A Regimen for Fading Age Spots

Posted by Marta

I am frequently asked by readers and friends which cream they should buy to treat age spots. Thing is there are no silver bullets. At least in my experience, it is a finely calibrated combination of potions, lotions and treatments that, after patient experimentation, really gets results. In other words, it’s a daily and weekly regimen. Here is the one that I am finding is working at fading freckles and attacking the most stubborn age/sun spots.

Treatments

Possibly the effective part of my regime is monthly salon sessions of LED light therapy treatments where panels emitting red (visible) light and infra-red (invisible light) are placed over the hands for 20 minutes. I have recently started to top up my monthly sessions once a week using an at-home LED device called Baby Quasar.

 

LED will fade freckles, age spots and generally smooth out hyperpigmentation (its even good for rosacea). Be prepared for the fact that, immediately after treatment, freckles will look darker. A smear of sunscreen is very important at this stage. Within 36 hours or so, you should start to see results.

Potions and lotions

Vitamin C and ferulic acid is my own concoction for the more stubborn age spots. I simply added a phial of ferulic acid to a 1oz bottle of Somme vitamin C cream. Ferulic acid improves the performance of vitamin C, which acts as a mild exfoliant. It also acts as a natural sunscreen and so is helping prevent the sun spots get any worse.

 

For what I would regard as a freckle with slightly too much attitude, I use a gentler cream made by Suki called Intensive Skin Brightener. This is especially good for sensitive areas. For example, I have a freckle on the arch of my right eye, which I wouldn’t dream of subjecting to the ferulic and vitamin C. For such a mild product, made only with natural ingredients, the Suki is surprisingly and wonderfully effective.

In the evenings I dab some copper peptides in the form of Skin Biology's Super Cop 2X on the areas I am treating. The morning creams are doing an exfoliation job and the copper peptides should be repairing by helping the new cells to grow. I use it in the evening because it is an intense blue/green color that doesn’t penetrate the skin very well (patting it onto slightly damp skin helps) and it leaves me looking slightly bruised for about half an hour.