation process, including alpha-arbutin, niacinamide, stabilized vitamin C and other brightening ingredients. It is hydroquinone-free and formulated to help improve the appearance of uneven pigmentation.
If you find that it is not moisturizing enough for your skin, especially if you tend to be dry or dehydrated, you can apply another moisturizer suited to your skin type on top.
Again, we are treating pigmentation, but we still need to respect the skin barrier.
What If You Have Individual Dark Spots?
If you have more concentrated areas of pigmentation, you can also introduce a spot treatment.
Circadia Radiant Brightening Serum is one option I like for this. It contains trans-resveratrol, a potent antioxidant and brightening ingredient, along with a stable form of vitamin C and additional ingredients that help target melanin production. Circadia recommends applying this one directly to areas of discoloration in the evening.
Another option is the ILUMA Intense Brightening Serum from Image Skincare. It uses a different combination of brightening ingredients, including vitamin C, bearberry and botanical extracts, and can be incorporated into a routine to target dark spots and uneven tone.
This is also why there isn't necessarily one single hyperpigmentation routine that I give to everyone. Your products should depend on your skin, what is causing the pigmentation and what your skin can tolerate.
Before I Treat the Pigmentation, I Look at the Inflammation
This is particularly important with melanin-rich skin.
Something I frequently notice when performing skin analysis on clients with hyperpigmentation is that there is often inflammation underneath it.
Post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation happens because inflammation or injury to the skin can stimulate increased melanin production, and it tends to be more noticeable and longer-lasting in darker skin tones.
So sometimes I am not going to start by attacking the pigmentation. First, I want to calm the inflammation. Then I want to make sure the skin is properly hydrated and that the skin barrier is functioning well. Then we correct the pigmentation.
That might mean that your first routine is actually very basic:
- Cleanser
- Moisturizer
- SPF
Maybe a calming serum. And only when your skin is ready do we start introducing the brightening ingredients.
The Takeaway
Treating hyperpigmentation requires patience. Professional treatments can help, but your home-care routine is what you are doing every single day.
Remember:
Morning = Protect. Cleanser → antioxidant → moisturizer → SPF.
Evening = Repair and correct. Cleanser → corrective serum → treatment moisturizer → additional moisturizer if needed.
And before trying to correct pigmentation, make sure your skin is calm, hydrated and able to tolerate the products you are using. Because with hyperpigmentation, especially on melanin-rich skin, we don't want to create more inflammation while trying to correct the pigmentation that is already there.
Calm. Hydrate. Protect. Then correct.
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