Hyperpigmentation, melasma, and brown spots can become more noticeable during the summer months, but treating them effectively requires a strategic, long-term approach. In this episode, Dr. Christelle Oliver-Dussault, Dr. Harpreet Lotay, and Amanda Manholt discuss why pigmentation is more than a surface-level concern, why certain laser and light-based treatments are better reserved for seasons with less sun exposure, and how to safely support brighter, healthier skin throughout the summer. They explore the role of targeted skincare ingredients, sunscreen, microneedling, and Forever Young BBL in improving skin quality while reducing the risk of worsening pigmentation.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why pigmentation can return even after successful treatment
• How different types of pigmentation develop and behave in the skin
• The role of inflammation and skin cell function in uneven skin tone
• How to choose the right professional treatments based on your pigmentation concerns
• Common mistakes that can make brown spots worse during summer
• How consistency with skincare impacts long-term pigmentation improvement
• What to consider when transitioning from summer skincare into fall treatments
• How prevention plays a key role in maintaining clearer, more balanced skin

Disclaimer: The Beauty Equation is for informational purposes only and not medical advice. This podcast does not create a doctor–patient relationship. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before making medical or aesthetic decisions. Information may change as the field evolves.

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or on your favourite podcast app. 

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review.

About the Hosts:

Dr. Harpreet Lotay is a family physician specializing in aesthetic medicine. She is the founder of Sona MD in Kamloops, BC, and serves as Chief Medical Officer at Bios Wellness Clinics. Known for her artistic approach and comprehensive non-surgical treatments, Dr. Lotay combines medical expertise with an eye for natural results. She is also an educator, a national trainer and holds academic appointments where she shares her knowledge in clinical dermatology and aesthetics. You can get in touch with her on Instagram @hlotaymd

Dr. Christelle Oliver-Dussault is a family physician specializing in aesthetic medicine, women’s health, and psycho-education. She brings a holistic, whole-person perspective to her clinical work, blending science with a deep understanding of the mind-body connection.

She is also the founder of Reclaim The Pink Within, a movement that empowers women to rediscover themselves during life’s most transformative stages. In addition, she is passionate about medical education and mentors the next generation of family physicians through her work with the department of Family Medicine at the University of British Columbia.

You can connect with her on Instagram @drchristellemd

Amanda Manholt is a clinic manager, patient consultant, and co-host of The Beauty Equation Podcast. With over 30 years of experience in beauty, aesthetics, and leadership, she has guided patients and teams alike toward confidence, growth, and empowerment. Known for her ability to connect with people and simplify the often-overwhelming world of aesthetics, Amanda brings a warm, practical, and relatable perspective to every conversation. You can find her on Instagram @crowsfeetandconfidence.

Websites

https://sonamd.ca/

https://www.getyourpinkbackproject.com/

We can get rid of some brown spots and even some brown

spots need a concerted effort. As I said,

even if you don't have melasma, the fact that you have a brown spot is

telling me you have underlying damage that we need to manage.

Yeah. So definitely hit it hard in the winter with lasers

and in the summer, do all your maintenance with your sunscreens, your topicals,

be vigilant about it. And if you want to move the needle even

further, do something like microneedling using targeted

serums that we can push into the skin. And that

will actually move the needle quite a bit and make you feel like you have

some control over this thing over the summer. And then come back and see us

in the fall. Hello and welcome back to The Beauty Equation

podcast. I'm Amanda Manholt, and I'm joined today by my

lovely co-hosts. I'm Dr. Christelle Oliver-Dussault.

And I'm Dr. Harpreet Lotay. And what I

wanted to chat about with you today is

hyperpigmentation or brown spots. Because I

feel like this is, you know, we're filming this in

June. June. And probably for the last 3 weeks we've had people phoning

and popping in and going, oh my gosh, all of a sudden, you know, the

sun's been out and I have this big spot. What can I do to fix

it right now? And, you know,

as with lots of things we do, there's not really one easy, straightforward answer.

So I wanted to talk about what things people can do if they're

bothered by disordered pigment, brown spots, whatever you want to call it,

in the summer. And is there anything they can do? Yep. Yep. It's a

great topic because the other thing that's

important for us to, I suppose, discuss is

that you may be offered treatments that might do more harm in the summertime,

that we can do things, but as a general rule of thumb,

Any energy-based device like a laser, a light therapy,

IPL, you probably should steer clear from that in the summer months.

But that doesn't mean that you can't do anything. And the reason you should steer

clear of it is, and I think it was the way you explained it to

me, Dr. Lotte, a few years ago, is that our skin pigment

cells, our melanocytes, in the summer months, they get really excited.

They're like these little minions popping up in the skin. And

because they're excited at different levels, when any light device goes and

tries to target them, They'll respond differently. So if you do that in the

summer month when your skin is already excited, you have no idea what that

result is going to look like. You might have ones that jump super high and

then you're actually getting more pigment, others that don't respond and others that do.

So you'll end up creating more problems. But that doesn't mean that

there isn't anything that you can do. It just means usually in the

summer months you're shying away from light-based therapies

and going more towards topicals. And then there are some in-house

treatments that we can do in combination But

steer clear from light-based therapies. I think one of the

myths that there are around pigmentation is people think that it's like a

spot on the skin you can wipe out, you know, like out, damn spot.

But it's not. By the time you have a

spot that you can see visibly on the skin, it's really a

symptom of what's going on underneath.

