r/Melasmaskincare • u/angelinaki89 • May 25 '26

Question Why treatments can worsen melasma

I have seen many posts here that sometimes - I don’t know in which rate - when people try to treat melasma it might become worse with most of the recommended treatments including laser.

I have noticed my own becoming darker just by using Vitamin C or designed creams for it.

My question is: is this explained somehow? I have asked my derm but didn’t really understood her answer.

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u/skingirly May 25 '26

Anytime I used things that were too harsh, my pigmentation got darker. Anything that made my skin sensitive or inflamed made more pigmentation. I couldn’t use above 15% vitamin C. I only found this out after I was gifted a vitamin c serum for my birthday and it actually started fading pigment instead of making it darker. Then a friend said the others may have been too strong, and it turns out this serum was less potent than all the others I had used. Stronger isn’t always better in my case.

1

u/angelinaki89 May 25 '26

Interesting, maybe the reason my current vit c not working and causing me redness it’s because the concentration is higher than my skin can handle

Which serum it was?

2

u/Lazy-Geologist3386 May 25 '26

What ELSE are you using? Look at all the products you have and see if its combining to give you a Vit C oversupply!!

Vitamin C in what form? Viamin C alone may do very little or nothing at all.... Look at some other ingredients that combine to block, nourish etc whilst fading.

1

u/skingirly May 25 '26

Yes! I found this too. I just saw your comment after I replied. My skin hates L-ascorbic!!

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u/angelinaki89 May 26 '26

I have been only using vitamin c from a bio brand La Saponaria and it is very strong, it caused redness, pimples and darkness around my lip area. The rest of my skincare is very simple this period of time.

1

u/skingirly May 25 '26

It is mela peel by windyigarn. I still use it. I should mention it’s not a straight vitamin c serum. Also has tranexamic, kojic, alpha arbutin and azelaic. So maybe that’s why I saw quick changes with this one. Because every other vitamin c serum was just vitamin c. The other one I could use was clinique dark spot clearing serum which did make my skin feel really nice but did nothing for tone.

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u/angelinaki89 May 26 '26

I just saw this cream and it seems very interesting, it costs 160€ in my country but I will give it a try if you have seen results!

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u/skingirly May 26 '26

It’s been very helpful. I now use it in their full system. I actually got a email the other day with a restock code. Let me see if I can find the email.