Why Dark Spots Look Worse Before They Get Better

These three products, melanin inhibitors, your antioxidant, specifically vitamin C, and DNA repair enzymes. And if you're putting all three of these on every single day, which is super duper for like clear, beautiful, glowing, healthy skin, that's really going to help with that. I mean, even if you're not working on pigmentation, like who would not want to use cell and tell every day? Yeah. 

I mean, and even, even like fade bright, it's like, it's not just hyperpigment. There are so many good ingredients in here, including, you know, the retinoids, but it's just, it's brightening for your skin, lightening and brightening, just kind of like vitamin C is like, that's like lightening and brightening and evening your skin tone. And who doesn't want like a nice, even, healthy, glowing skin tone. 

Okay. Another big question that we get often is when someone is working on pigmentation, you know, it's a quite lengthy road, you know, and sometimes, you know, they take those photos and sometimes they can start to see things maybe look a little darker at first, or they're not quite seeing what they want to see. And they kind of get derailed and they feel like, Oh my God, is this causing, making it worse? Yeah. 

Or they see more new marks. Yeah. Let's talk about what is causing that. 

Right. So when you're using something, you know, pigmentation, obviously is, you know, you've got damages way down in your cells and it's creating new, um, more melanin in the skin to protect itself from UV damage. Right. 

You know, and there's a lot of things that we can do to help protect our DNA now, but let's say you haven't done that in the past. This is all coming down. It's damaged your DNA and your DNA is like, we need to protect ourselves. 

So what does it do? It wants to put an umbrella up and shade you. Right. So it creates melanin. 

And now you start getting darker skin. Just like when you get a tan, you're like, isn't that beautiful? All I see now is sun damage when I see a tan, but I'm still a little jealous, but nonetheless. Right. 

Um, that's what's protecting you. Right. So people that tend to live in hotter climates tend to have darker skin. 

Right. You know, if you, if you thinking about this, because they need that protection, so they don't end up with, you know, skin cancers and things like that. I mean, it's there to protect you.

Your skin is so smart. It is. It's crazy. 

It's scientific and it's just amazing and fascinating. It is. And obviously, I mean, every single day we're, we're still getting UV damages. 

I mean, like, you know, SPF helps. And, um, you know, a lot of the things that we use can help, but we're still, we're still getting bombarded with UV rays. I mean, they're strong. 

We may not be burning, but we're still getting damages, you know? So even when you're trying to treat stuff and, and number one, I would normally say is like a melanin inhibitor, right? If anybody's like, comes to me, oh, I have hyperpigmentation or I have whatever. And I guess I used baby oil in the past and tan. It's like, yes, I, we all did. 

What did they say? Baby oil and iodine or something? And iodine. See, I never used iodine. No, me neither. 

I've used baby oil, but it was like Hawaiian traffic. Do you remember that? It was like SPF two or zero. In the brown bottle. 

It smelled delicious. It smelled delicious and was the oil and you put it all over and get as tan as you could possibly get. The good old days. 

The good old days before anybody knew that that was really damaging. For sure. For sure. 

But okay. So you've got all these damages. Number one, take a photo of what you look like with no makeup on in your, you know, bathroom in front of a natural light or your bedroom in front of a natural light. 

Let's document, you know, side, front, side. Document what you've got going on because things are going to change, right? And then start on something. If you're picking up one thing, I would say fade bright. 

It says the alpha arbutin and glutathione and all these different acids and wonderful things in here. This will help to turn down the melanin production in the skin. And then it has the different acids and different various ingredients to help start fading that pigmentation. 

But you know, this is an instant. This is not fast. I mean, we're talking like 60 to 90 days before you see a big turnaround. 

So what happens sometimes is people are like, okay, I started using this and it looks worse. Okay. Number one, does it actually look worse? Did you take a photo before and take a photo

now, three weeks later? Is it actually worse? Or did you not take a photo and you're now just so hyper fixated on it that you're like, I think it's worse. 

Cause some people do that. Some people just become hyper fixated on it. And I'm like, show me a picture before when they don't have it. 

They just think it looks worse. So, okay. Sometimes I think it doesn't look worse, you know, and that's just that. 

But you know, now you do have the people that let's say took a photo and then they're treating it and then you're moving forward. Did you inadvertently, you know, stay outside in the sun for three hours working on your yard or whatever, and you got more sun damage? Cause sunscreen is so important when you're working on pigmentation. Like you have to shield your skin. 

You have to. Yeah. I mean, you know, when, even when you're working on it, it's imperative. 

And most of the time, let's say like, no, no, I worked out there, but I put some SPF on. Yeah. You put SPF on eight hours ago and you were outside for five hours. 

