Pigmentation

Pigmentation describes areas of skin that are darker than the skin around them. The distinction that matters — and the one most marketing blurs — is that your natural skin tone is not pigmentation. It is your skin.

The common kinds:

Post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation. The brown or red mark left after a spot heals. Extremely common in deeper skin tones. It fades on its own over months, faster with daily sun protection.

Sun-driven pigmentation. Flat brown patches on the areas that catch most light — forehead, cheekbones, upper lip. Accumulates over years.

Melasma. Symmetrical brown patches, usually on the cheeks and forehead, often triggered by hormones and made worse by heat as well as UV. Difficult, recurring, and worth seeing a dermatologist about.

What helps, in order of how much: daily sunscreen, then time, then an ingredient — niacinamide, vitamin C, azelaic acid, tranexamic acid. Any of those without the sunscreen is fading marks while making new ones.

Nothing topical changes your underlying tone, and claims otherwise are claims nobody can keep.