What Is Melasma - (Dark Spots on The Face) and What Causes Melasma
MELASMA 101
I talk to women everyday who suffer from melasma. Many of you who come to me for help, have luckily gotten past just trying all the quick fixes, like lasers, peels, exfoliation, hydroquinone, other lightening creams, that don't actually get rid of the melasma long term, and now you understand + trust that melasma is an internal problem.
But between the emails, Instagram messages, facebook messages, and one-on-one clients I work with, one thing that has become blatantly obvious, is that most people are confused about where to even start!
So, I figured I would start at the beginning. I'll answer the question of what melasma is, common triggers for melasma, and the link between melasma and hormones.
What Is Melasma?
Melasma is a pigmentary disorder that causes brown or grey patches to form on the face. It’s common for it to appear on the upper lip, or in a symmetrical pattern on other areas of the face, such as cheeks or forehead, and it can sometimes also show up in other sun exposed areas like the chest or forearms.
It is much more common in women than men, because of the role hormones, especially estrogen, play in most cases of melasma.
In skin with melasma, pigment-producing cells in the skin, called melanocytes become overactive due to certain factors, resulting in uneven pigment on the skin. To get rid of the hyperpigmentation, you want to limit the triggers that activate the melanocytes.
Melasma is multifactorial, meaning there are numerous potential triggers, also known as root causes, that can cause melasma to develop. Each person can have a combination of more than one factor that’s triggering it.
Common Triggers/Root Causes:
Chronic Stress/Trauma
Specific nutrient deficiencies/imbalances
Unhealthy fat consumption
Damaged protective layer of skin
Hormone Imbalances
Gut issues
Sluggish Liver Detoxification
Mineral Imbalance
Histamine Intolerance/increased mast cells
Heat Exposure
UV light + blue light
Certain medications
Genetics
It’s true, genetics can make you more prone to melasma, but it doesn't mean you’re destined to be stuck with melasma if someone in your family had it. Epigenetics shows that just because you have the gene for something, doesn't mean it will manifest.
It CAN manifest based on your lifestyle, nutrition, and environmental exposures. The way you live, eat, and what you’re exposed to can turn genes on or off. Don’t assume that because a family member has melasma, that you're stuck with it too.
In the Melasma Free Method, my online course that gives you the fast-track to figuring out how to get rid of your melasma for good, I go over all these common melasma triggers in detail AND what to do for them.
Once you have melasma, the sun can make it worse, but melasma is triggered by an imbalance somewhere in the body, most commonly a hormone imbalance. And even other triggers that are seemingly non-hormonal, often relate back to hormones in some way.
Because melasma is often triggered by an imbalance in female sex hormones, it's common for melasma to appear during pregnancy, or while on the birth control pill/coming off the pill. In fact, it used to be called the ‘mask of pregnancy’ back when they thought only pregnant women could develop melasma.
Now we know it develops in relation to hormone levels, which means it can happen to anyone, pregnant or not.
For many of us it can occur outside of pregnancy or the birth control pill due to a hormone imbalance caused by lifestyle factors, such as stress, sluggish detoxification, or a diet lacking in nutrients.
The most common hormonal trigger is excess estrogen or an imbalance of estrogen.
When estrogen dominance occurs, whether due to too much estrogen in the body or progesterone that's too low and throws off the balance of estrogen to progesterone, this increases melanocyte-stimulating hormone (MSH), which stimulates the production of melanin, causing darker skin.
Hormones and Melasma
Hormones work together, and there is a delicate balance between each of them. If one hormone is off, it can throw other hormones out of balance. For instance, chronically high cortisol (a stress hormone) can lead to depleted estrogen and/or progesterone.
Imbalanced hormones can cause all sorts of symptoms, including, but not limited to: PMS symptoms (cramps, headaches, fatigue, mood changes), blood sugar issues, infertility, anxiety, weight gain, heart palpitations, inability to regulate body temperature (feeling cold or hot often), low libido, hair loss, fatigue, irregular periods, headaches, and skin conditions to name just a few.
So, what causes an imbalance in hormones in the first place?
Common causes of hormone imbalance:
Chronic stress
Nutrient-poor, processed food diet
Blood sugar imbalance
Food sensitivities
Being overweight
Over-exercising
Under-eating
Lack of sleep night after night/lack of rest
Digestive issues
Birth Control Pills, IUDs, etc
The Foundations
I always teach about the importance of focusing on The Foundations first, which includes things like getting plenty of sleep, managing stress, eating enough food, not over-exercising, supporting your liver, simple skincare, eating nutrient-dense food, etc.
I focus on the foundations first, because those are the things that help create balanced hormones, and help support other areas of the body that can affect your skin. They are foundational to feeling and looking your best and keeping the body in balance. These helps support other areas that can be triggers for melasma like hormone imbalance, gut issues, or mineral dysregulation.
When my melasma was severe, it was because I was dealing with imbalanced hormones and leaky gut, and to rebalance my hormones naturally, I had to address my lifestyle.
Healing my skin was a journey that started with me taking a good, honest look at my current lifestyle and what I was being exposed to.
For me, that meant doing something about the stressors in my life, nourishing my liver, switching my skincare routine (no more acids, peels, or lightening creams that are always recommended for melasma!), and starting to eat real food my body recognized as food and contained nutrients needed to help balance my hormones and heal my skin.
You can more about my healing journey here.
I went from eating ALL processed food and never cooking, to learning how to prepare my own meals using nutrient dense foods I enjoyed, slowed down my schedule + lifestyle, and made relaxation a priority, healed leaky gut, nourished my liver, switched to a super simple skincare routine. These, in addition to other steps, helped balance my hormones that were out of balance.
And I changed my mindset from being the victim ("why me?") to being empowered ("my body is on my side and is healing every day because I'm giving it the tools it needs to heal").
I often get the question of what's the one thing that helped me the most. It's an impossible question to answer though because everything I focused on helped my body heal + rebalance, which then let my skin heal.
And really it doesn’t matter what helped me, because the point isn’t to do what someone else did to heal their melasma.
This is an issue I see often – women taking supplements or trying to mimic what someone else used to cure their melasma.
What works for one woman won’t necessarily work for you.
The point is to figure out what’s triggering your melasma, then address those things, and give your body time to do what it needs to do to heal.
In my online course, I teach you all about The Foundations - nutrition + how to truly nourish your body, stress management and resiliency to stress, steps to rewire your mindset for healing, the skincare routine that I recommend for melasma, and how to support your liver detoxification with simple tools.
I also teach you how to figure out your trigger, and what to do for those triggers.
In holistic medicine, we look at the body as a whole. EVERYTHING works together synergistically.
If you're dealing with melasma, it's essential to take a look at all areas of your body, your lifestyle, what you’ve been exposed to, to figure out what’s triggering you melasma and address that area.
I truly believe your body is on your side. It just needs the right tools to do it's job!
