When it comes to taking care of our skin, most of us are reactive rather than proactive, reaching for solutions only when an issue pops up. After all, we both know that slathering on a “brightening” night cream won’t make your face light up the room like a toddler’s night light, but do we know what it really means to brighten our skin? Every women, regardless of age or ethnicity want even, clear and radiant skin. Whether you're baby-faced or charmingly mature, having a dewy, fresh, luminous complexion is the necessity beauty weapon in your arsenal, and we're here to tell you presicely how to get it.
Check below the surface
Even if dark spots and patches aren’t an immediate concern for you right now, left unchecked, they will be. According to LCP-certified doctor Dr Daniel, who is also the medical director of Clinic MF, pigmentation does not occur overnight. “In fact, way before you develop any pigmentation spots, the pigmentation would already have been growing under the skin, rising in the deeper layers before it surfaces,” he explains.
“The earliest signs of sun damage usually start to appear after the age of 25,” Dr Daniel says . “The risk factors for pigmentation would include the amount of sun exposure in your routine, specifically recurring sun exposure that causes repeated damage over time,” he adds.
The Benefits of Brightening
As Dr Daniel mentioned, one of the benefits of brightening can be reduction and/or complete erasure of dark spots from scarring, acne, sun exposure, etc.
Depending on your skin type, you may be more prone to dark spots, and if that’s the case you’ll definitely benefit from brightening products or procedures.
If you suffer from a skin condition such as melasma, brightening procedures should always be in your arsenal, not to mention your daily skincare routine.
Even if you don’t currently have melasma, you may suffer from melasma during pregnancy, which is where brightening procedures can lend a hand.
As an added bonus, most of the ingredients used in brightening procedures also do double-duty in that they provide moisture and antioxidants for your skin to drink up—and who among us couldn’t need some more of that?
For this reason, many women love brightening procedures not for their ability to fix what many women see as skin “problems,” but also to give them that glowy look that we get after a tropical vacation (or simply after we’ve actually had a full night of sleep).
While there are a slew of benefits to brightening that can alleviate many of our most common skincare problems (especially as we get a bit older), there are a few drawbacks to brightening.
Most importantly, certain brightening procedures do not work as well on darker skin tones, and you have to be careful so that you don’t end up over-correcting your dark spots by making them brighter than your base skin tone.
This is one of the reasons Dr Daniel recommends going for a brightening procedure all over your face rather than only in certain problem areas.
Many Types Of Skin Brightening Procedures Exist
The process of skin brightening can be a do-it-yourself task or a full-blown aesthetic procedure. Natural pigmentation lightening includes concoctions made from orange peels, lemon juice, and yogurt while store-bought creams contain a great deal of potentially harmful chemicals. Aesthetic procedures such as chemical peeling and laser pigmentation treatment are also popular.
Whichever way the body's melanin is erased, it will take time to remove and will likely come back. So whether the brightening is natural, cream based, or medically assisted, the pigmentation removal will require multiple treatments and continued maintenance.
Brightening from the inside out with PICOPlus Toning
A quality skin brightening treatment should be formulated from compounds that show promise in lightening skin tone, a function that may also include reducing the prominence of freckles and other sun spots. Optimally, a skin brightening treatment will also offer anti-wrinkle benefits to further promote the youthful appearance of facial skin. Of course, skin brightening treatment should also be able to help skin appear brighter and more radiant, just as their names suggests.
Out of the many skin lightening procedures in the market today, PicoPlus is one of the most effective because it works in nanoseconds meaning it is able to fracture pigments at a quicker rate, decreasing the amount of heat the skin is exposed to. A laser that can be taken alongside other lasers, this skin brightening treatment aims to increase the health and glow of one’s skin.
PicoPlus specifically caters with the primary aim of Pigmentation Removal in Asian Skin. Laser settings and protocols have been optimised for enhanced effectiveness and safety in darker skin types. A Pico laser also has higher photo-acoustic effect (more energy). This means that pigmentation is shatter down into tinier fragments, which are more effortlessly evacuated by the body’s immune system. With 4 wavelengths of light, skin rejuvenation has never been better. Due to its speedy delivery of energy, treatments are safer and results more rapid than with the treatment of older generation lasers.
Additional Tips For Brighter Skin
In addition to going for brightening treatments to help combat your sunspots, make sure you’re wearing SPF every day to prevent new sunspots from showing up (not to mention to prevent old sunspots from getting worse).
In addition to daily sunscreen, ladies, remember to have patience when trying to fade dark spots.
Chances are, your dark spots may be the result of years (or decades) of sun exposure.
No procedure or product, no matter how powerful (or controversial) can erase so many years worth of damage overnight.
If you find yourself frustrated with your skin’s progress, we recommend taking a “before” photo and taking “after” photos every month or so to track your progress.
It can be difficult to notice changes in your skin when you’re looking at yourself in the mirror every day, but by taking photos to document changes, you may realize that your brightening procedures are doing a lot more than you realize!
Many people want brighter, glowy even-toned skin. Skin of color has to be careful with brightening because it can produce irregular patches of pigmentation. Therefore, you want to take a gentle and cautious approach. Don’t rush the brightening process, use products specific to skin type and keep skin hydrated to maintain a healthy balance.