You didn't reapply it. You probably got more things coming down. That's one option. 

Another option is, you know, this has a retinoid in it. This does help your skin to turn over more quickly. Well, the pigmentation, some pigmentation just sitting on the top layer. 

So we've got 20 some layers of skin, not there's way more than that, but you've got 20 some layers of just your stratum corneum, just the outside layer. Sure. And now you got pigment up here, down here, or maybe it's over here. 

Maybe it's over here. Maybe it's over here. This one's all stacked a whole bunch of times. 

You've got a whole bunch of pigmentation down there. That's working its way up. So maybe those top layers came off and you've still got a little bit left of this spot. 

Now this spot's moving up and then you're like, it looks worse. Is it worse? See, that's where photos come in too, because you would take this photo next to this photo. And then you can see, well, this spot's lighter, but I see a new spot here. 

Well, this didn't cause that new spot. This is what everybody thinks. This is making it worse. 

No, it didn't. It's, it's turning over your skin up and out, up and out, up and out. I can't say it enough up and out. 

You want it to come up and out. And you've got a whole lot of damage in here and all different

spaces. And so this spot might, you could see this spot faded like 50%. 

And now there's like two more here. Oh, but this one's gone. You know, it's just a different skin coming up. 

And either A, you created new damage because somehow you got a sunburn or you weren't doing something. You're not using your SPF. I don't think it's super possible. 

I think for most people, it's just more pigmentation coming up. So, you know, how do you get that off more quickly? You can do a peel and then people really will start kind of freaking out a little bit. No, it looks even worse. 

Is the acid causing PIH? And it's like, probably not unless you're misusing it and doing like TCA 20 or 30 the first time that, okay, yeah, you could be creating PIH. But if you're doing a Mendelic or Jesner or Lactic, now you're just helping to just speed over that turnover. Yes, you might see more. 

Keep documenting, take a photo every month so you can see the change because you are going to see these spots are gone. And this big cluster is now only this big. And you will see the changes, but you're not going to see those changes if you're not taking photos. 

That's why I'm always like, well, where's your before photo? Where's your photo? Where's your photo? Where's your photo? Because you only remember what you look like the last time you looked in the mirror. True. That's it. 

You don't remember what you look like three weeks ago or two days ago. When you go side by side, you can really, really get a good comparison. You can really see it. 

And I mean, if you have like, you know, good computer programs, you can put one photo over the other and like really turn down the opacity of the one so you can like see one over the other and you can see, oh yeah, I can really see the changes. Right. But it's not really getting darker unless you've screwed up somehow. 

Got it. Right. You know, right. 

It's not. It's generally speaking, it's more pigmentation coming up because what's on the surface, that's just the little bitty nothings. Those are the easiest ones to fade away. 

But that's also why it doesn't work instantly. Yeah. Right. 

It doesn't work instantly. It's a process. You might get some of them top layers quickly. 

And if you just have a handful of little spots on the surface. Yeah. That's why the people like, oh my gosh, it worked in like three weeks.

And I'm like, hmm. You know, because usually we're talking 60 to 90 days. It must have been some just light little surface fluff. 

I get the freckle question often as well. You know, like we're not born with freckles. Right. And they, but some people are very freckled. Yeah. And they want to get rid of them. 

And it's like, that's always tough because those are very deep. And even if you're lucky enough to get rid of them with peels, the first time you're out in the sun without proper protection, chances are it's going to come back. You can get them back. 

When I was, when I was a little kid, I always had a ton of freckles. Yeah. Mind you, I didn't put SPF on. 

I'm sure my mom probably did when we went camping or something, but I had a ton of freckles. It wasn't really a thing back in the day. No, you just sunkissed or whatever. 

Yeah. Right. No, I had tons of freckles and, but then over the years I wasn't trying to get rid of my freckles. 

I had them. I didn't love them, but I, they're all gone. Yeah. 

They're all gone after using acids and retinoids and peels. Sure. My freckles are gone. Yeah. I have no more freckles. So I know some people want to keep their freckles. 

Sure. You know, if you're a redhead or something like that, you could probably keep your freckles, you know, because it's just so ingrained in them. Sure. 

But I think most people are going to lose your freckles. Yeah. Right. 

You know, like they're going to go away. If you're just following a good regimen and staying out of the sun, your freckles will go away. So, you know, if that's your goal to get rid of them, yeah, they're going to go away. 

It might take a little bit longer. Like I said, it wasn't a plan. And I didn't even notice when they were all gone. 

I just noticed, Hey, I don't have any freckles. What happened to them all? Like they're gone over time. Just over time. 

