While we may see advertisements featuring models with smooth, even skin, it’s common to experience uneven skin tone or hyperpigmentation. Hyperpigmentation is the darkening of the skin or nails due to increased melanin production and can appear on any skin type. Hyperpigmentation is the leading cause of uneven skin tone, but there are other factors that also affect skin tone and skin texture.
What Causes Uneven Skin Tone?
As we mentioned, hyperpigmentation is usually the culprit behind textured or uneven skin tones, encompassing skin injuries like acne scars, sun spots, burns, and lupus.
Other factors of uneven skin tone include:
- Pollution
- Sun Exposure
- Hormonal Imbalances
When the skin is repeatedly exposed to the sun’s harmful UV rays, the skin over-produces melatonin to protect the skin from the sun. This leaves the skin blotchy and uneven, with dark spots left behind in the sun’s wake.
How to Achieve an Even Skin Tone
First off, it’s important to realize that an uneven skin tone is natural and very common to have. Secondly, a perfectly even skin tone does not exist; everyone has a little darker or lighter patches of skin somewhere on their face and body. So, while the following tips and treatments may help even out the skin tone, perfectly even and one-toned skin is absolutely not realistic and not obtainable for anyone.
Tips to Balance Out Uneven Skin Tone
Here are a few tips you may want to incorporate into your lifestyle if you are serious about preventing or improving uneven skin tone in the future:
- Do not pick at the skin, even if you have acne, cuts, etc.
- Wear a mineral sunscreen every day.
- Incorporate both a retinol or a retinoid prescription product into your nighttime routine and a topical antioxidant Vitamin C serum as part of your morning routine.
- Schedule annual skin checks and exams to check for cancers or other harmful skin diseases.
- Exfoliate regularly, but not too often. Dr. Walia recommends weekly exfoliation..
Uneven Skin Tone Treatments
Dr. Sunny Walia at the Aesthetic and Dermatology Center is a fellowship-trained dermatologic laser surgeon performing laser treatments on patients with uneven, sagging, and aged skin. For uneven skin, sun spots and scars, we recommend the following treatments with Dr. Sunny Walia:
- The VBeam® Pulsed Dye Laser The VBeam® Pulsed Dye Laser delivers rapid bursts of gentle lightwaves to the skin, helping to eliminate vascular lesions, leg and facial veins, rosacea, stretch marks, red acne scars and burns, under-eye pigmentation, photorejuvenation and warts. This treatment is very effective in repairing the “red spots” caused by cumulative sun damage especially on the neck and chest.
- LaseMD™ The LaseMD™ is a fractionational non-ablative laser that is safe for every skin type. The LaseMD™ treatment helps treat uneven skin tone, melasma, fine lines, wrinkles, photodamage such as sun spots and actinic keratosis (also known as precancerous lesions).
- Oftentimes, these two laser procedures are used synergistically to effectively treat photodamaged skin.
If you’d like to achieve a smoother, even skin tone, request a consultation with Dr. Sunny Walia at the Aesthetic and Dermatology Center today. Call: (301) 610-0663.