How to Deal with Melasma

The world would be a different place if everyone had clear complexions. Teenagers wouldn't be as angsty, and grown women wouldn't be as annoyed. Alas, however, people have all different kinds of complexions – usually ones with imperfections, and you're certainly no exception.

Specifically, you have recently been diagnosed with Melasma, and are trying to find ways to effectively deal with it. While you're certainly glad that you took birth control pills when you did, you're not so thrilled at one of the side-effects was Melasma.

Of course, it wasn't just the birth control pills that triggered the Melasma, it was also all those summer days you spent outside tanning. The prolonged exposure to the sun's rays triggered the production of melanin, so that now you have brown patches on your face.

It started simply, with just a little patch of brown showing up on your nose. You thought nothing of it, just assuming that it must have been a patch of freckles – you do have a pale complexion, after all. However, a few weeks later, you noticed that there was even more patches of light brown slowly spreading across your face. It was then that you decided to go see a dermatologist.

You were happy to know that your Melasma wasn't something that was serious. Instead, it was, and is, going to be more of an annoyance than anything else. As for treatment, you could go the expensive route, with injections and chemical peels, but so far none of these treatments have been proven without a doubt to work.

So, your dermatologist tells you to go a far simpler route, and instead wear lots of SPF as well as stay out of the sun. You cringe. You love being in the sun as much as you can, because it's just so nice, and warm, and comforting, and…hey! It's also a great extra a source of Vitamin D, right? Your dermatologist says yes, in moderation it is, but no more sun tanning for you.

You walk into your local drugstore feeling defeated. You stare at the long aisle of SPFs, and decide that you'll choose the one that comes in the cute bottle. Your dermatologist told you to choose an SPF of at least 30, so that's what you've done. You're not too thrilled at how greasy the SPF feels though. Plus, after just a few days of using your new SPF, you're starting to smell suspiciously like a cucumber.

You have to admit, you were kind of surprised that you can get an unhealthy amount of UV rays just from driving in the car. You do happen to do a lot of driving, so that's probably another thing that contributed to your skin problem. Well, you've decided that, rather than lathering up with SPF (okay, you still will on your face) every time you plan on going in your car, it's better to wear that nice white hoodie you have. After all, white does a great job of deflecting sunlight. Heck, it works for desert nomads!

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