What is melasma, really? 

Most of us have heard that melasma is a chronic skin condition marked by symmetrical patches of darkened (hyperpigmented) skin, often appearing on the face.

It’s said to be more common in women of childbearing age and with darker skin tones.

Doctors often point to hormones — pregnancy, birth control, or hormone replacement therapy (HRT) — as the main culprit.

Then there’s the sun, which we’re warned to avoid at all costs.

We’re also urged to try harsh creams and expensive treatments that may lighten our skin temporarily — but come with the risk of making our melasma worse.

And perhaps the most discouraging message of all? There’s no cure.

But what if I told you that the conventional view of melasma (and your ability to heal it) is extremely limited? What if everything we’ve been told barely scratches the surface of what’s really happening in the body?

After I developed melasma, I became determined to understand it — at the level of the skin and beyond. I spent hours on PubMed searching for melasma articles and reading the available research. I wanted to know everything about melasma, so I could figure out the why behind it and heal.

In this article, I’m sharing three powerful lessons I learned about what melasma really is — lessons that may surprise you and completely change how you see your skin.

Melasma Is a Protective Mechanism

Those dark patches you so badly wish would disappear? They are actually protecting you.

Melanin — the pigment responsible for your skin tone, hair color, and eye color — serves an important purpose beyond appearance. Melanin acts like a shield. When your skin is exposed to UV radiation, melanin production increases to protect your skin cells from damage.

With melasma, you’re dealing with a damaged skin barrier and an increase in local inflammation and oxidative stress — what I call “the perfect storm” because each issue fuels the others. Your body’s increased pigment production is a protective response to these underlying issues.

That’s why harsh treatments like lightening creams, lasers, and peels often make melasma worse. They add to the oxidative stress, inflammation, and damage that already exists.

The pigment isn’t the problem — it’s the response to a deeper problem. Your body is producing excess melanin in an attempt to protect your stressed out skin cells.

melanin and energy

The role melanin plays in protecting you runs even deeper, and it’s something most people don’t know: melanin can also act as an energy generator for your cells.

You may have heard of “mitochondria” — tiny organelles inside nearly every cell that act like powerhouses and produce energy that allows your body to function. But when mitochondria become dysfunctional because of common factors like unchecked stress, toxin exposure, nutrient deficiencies, inflammation, oxidative stress, and microbiome imbalances, their ability to produce that vital energy declines.

When your skin cells are dealing with a damaged barrier, oxidative stress, and inflammation — and they are with melasma — this will impact mitochondrial function. Increased melanin production not only provides protection from the sun and other environmental factors, it can also contribute to the energy that your struggling skin cells need to survive and perform basic functions.

Your body doesn’t care about cosmetics — it cares about surviving! And it will deal with underlying issues using the tools that are at its disposal. Increased melanin production is one of those tools, and it’s clearly an important one! Because there are actually many immune molecules, cytokines (chemical messengers), hormones, and growth factors that directly stimulate increased melanin production within melasma patches. This tells me the increased melanin in melasma serves an important purpose!

When you shift your perspective and understand that the melasma isn’t happening to you, it’s happening for you — then you can start to feel a sense of gratitude for your body’s efforts to protect and heal itself, even when it shows up as excess pigment.

When you learn how to protect your body, your melasma doesn’t have to.

Melasma Is a Messenger

As a naturopathic doctor, I learned that the health of your skin is a reflection of what’s going on inside. So I knew from the start that my melasma wasn’t just about my skin — it was a signal pointing to deeper imbalances. And I was determined to figure out what those imbalances were and fix them, so I could heal my skin!

That’s how my framework of the 3 core issues, 7 root causes, and 5 triggers of melasma was born.

I break these down and share simple action steps in my free guide Decoding Melasma: Core Issues, Root Causes, & Triggers, which you can snag here, but here’s a quick overview:

Melasma lesions show increased inflammation, excess oxidative stress, and a damaged skin barrier — which I refer to as the 3 core issues of melasma. But these aren’t root causes because something else is causing the inflammation, oxidative stress, and skin barrier damage.