It happened and nothing purposeful. How important is a DNA repair enzyme when you're working on pigmentation? I feel like it is so important, you know, kind of how it was saying in the very

beginning that even if you're putting SPF on, you're, you're reflecting away rays enough to stop your skin from getting sunburns. But that doesn't stop the UV rays from penetrating into your body. 

I mean, require it, you know, to create vitamin D and all these kinds of things. It's going to penetrate through. So that means it is penetrating through and it is also damaging our DNA. 

And like I said, that starts that catalyst of now we're creating more melanin and all this kind of stuff. So if you start to use DNA repair enzymes, that is going to help to fix that cycle. It's going to take time. 

It's going to fix, but you know what? It can stop today's today, like in the past. Yeah. It might take a little bit, but when you, when you put DNA repair enzymes on, they're fixing today's damage right now, right now it's like instant, like one works immediately upon application. 

It could be the plankton. And then I think it's the Arabidopsis takes maybe like four to six hours or something like that. And the other one takes, you know, maybe two or three hours, but those are fixing today's damages right now. 

And it's like one of the only things that can fix something immediately. Like our body's fixing about 50% of all the damages we got today and what it didn't fix. This is fixing supplementing. 

Right. Like, so we have our cell and tell, and we also have our PDRN, which I'm not holding that one, the 0.3% that has the DNA repair enzymes in it. This is has more right. 

The cell and tell us the big mama. Yes. But this really helps to break that cycle. 

So like, I kind of tell people like there's three things I like to recommend if you're constantly dealing with hyperpigmentation. Yes. And the one is like the fade bright. 

You need a melanin inhibitor or hydroquinone. Some people are on prescriptions of hydroquinone mixed with other things and retinoids. Perfect. 

Vitamin C like your antioxidants because antioxidants work in a similar fashion too, to help the specific cells, not your DNA, but they're helping the cells that are being damaged by the sun. So vitamin C can loan an electron to, you know, a free radical area and can fix that. And that really helps with hyperpigmentation and more damages. 

And then of course, DNA repair enzymes. So like, I'm like fair, these three products for real melanin inhibitors, your antioxidant, specifically vitamin C and DNA repair enzymes. And if you're putting all three of these on every single day, which is super duper for like clear, beautiful,

glowing, healthy skin, that's really going to help with that. 

I mean, even if you're not working on pigmentation, like who would not want to use cell and tell every day. Yeah. I mean, and even, even like fade bright, it's like, it's not just hyperpigment. 

There are so many good ingredients in here, including, you know, the retinoids, but it's just, it's brightening for your skin, lightening and brightening, just kind of like vitamin C is like, that's like lightening and brightening and evening your skin tone. And who doesn't want like a nice, even healthy, glowing skin tone. That is the goal. 

Yeah, totally. I want to touch base on our EXO spot. That question comes up quite frequently. 

You know, if I'm, if I want to, you know, mix the alternate, I should say the Jesner peel with the EXO spot, they're curious if they should spot treat just the spots. Like let's say they have pigmentation. Should I just microneedle the spot or can I microneedle my whole face with the EXO spot? I would generally microneedle my whole face with it. 

Okay. Now, if you happen to have multiple serums though. Yeah. 

Right. Let's say you don't have a bunch of hyperpigmentation. You do just want to concentrate that and you'll start your cheeks or your for wherever your issue is. 

And you also have the EXO PDRN or you have the EXO EHR. Yeah. You could only, you know, put a very small amount in your bottle, target your spots. 

Sure. And then, you know, fill the rest of the bottle up with a different serum that you want to use. Yes. 

You know, tap, tap, tap, get it going and then do your entire face. You could skip that area. But if I just had bought EXO spot, I would absolutely put it all over my face. 

It's only, it's the needling itself that is stimulating all the collagen, right? We're just using this needling process to infuse these ingredients into your skin. You could just needle your skin and do absolutely nothing. And that's still going to help your skin because it's the process of needling that's creating the collagen. 

We're just helping it. Like the EXO spot, of course, has lots of, you know, healing ingredients and hyaluronic and all, of course, the lightening ingredients, but that's, that's, it's going to help your skin no matter where you put it. Now, if they were to add the EXO AD, the human exosomes to that EXO spot, if they are really focusing on some really stubborn melasma or pigmentation, is that going to like accelerate or amp up their results? I think exosomes amp up pretty much anything. 

Yeah. Right. I mean, they're the, they're the drill sergeants telling your cells what to do.

So you can never go wrong. You can never go wrong with exosomes. Got it. 

