Dark spots are the new wrinkles, apparently. A dermatologist breaks down the latest ways to treat them - Toronto Star

New ingredients and next-level lasers are changing how we handle hyperpigmentation.

Dark spots are tricky to treat, but new techniques are arriving at dermatologist offices and on drugstore shelves.

“Dark spots are the new wrinkles,” or so my social media scroll says. Videos from dermatologists, skinfluencers and skin care brands proclaim that it’s the splotches of pigment that are adding years to our appearance, not the lines that we’ve traditionally blamed (and targeted).

The science is less settled. A Proctor & Gamble-funded study from 2008 found that uneven skin tone alone can advance a face’s apparent age by up to 20 years, even when skin is smooth, while other, newer studies found wrinkles to be more influential.

But that hasn’t slowed the anti-spot onslaught. Some influencers say that, now that they’ve had their dark spots removed, they don’t bother with Botox anymore. They’ve made peace with their lines so long as their canvas is perfectly even.

My own canvas rivals a Jackson Pollock splatter painting. My freckles were cute in grade school, proliferating in university when my friends and I met up at the tanning salon, and merging with melasma during fertility treatment and pregnancy. Now, they’re competing with my fine lines on which makes the bigger impression — but wrinkles are a lot easier to treat with semi-annual injectable appointments.

Hyperpigmentation is notoriously hard to handle, even with all the products and procedures designed to target it. “No one single treatment is a panacea that’s going to fix everything and maintain it,” says Dr. Geeta Yadav, board-certified dermatologist and founder of Facet Dermatology in Toronto. “It isn’t just about getting the pigment to lighten, because some forms of pigmentation are chronic and recurrent.”

While we’re at it, let’s take a longer look at our collective obsession with youth.