The Best Ways to Lighten Skin: Should You Choose a Cream or Treatment?

If you want to achieve a lighter, more radiant skin tone, you might not know where to start. There are so many products and methods out there that figuring out which one to try can be overwhelming. A cream can be a simple solution to many pigmentation issues, but deep treatment can see lasting results.

Read on to discover the best way to lighten skin in a safe and quick way!

DIY: Should You Try It?

There are loads of do-it-yourself recipes that promise lighter skin. What makes them so appealing is their convenience: you simply mix together some ingredients in your kitchen and apply them to your skin. As with any other skin lightening method, some ingredients that work better than others.

Since it is rich in Vitamin C, lemon is a natural skin brightening agent and can be applied to discoloured areas of the skin to clear them up. Another ingredient to consider is turmeric. This spice contains curcumin, which is a melanin regulator. Using curcumin on your skin will even it out and make it brighter.

The benefit of using homemade ingredients to lighten skin is that they are natural, but they take longer to work. Being patient with your skin lightening efforts is not always easy when you want results to show!

Creams that Lighten Skin

For faster skin lightening, science comes to the rescue. Scientifically-formulated skin-lightening products have stronger whitening ingredients. Some of them contain chemicals that can actually make your skin darker or discoloured while also being dangerous to your general health, so you need to tread carefully. You should look for products that contain natural, botanical ingredients, are gentle on your skin; and scientifically formulated to give you skin lightening success.

There are different types of skin lightening products, depending on your skin’s needs. You need to take these into consideration for the best outcome.

• If your skin is in need of general brightening, a product containing an exfoliating ingredient such as oats or sugar will prove most useful to slough away dead skin on the surface that often contains discoloration. A great product to try is Sepiwhite Lightening Bar that replaces your daily soap bar to replenish and exfoliate your skin.
• If your skin has patches of discoloration or you want to get a lighter complexion, you need more intense whitening agents. You should start out with a mild or ‘regular strength  product, such as Sepiwhite Facial Lightening Cream Regular Strength that is formulated to be gentle on sensitive skin.
• If you want greater lightening results after using one with regular strength for a few weeks, move onto a stronger product, such as Pre-Whiten Face Penetrate Maximum Strength. This product deeply penetrates the skin’s layers to give you faster whitening while nourishing your skin with antioxidants. Starting slow is important to allow your skin to adjust and open up to the whitening process.

Treatments that Lighten Skin

There are two popular ways your dermatologist can lighten your skin: with chemical peels and laser treatment.  

• Since chemical peels deeply exfoliate the skin with ingredients such as Alpha Hydroxy Acids (AHAs), they can help to eradicate any discoloration or dead skin. The drawback is that the treatment is invasive, resulting in redness and flakiness that can cause you to want to hibernate at home until it clears up (usually within a week). There are also other side-effects that can occur, such as skin infections, scarring, or skin tone changes.
  
• Laser treatments whiten your skin with the use of chemicals that reduce melanin. They might seem appealing because they can give you all-over lightening while the laser can target darker spots on the skin. Although laser treatments are fast, there are side effects that could occur for up to two weeks after a session, such as post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation, skin flakiness, and blisters.

Which Skin Lightening is Best?

Although invasive skin treatments can give you results, often skin lightening can be successfully achieved with just the use of creams. Research shows that bleaching agents which are topically applied to skin are still the most successful when it comes to skin lightening. Natural creams make use of whitening ingredients such as arbutin or koji berry extracts. These are increasing in popularity and are known to be successful skin lighteners.

As you can see, there are many ways to achieve a more radiant, even complexion. However, to lighten your skin in a healthy and effective way, choosing a skin cream is your healthiest and most effective option.