Well, hello, hello, guys, you're listening to Beauty Bites with Dr. K., Secrets of a Plastic Surgeon,

and it's time for a five-minute Friday.

I'm going to talk to you all about hyperpigmentation and brightening your brown spots.

So if you are noticing pigmentation changes, it generally comes from several different causes,

one being the sun and solar damage, giving you solar lentigenies or darkening brown spots.

Number two, being from hormonal changes such as pregnancy, giving you a condition called

malasma.

Number three, post-inflammatory conditions where you've had irritation, acne, or irregular patches develop in

the skin that cause pigment to occur after this inflammatory cascade. And number four might be

from trauma, abrasion, or scarring that can happen to the skin. These are the biggest causes

of hyperpigmentation,

and none of them need to happen. We can inhibit all of these different things. We can inhibit

sun damage by wearing a protective, reflective sunscreen, like a mineral-based zinc or

titanium. We can inhibit changes related to post-inflammatory

pigmentation by reducing active acne breakouts or treating with anti-inflammatory ingredients.

We can reduce melasma changes by stopping the production of excess melanin by using

products like tyrosanase inhibitors that block melanin production,

and we can reduce hopefully scarring by avoiding irritation of the skin surface and skin

injuries. The bottom line is brightening the skin is going to make you feel better about yourself.

You don't have to have light white skin to look good. You have to have skin that has even

tonations and really like a pearlescent, illuminant quality to it. So I like the idea of

brightening skin because as we age, skin is going to become modeled, it's going to become

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