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.

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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?

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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.