If you want to treat sunspots, there are so many choices in the skin care industry. Countless approaches and products. But what really works? Do you get the feeling that you’re chasing your own tail? Unfortunately, you very well might be. Just because a product claims to do something doesn’t necessarily mean it does.
Mainstream corrective skincare is trauma-based — which is idiotic and ineffective. It focuses on “harming to heal” our skin with lasers, astringents, chemical peels, microdermabrasion, microneedling, most essential oils, and oil-free moisturizers. Sadly, these very things cause sun sensitivity and dermal thinning, which perpetuates the problem of sunspots.
This, combined with internal liver issues and continued sun exposure, creates the recipe for hyperpigmented skin, AKA sunspots.
The most important thing about treating sunspots is that you can’t treat only sunspots without treating the more fundamental skin issues that helped contribute to the formation of these sunspots in the first place. The answer: “nourish to heal” strategies that outperform outdated ideas.
The tricky thing about “treating” sunspots conventionally is that the most common final result is “rebound hyperpigmentation” or rebound sunspots. The use of force may remove these spots partially or almost entirely — but as the weeks and months progress, the sunspots often come back with a vengeance and will appear worse than they were initially.
If you contact the facility that rendered these services, they will typically blame you for not wearing enough sunscreen. Granted, they are partially right in blaming sunscreen; you probably aren’t wearing enough. But the other half of the story that’s often ignored is why you needed so much extra sunscreen to begin with. Their procedures. Harmful treatments leave skin with significant sun sensitivity that dramatically increases the chances of future pigmenting for the rest of your life.
So why on Earth would we do these things to our skin? The short answer is that we didn’t know any better. It’s a sunspot trauma loop, and it’s snowballing. But you can get out. Here’s how:
- Adopt skincare routines that truly hydrate, dermally nourish (only stabilized Dermal Nutrients can do this), and support your skin’s natural barrier function with a lipid rich moisturizer.
- Apply effective antioxidants, including vitamin C during the evenings.
- Never exfoliate in the morning or use harsh cleansers, ever. But especially not in the morning.
- Apply and reapply a mineral-based sunscreen every two hours.
- Talk to a functional medicine provider about the health of your liver and overall hormone balance.
- And no matter what you do, never go for a hike or long car drive after getting your eyebrows or upper lip waxed. So many sunspots happen this way.
When it comes to treating sunspots, you have to go slow to get ahead. Utilizing the superpower of topical dermal nutrients, the slow migration of pigment will rise to the surface of our skin, where it can be sloughed off in time as our skin does naturally. This process happens so much faster with the help of these topical Dermal Nutrients. This progression, combined with proper topical hydration, antioxidants, and the use of a barrier restoration product, is the way to make steady improvements to sunspots without rebounding backwards.
Keep learning about what the new paradigm shift means for your skin…practically.
Harm to heal is OUT and Nourish to Heal is IN.
Real healing is a beautiful process.
Check out my other skin related blog entries:
- Essential oils are incredible but not for our faces
- How to do right by your skin this summer
- Think Twice
- Not all Vitamin C is equal
- Sweat Embrace

About the author
I took many wrong turns when I started learning about skin at 19. The more I spent on skincare, equipment, and training, the further I felt from actually helping skin. I was frustrated with only being able to offer temporary and superficial solutions at best. What emerged from the disappointment and turmoil, I now call, The Regenerative Skin Process. Skin Harmonics is a dedicated medical fusion holistic skincare clinic that provides a root cause approach delivering lifetime skin health through medical grade skin care products, new learning, and Deep Pore Cleansing Facials.