What is melasma?
Melasma is a chronic condition in which pigment-making cells stay overactive, leaving patches of uneven color. Hormones, sun and heat drive it: hormones explain its nickname, the mask of pregnancy, and any of the three can bring it back after it fades. A minimal-heat laser, daily SPF and home care keep it in check. It is managed, not cured.
- Tens of thousands of laser treatments performed
- 4.9 on Google (650+ reviews)
- Serving Anaheim since 2001
$50 consultation at Neoderma in Anaheim, CA, credited toward treatment if you proceed within two weeks · Open Mon–Sat
A licensed medical provider confirms whether PicoWay Resolve suits you, and you get a transparent estimate before any treatment.
Booking opens Neoderma's short request form (name, phone, email); their team contacts you to confirm the time and the $50 consultation.
What causes melasma?
Melasma doesn't behave like an ordinary dark mark, because it isn't one. It is ongoing overactivity in the cells that make pigment, and the extra pigment they produce shows up on the skin as patches.
Neoderma names three things that drive that overactivity:
- Hormones, which gave melasma its nickname, the mask of pregnancy.
- Sun exposure.
- Heat, the one that changes how melasma has to be treated.
Neoderma sums melasma up as stubborn pigment that is easy to make worse with the wrong laser.
Why does heat make melasma worse?
Because the cells behind melasma react to it. Heat or inflammation prompts them to make more pigment, and a patch can end up darker than it was before treatment.
So if you have put off treatment because you are afraid a laser will make your melasma darker, that fear has a real basis: the wrong laser can. High-heat treatments can set off rebound darkening, and the risk is greater in medium and darker skin tones (more on that in melasma treatment for darker skin).
Most lasers pair light with heat, an approach Neoderma notes carries more risk of burns and downtime, particularly on darker skin. The laser Neoderma uses for melasma, PicoWay, takes another route: it is a picosecond laser that works photoacoustically, with minimal heat.
The laser is still only one part of the approach. A minimal-heat laser is meant to work together with sun protection and, often, a skin-care regimen that keeps pigment in check. How the treatment itself runs is covered in laser treatment for melasma.
Melasma vs. sun spots, dark spots and hyperpigmentation: what's the difference?
A sun spot is a single patch of pigment. Melasma comes from pigment-making cells that keep overproducing, pushed along by hormones, sun and heat, so it behaves less like a mark and more like a condition.
The plans differ to match. On Neoderma's PicoWay Resolve page, an isolated sun spot often takes one or two sessions, with results showing from the first. Melasma is planned as a series, and most of Neoderma's melasma patients choose a package of four.
Online, "dark spots", "sun spots" and "hyperpigmentation" are often used as if they meant the same thing. Neoderma doesn't lump them together: it lists melasma separately from sun spots, sun damage, dark spots and age spots.
Working out which one you have is not a job you need to do alone. It is a short question to settle at a consultation, and settling it first keeps a whole series from being spent on the wrong problem. Neoderma's 3D skin analysis adds another view: UV photos that map sun damage near the surface and deeper down.
Can you get rid of melasma?
You can fade it and keep it in check. What treatment can't do is switch it off. Melasma is chronic: after it fades, sun, heat or a shift in hormones can bring it back. That is why Neoderma describes it as managed, not cured.
If yours has faded before and then returned, that fits what melasma is: a long-term condition rather than a one-time mark.
So the goal comes in two parts. First, fade it. Some people see a change after their first PicoWay Resolve session, but melasma does better with a series, and most of Neoderma's melasma patients choose a package of four; the prices are on the melasma laser treatment cost page. Then hold it, with SPF 30+ every day, skin care that regulates pigment, and a touch-up session when one is needed.
Neoderma treats the home part as essential, not optional: a pigment-inhibiting regimen is what keeps melasma managed between treatments.
Is melasma hormonal?
Partly. Hormones are one of the three drivers Neoderma names; sun and heat are the other two.
If your pattern looks hormonally driven, Neoderma will say so, and tell you whether a medical evaluation alongside treatment would help. Neoderma says that kind of candor is why its melasma patients stay with the practice for years.
Some melasma questions only have personal answers, so this site leaves them for the consultation:
$50 consultation at Neoderma in Anaheim, CA, credited toward treatment if you proceed within two weeks · Open Mon–Sat
How do you keep melasma from coming back?
No one can promise it won't return. What you do control is the upkeep, and it comes down to three things.
Sunscreen every day, all year
Wear SPF 30 or higher every day for the whole of a laser series: before it starts, while it runs and after it ends. Before, so your skin is untanned when the series starts and your provider can choose effective settings. During, so pigment doesn't drift back between sessions. After, because freshly treated skin stays more sensitive to the sun for a while, and that is when pigment tends to rebound.
In Southern California that means all year, December included, because Orange County gets usable UV in every season. Neoderma counts sunscreen as roughly half of the result, not an optional extra.
A home regimen built for pigment
Between sessions, Neoderma's view is that daily SPF and a pigment-regulating home regimen do as much of the work as the laser does. It builds yours after a 3D skin analysis, from ZO Skin Health and SkinBetter Science, matching the cleanser, actives and sun protection to your skin.
ZO's protocols, starting with its Getting Skin Ready routine, are aimed at pigmentation and sun damage. For daily sun protection Neoderma carries Pavise, a mineral sunscreen that defends against UVA and UVB.
Neoderma's laser-season guide also suggests a brightening facial or peel in the weeks between laser sessions; whether a peel belongs in a melasma plan is covered under laser or chemical peel for melasma.
Medical-grade skin care at Neoderma
A touch-up when it's needed
The third piece is a touch-up session when one is needed. Together with daily SPF and the home regimen, that is the maintenance Neoderma describes for melasma.
Melasma questions
Why is melasma called the mask of pregnancy?
The nickname reflects the part hormones play in melasma: they are one of the three drivers Neoderma names, alongside sun and heat. Questions about your own circumstances are answered in person at the consultation.
What is a 3D skin analysis?
An imaging session that photographs your face in detail, including UV photos of what lies under the surface, and maps sun damage both near the surface and deeper down. Neoderma uses what it finds to choose treatments and build a home regimen, and later scans can be set against the first to show how your skin is changing.
Where do I get the products Neoderma uses for melasma home care?
From Neoderma. After a 3D skin analysis it builds melasma home-care regimens from ZO Skin Health and SkinBetter Science, with Pavise mineral sunscreen. Many medical-grade lines are sold only through authorized practices. SkinBetter Science ships straight to your door; ZO Skin Health and Pavise are dispensed at the Anaheim office, where you can reorder by calling (714) 533-4777.
Find out what your pigment is, and what to do about it
Not sure whether you're looking at melasma, sun damage or something else? A consultation at Neoderma in Anaheim settles that first, so the plan is matched to what is actually there rather than to a guess.
Tens of thousands of laser treatments performed · 4.9 on Google (650+ reviews) · Serving Anaheim since 2001
$50 consultation at Neoderma in Anaheim, CA, credited toward treatment if you proceed within two weeks · Open Mon–Sat
A licensed medical provider confirms whether PicoWay Resolve suits you, and you get a transparent estimate before any treatment.
Booking opens Neoderma's short request form (name, phone, email); their team contacts you to confirm the time and the $50 consultation.