In other words, inflammation, oxidative stress, and a damaged skin barrier happen for reasons.

Those reasons are the root causes. And I believe there are seven of them when it comes to melasma: 

the 7 root causes of melasma

1. Nutrition: Deficiencies, sensitivities, inflammatory ingredients
2. Lifestyle: Sleep, movement, environment, and daily habits + rhythms
3. Microbes: Bacterial imbalances, yeast/fungal overgrowth, parasites, molds, and stealth infections
4. Toxins: Past and ongoing environmental and chemical exposures, microbial toxins
5. Stress + Emotions: Chronic stress and emotional imbalances or suppression
6. Trauma: Unresolved experiences that impact body and mind
7. Disconnection: Separation from Spirit, your higher self, nature, community, and purpose

Notice I didn’t list hormones or the sun as root causes? That’s because there are many women all over the world who have hormone imbalances and spend time in the sun who don’t ever develop melasma! There’s clearly more to it.

Plus, in my experience, hormone imbalances are always caused by something else; they are never a true root cause. And I don’t believe the sun is the enemy! Sun exposure only becomes a problem when we exceed our body’s capacity to deal with it.

That’s why I place hormone imbalances and sun exposure in the “triggers” category — along with heat, artificial blue light, and harsh topical products or treatments. They aren’t underlying root causes of melasma, but they can certainly fuel the fire and feed the core issues.

Melasma isn’t just a skin condition or cosmetic concern. It’s your body saying there are deeper imbalances that need to be addressed. For some, it’s exposure to mold toxins or fungal overgrowth in the gut. For others, it’s unchecked stress, poor lifestyle habits, or exposure to hormone-disrupting chemicals. It can also stem from unhealed trauma, nutritional deficiencies, and air pollution.

Melasma is more than skin deep — melasma is a messenger. What is your melasma saying?

Melasma Is an Invitation

I know firsthand how emotionally painful melasma can be. There was a time when I wouldn’t leave the house without makeup and stressed about every second in the sun. I avoided photos, skipped out on socializing, and felt like everyone was staring at my skin. When I looked in the mirror, all I could see was my melasma. I don’t think most people understand the psychological toll that melasma can have.

But if we can see melasma as an invitation from our bodies to take better care of ourselves, a signal that we need to address deeper imbalances, a request to create an environment that allows our skin to heal, everything changes. Melasma becomes a caring friend guiding us toward the healing we’ve needed all along.

There isn’t a quick fix for melasma, but healing is available to you. And in the process of healing your skin, you will heal other symptoms and imbalances too — because it’s ALL connected!

My melasma healing journey isn’t over — but I no longer feel like I have to wear makeup, worry if others are looking at my skin, or obsess about the sun. I know that by addressing my internal health, I’m supporting my skin’s healing every day. One day, my melasma will be a thing of the past. A teacher that guided me toward a path of inner healing that held so much more for me than I could have ever imagined.

Your melasma is inviting you to heal. How will you RSVP?

Resources for Digging Deeper

You hold ALL the power to heal your melasma! You just need the right information and strategies — so I’ve created some awesome resources to help you!

Click here to learn more about the 3 core issues, 7 root causes, and 5 triggers in my free guide Decoding Melasma: Core Issues, Root Causes, & Triggers.

To learn how to use smart nutrition, lifestyle, and skincare strategies to Heal Your Melasma from the Inside Out, check out my comprehensive eBook here. It’s packed with the same root-cause tactics I implemented to heal my melasma, and it’s the all-in-one guide I wish I’d had when I was struggling to know what to do!

If you’d like even more support and guidance, then click here to join the waitlist for my comprehensive program Heal Your Melasma, where you’ll get:

• A clear roadmap to identify and address your root causes
• Nutrition protocols designed to identify problem foods, calm inflammation, correct deficiencies, and reduce pigment 
• Lifestyle upgrades that promote healing and glowing, radiant skin 
• Gut, liver, detox, and hormone support strategies tailored to melasma
• Testing options to dig deeper into your root causes and imbalances 
• Guidance for creating an effective, personalized supplement protocol to address your root causes and imbalances