We can tell many things from our skin: our eating habits, the lifestyle we lead and even the time our watch counts.
Skin ageing, which manifests with spots on the skin, is caused not only by the passing of the years, but also by other factors. Everything that passes inside our body is reflected on the outside through the skin, just as everything that wants to enter finds its way through this barrier. Substances and emotions mark their passage on the skin, so it is good to learn how to take care of yourself. There is always time to change your routine, lifestyle… and thinking!
Under the magnifying glass, in the summer (and also in the autumn when we try to make up for the increased sun exposure in the previous months), are sun spots on the face. There can be different kinds:
Senile lentigo
Solar lentigo
Melasma and chloasma
Freckles
Ephelides
The appearance of these spots depends on various aetiological factors. Understanding their origin makes it much easier to identify the treatment to be carried out to remove them. Not only age is the trigger, infectious and non-infectious diseases (vitiligo or even the more common couperose), genetics and heredity (freckles and ephelides), hormones (melasma), but also drugs and irritants are responsible for the appearance of these blemishes.
Going down to a purely biological level, in most cases, dark spots on the skin are the consequence of alterations in the functioning of melanocytes, i.e. those cells in charge of producing melanic pigment. The melanin distributed on the epidermis is unevenly distributed, creating dyschromia.
Lentigo senili
As can easily be understood from the adjective, senile lentigo are caused by the ageing process, which is a natural and inevitable thing. Other factors besides time can speed up and encourage the formation of spots: UV rays, smoking, smog and wind. Free radicals weaken the skin’s defences, making it more vulnerable and prone to damage. The face and hands are the areas most affected.
Solar lentigo
Excessive sun exposure causes solar lentigo, spots tending to a hazel colour. They can also appear as an effect of tanning lamps; they therefore appear on the face but also in all sun-exposed areas.
Melasma and chloasma
Many drugs containing hormones, mainly oestrogen (thus also trivially the contraceptive pill or drugs used in hormone replacement therapies). Melanocytes perceive hormonal changes, which is why even pregnant women tend to see the appearance of darker spots, a so-called chloasma that is usually reversible. It disappears in the post-natal period.
Similarly, the menopause can cause spots to appear on the skin precisely because of this hormonal alteration.
Freckles and Ephelides
That cascade of more or less large orange spots hated by some and considered a major blemish by others adored so much as to highlight them, are the best known, freckles. Similar to ephelids, freckles are hereditary but more resistant. Ephelides can be defined as seasonal as they tend to disappear with reduced exposure to sunlight.
However, both of these types of spots do not represent a pathological condition, as they do not cause any discomfort.
Treatment
Depending on the cause, the type of treatment to remove them also varies.
In the event that the spots are the result of a temporary disorder, it is generally not necessary to start a course of treatment. The skin will return to harmonious pigmentation.
There are many cosmetics on the market that are designed to visibly reduce the effect of dark spots on the face and body. There are devices, such as the V.E.V handpiece from Eva by Endospheres, that deeply convey the lightening products, which can more easily eliminate pigment accumulations. For more complex situations, dermo-aesthetic medicine uses a variety of treatments to attenuate hyperpigmented areas:
Chemical peelings;
Laser treatments;
Microdermabrasion;
Dermabrasion;
Diathermocoagulation.
However, such treatments should only be performed by beauty professionals.