Acne and Dark Spots on Dark Skin

We’ve spoken to you about yellow, brown, and deeper skin tones and how acne affects these types differently. Let’s discuss where this comes into play when customizing your acne homecare routine.

The most important thing to remember about skincare is balance. While we want to give you potent products to get you clear, we don’t do it at the cost of your skin’s health and happiness. Hyperpigmentation is not only caused by breakouts, it can also be a side effect from using products that are much too drying and irritating.

The darker someone’s skin is, the more cautious you have to be about strong products.  When your Acne Specialist designs your routine, your skin type and tone is taken into consideration.

Things don’t always have to be at maximum strength to be effective. Clear skin can be attained without frying your face!

Many users of other acne treatment systems may find that the products can be too much for their skin to handle. For those who are more prone to hyperpigment, these systems can leave behind more damage than good.

When it comes to preventing hyperpigmentation, moisture is very important. Many of you may not use moisturizers at all. Do you feel as though you’re too oily? That you may be suffocating your acne? Or making it worse? All this could not be further from the truth! Yes you must be careful of pore clogging ingredients, but Face Reality moisturizers are non-comedogenic so you don’t have to worry. This with the correct potency of active ingredients can put you on the path to beautifully clear skin.

Treating darker skin types with acne and dark spots can be one of the trickiest skin problems to encounter. As you can see in the before picture, this client needed really aggressive peels and homecare in order to get the skin clear and the resulting severe hyperpigmentation (dark spots) lifted. In working with her, we needed to be extremely careful not to make her pigmentation worse.

The darker the skin is, the more “active” the melanocytes are. These are the cells in the dermis that create pigment. They are just waiting for any kind of stimulation in the way of picking, rubbing, heat, acne, or just about anything to form more pigment. The secret with having a successful outcome with this type of skin is to be very conservative in home care and treatments and to go very slowly. We very gradually increased the strength of her regimen and she cleared beautifully.

Content provided courtesy of Face Reality Acne Clinic. Wendy Christman is a Master Licensed Esthetician and Face Reality Acne Speciailist providing quality Acne treatments in the Olympia, WA area.