Pigment & Melasma Care

Pigment is the one concern where speed is the enemy. Melasma in particular responds to heat and aggression by coming back darker, which is why a single powerful session so often looks brilliant for three weeks and worse by week six. Our programme is built the other way around: low energy, short intervals, and a barrier that is protected the whole way through.

We begin by working out what kind of pigment you actually have. Sun-driven freckling, post-inflammatory marks left by old acne, and hormonal melasma look similar in a mirror and behave completely differently under treatment. A short examination under filtered light separates them, and the plan changes accordingly — freckling can be cleared quickly, melasma cannot, and telling you which one you have is the most useful thing we do on the first visit.

A session itself is undramatic. Low-fluence toning passes over the area several times at an energy that warms rather than injures, and where the pigment sits deeper we add a short course of injectable brightening agents between laser visits. You will feel a light prickling and see a faint flush that settles within the hour. Makeup goes back on the same day.

The part patients underestimate is what happens between sessions. Pigment returns through daylight, so a broad-spectrum sunscreen reapplied at midday does more for the outcome than any single visit. We will give you a written home routine on the first day and adjust it as the course goes on — usually simplifying it, not adding to it.

Expect the first visible change around session three and a settled result somewhere between session six and ten. After that, most patients come back two or three times a year to hold the ground they gained. We will tell you honestly when you have reached the ceiling of what this treatment can do for your skin, rather than selling you a further course that will not move it.