Need help with getting rid of a Tan.
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Wed Jan 26, 2011 6:29 pm

I would probably use a whitening cream and wear sunscreen everyday to make my skin fair. There are a lot of whitening creams. Some moisturizers have a whitening ingredient as well. I'm using a Complexion Brightener with spf 20.

free skin care · Wed Jan 26, 2011 8:25 pm

darkserith wrote:

Hello. I used to play a lot of tennis in high school, from 10th grade to 12th grade. No sunblock was used. I used to play for 2- 3 hrs in the sun frequently everyday with no sunblock.

I am a naturally fair skinned asian. However, playing tennis for those years has made my knees, forearms, neck, face very, very orange tan. The tan was a bit worse back in high school, but i'm in my 3rd year in college now and i still have these horrible tan lines. My chest and thighs are very pale but my face is so orange.

Is it quite possible that my tan has become permanent? Or is it only the case that my tan has gone many, many layers deep?

I mean i've heard that you could exfoliate your face, and over time it'll help get rid of your tan, but i heard that it only removes the dead skin cells in the outer layer. How does exfoliation help if a tan goes many layers deep?

Hello!

"Tanning" happens basically in the epidermis...
So what happens is that when you're exposed to UV rays, your melanocytes (cells that produce melanin) are stimulated to reproduce more and to produce more melanin (the pigment that makes you "tanned")

If you have tanned for a long time, then you have this "high melanin producing cells" that reproduce over and over and over... prolonging the tan.

So... if you want your tan to fade you need to...

a. Have patience! This is one of the most important things... remember it took years for your skin to get "programmed" so it will take a while to get it back to lighter

b. You need to totally and absolutely stay away from UV rays! You need to stop the stimulation that encourages the cells to produce melanin. Staying away means A LOT more than just putting a bit of Neutrogena sunscreen in the morning. You will need to buy a very good sunscreen with very good UVA protection, apply lots and apply often, summer and winter. You'll need to buy a hat , etc, etc. You can check the many threads on sun protection and sunscreens here

Now to speed the process up, there are a couple of things you can do....

a. Exfoliate... it will just slough the cells, might increase the rate of division of new cells so then hopefully as new cells divide without the UV stimulus, they will tend to produce less melanin

b. Buy creams that either disperse melanin (e.g. tretinoin) or that are toxic to melanocytes (i.e. hydroquinone).
If you have Asian-type skin though, be careful with hydroquinone (start with very low %) since you're at increased risk of ochronosis

Hope this helps!

free skin care · Wed Jan 26, 2011 8:45 pm

Retin A & sunscreen.

free skin care · Thu Jan 27, 2011 10:46 am

There is a prescription cream called Triluma that you could discuss with your dermatologist. It combines tretinoin (retin a) with hydroquinone and a mild steroid to alleviate irritation.

And to try to answer your other question, yes, even mild UV exposure can keep your tan "going". I used to have lots of dark freckles, and still in the winters. It wasn't until I became almost obsessive about sun protection (sunscreen plus hat or parasol, and now Helioplex/Sunpill), that my freckles started to fade. And it's taken 3-4 years of this behavior (plus one winter of AHA) to fade them 75% or so.

HTH! Smile

free skin care · Thu Jan 27, 2011 10:27 pm

darkserith wrote:

Thanks for this response. However, you have said that my long-term tan have stimulated my melanocythes to yield an unusually high production of melanin pigment cells.

However, i must mention (if its not already implicit) that i do not nearly have the sun exposure that i had when i was in high school. unless, because i had a tan for all those years, even moderate uv rays will keep up the cycle of high melanin production? Like my body has been programmed to keep producing high melanin even though i dont nearly have the uv ray exposure that i had when i played tennis?

Yes, in a very simple way it's almost as if the cells are "conditioned" and so even with little sun exposure they continue reproducing and "extending" your tan and will react to even a little sun exposure... that's why if you want to get rid of it you need ZERO sun exposure.

darkserith wrote:

also, can anyone tell me if vitamin c and whatnot helps? should i take retin a and hydroquinone at the same time?

thanks

There's not a lot of research showing the effect of Vitamin C on pigment... but some people have used it successfully.

The thing also that you need to be careful with (and that's why I said patience was important) is that there's a thing called "postinflammatory hyperpigmentation". Basically, if you irritate your skin too much by exfoliating a lot and putting all kinds of irritating things, you might end up with more pigmentation and uneven spots.

So really take it easy and include only one thing at a time. Retin-A and hydroquinone are irritating enough, so if you're going to start using them (you can use them together) you should stick to just the two and only after you've developed a tolerance for them do something else (e.g. AHA, Vitamin C, etc.)

free skin care · Sat Feb 26, 2011 3:14 am

use Janssen White Secrets !! it really really works !!

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