No matter what, because you're not just doing this needling for the spotting. You know, you're always doing it for more than one reason. Predominantly it's anti-aging. 

And I mean, obviously that's where exosomes shine, but it's helpful for everything. Awesome. I mean, anybody telling my cells what to do, regenerate this, get rid of this spot. 

Yeah. Do it. Okay. 

Yeah. For sure. For sure. 

Anything else that we are missing here? The bubble mask. This is one that we recommend. Yes. 

We recommend bubble mask for lightening. Because it has the resveratrol in there. That's a nice one. 

And you can use that almost every day if you want. You can use that every day if you want. Yeah, for sure. 

That's a fun, fun mask too. It is. Yeah. 

Like I've had people tell me that like, like they've had, you know, sleepovers and girl times and stuff like that. And they'll do the mask with the bubble and they'll send photos of it. I think there's even a few on the website where like we had a party and everybody did the mask and you know, yeah, it's fun, but it's also really good for your skin. 

It really is. Hello, why not? Resveratrol is lightening and brightening. It's also in our Fade Bright. 

Right. Very good for your skin. And if you don't want to do something heavier, like, you know, the Jesner, they obviously can do lighter peels, like we talked about Mandelic and Lactic. 

And there's some other like serums and things like that they can use. But yeah, Serum 15, just because it doesn't have any like specific lightening focus. The whole idea is, you know, that that pigmentation is deeper in the skin and anything that we can do to turn over the skin is going to help that pigmentation come out. 

So I mean, yes, a melanin inhibitor and all this kind of stuff is good for you, but just the physical exfoliation. That's why, you know, people use, you know, retinoids and be like, oh, it helps with spotting. It helps with aging. 

It helps with it. Well, yeah, it helps with spotting, not because it's an inhibitor. It helps with spotting because it helps to take those layers of skin off and the deep pigmentation works its way up and out.

It just, it helps to speed things up. So acids, retinoids, peels, all of that's going to help. But I just want to stress that to really keep your skin under control, to keep your hyperpigmentation, I say Fade Bright, Cell & Tel, and Secret Agent. 

Yeah. Just those three, just they just, they're holding hands and they're going to work together. The three amigos. 

Yes. The three amigos to help combat pigmentation. Those are the ones. 

Those are the ones that are going to really, really help people. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, and it's going to take some time, but be diligent. And take pictures. Take pictures. 

Don't be discouraged. The photos are going to help your progress and help motivate you. They will help keep you motivated. 

And even if let's say, oh, okay, I took my first photo, my first two photos, and I forgot and fell off, but you're still on board. You're still doing yourself. It's been six months. 

You take that photo and compare it to day one. That's when people are like, oh my gosh, I can't even believe it. For sure. 

Because there's huge changes. Just stick with the program. Yeah. 

We get tons of great emails. So many. With amazing stories of people seeing amazing results. 

And it's, those people are diligent and they are consistent. They are so, they're more consistent than I am with things. Like when I see these people in the group, they're so, they follow that regimen. 

Very, very strict. They've got that written down and their bottles are numbered. And they're, I'm like, they're way more serious about this than I am. 

I'm pretty serious, but like, wow, they put me to shame how, how they're, I'm like, oh, I just mix it. I'm out the door. I'm out the door. 

Goodbye. But you know, it's, it's going to work no matter what you do. But yeah. 

So like, I just want to say like join the group too, you know, Platinum Skincare Gurus on Facebook. I mean, even if you're not social, I don't know. I don't scroll Facebook. 

I only go to the group on Facebook. You can just create an account and not be all in there and have 50 million friends. You can just join our group.

And you know, there's 46,000 other people that are in there sharing their stories and posting their photos that they're taking. And you're just like, wow, you will be inspired. You could be horrified at some things too, when people aren't paying attention and doing things wrong. 

But it's also a great place to learn because most of the time when people do screw up, they post their screw ups and be like, this is what I did wrong. Don't do this. And it's like a learning, teaching moment for everybody. 

And you know, especially if you're brand new and you see somebody screwed up and, but then they're like, this is what I did wrong. I shouldn't have done this. And everybody teaches them and you're like, okay, well now I know. 

Now you learn things no matter what. I think it's just a great group. The group does have that little search icon where if you're looking for something specific, you can type in, you know, pigmentation or melasma or whatever. 

And then you'll see all the posts that have those, you know, tags in there. So exactly. Yeah, exactly. 

So they're there. I think that's like a great thing, but if not, you know, obviously if you have questions, you can email us at support@platinumskincare.com. Yeah. They can phone us at 1- 800-917-3155. 

Yeah. Yeah. We're always here to help.