What you're having underneath is a chronic issue

that is sometimes associated with aging. And sometimes it's

exact— it's, um, an example of a scar or damage

that has happened to melanocytes underneath. Uh, that

pigmentation that you see on top is just, it's just a visible

symptom. So— It is. Even if we were to do a peel or to

do something where we actually make it look like the spot's not there, the

damage and the underlying issue with the melanocytes underneath is

still there, and you have to treat it like a chronic problem.

So. Just like we start to think about losing

weight in the summer when we're going to wear our bikinis and all that,

you know, we start to think about treating pigmentation in the summer when we

start to see it. But really, we need to start managing

pigmentation on a year-long— as a year-long

process where we're doing lasers and light-based treatments in the

wintertime when we can really put

enough energy into the skin to get down to the

layer of the actual damage and start to do some

photobiomodulation where we're actually changing the

expression and the way that those little minions

behave on a baseline level. And then in

the summertime, we want to give them some

topicals or do some treatments like microneedling to

keep them kind of calm and sedate so they don't create more

issues in the summertime when they're being stimulated by the sun.

Yeah, really, I like to think summer is more about maintenance. Yes.

Or getting ready for the autumn. So I think this is where

skincare is so important. So, you know, you can continue doing your

usual washing your face twice a day, doing your exfoliation to try to

keep the skin cells turning over. And then with that primed

skin, using active ingredients, and there's quite a few. I know

you'll probably hear so many online and in the pharmacy and you're like, well, what

works? What doesn't work? There's a few key ingredients that work really well.

Tranexamic acid is one with those, that

is really helpful. Azelaic acid as well too. And

that has the added benefit that it's quite anti-inflammatory. And in conditions, for

example, like melasma, where it isn't just simple UV-based

aging, there's a lot going on deeper in the surface, like you mentioned,

with hormones stimulating it, heat stimulating

it, disordered vascular supply to the area.

It can help with that inflammation. And then niacinamide is another one too. Those are

kind of 3 really helpful ingredients. Yeah. And then

kojic acid is— And kojic acid. Yeah.

A lot of people also think that you have to stop your retinols in the

summertime. And that's not always true.

It is true if you're new to retinoids and your skin

hasn't acclimatized to it, you may want to back off

on your retinol. If you, if you're still having some

irritation or reaction to your retinol, but if you've been using

it for months and months and months, and you can use retinol without any sort

of irritation, there's There's no real reason to

stop your retinol. And that is an important topical that helps

with pigmentation as well. So, so keep that in mind.

What I find is that in the summertime, although we use sunscreen, we

don't use enough. Mm-hmm. And many people don't know how

much sunscreen they should be using. So as a rule of thumb, especially

for people who have pigmentation on their face, I say use

2 finger lengths worth. Twice a day. So

if you think about that, that's a lot of squeezes of your sunscreen.

And for most people, their bottle of sunscreen should only last them a couple

of weeks. And most of us have had our sunscreen for, I

don't know, a month or 2 or more.

Or longer. Go, oh, it's expired. I'm always blown away when people tell me they're

going on a, like a 10-day or 2-week vacation and they're like,

oh yeah, this, this should be enough. And I'm thinking, Are you

wearing a suit from like your— I

think sunscreen should be thought of as a daily

essential and it doesn't matter whether it's winter or summer. Totally.

Because you do have UVA rays that go through

cloud, they go through window, and then in conditions like melasma,

you're really, really susceptible to just visible

light and that higher spectrum. as well, and kind of those bluish purplish and

even the light that you're getting from your computer screen. And so

the type of sunscreen you use does matter. So

making sure that you have the zinc, the titanium, or

the chemical ones will work as well too. What I prefer

about the minerals though, is that it's more like a shield reflecting off,

whereas there is a bit of a heat element with the chemical one. And I

have never had a mineral sunscreen make my eye burn for

24 hours. Right, exactly. Like,

and I use it on my eyelids. Yeah. Because I like the SPF primer one

and I use it on my eyelids because think about it, like the skin on

your eyelid is so thin. And then there's another

ingredient, iron oxide, which is in most tinted sunscreens.

And that's really helpful for pigment and particularly melasma because it blocks off

those rays that will cause that damage. What I found useful too is you

mentioned, you know, the importance of reapplication and generally like if you know you're going

to be out in the sun, you should be reapplying every 2 hours. Like,

that's quite a hard thing to do and easy to forget, and you're not going

to stop living. I know I'm going to be out in the garden, I'm going

to be in the pool playing with the kids. But what I've liked is that

you're— we now have a lot more, um, options. So not only do we have

our sunscreens that we can use, but there's a lot of powdered formulations so you

can just have in your bag and top up. Like, I carry it in all

my bags because I'm going to forget it. I think it's easy and it doesn't

melt. That's what I like about powder sunscreen. So sunscreen is

magnificent, but beyond sunscreen and beyond skincare,

like, we— I know you had great success us with the brightening system. Yeah.

Um, which is non-retinol, non-hydroquinone. And, you

know, just that gave you an improvement over the warmest months

of the year, which is crazy. Yeah. I think,

um, you know, but microneedling, I think that is

really, um, we'll always sing its praises because I know

Harpreet and I, we were talking that time and you had a really good point.

You said. Yeah. People that are bothered by pigmentation aren't necess—

usually teenagers. They're, you know, people that are

starting to see other signs of aging, like loss of collagen. It's 1% a

year from, you know, our 20s and on. So with microneedling,

not only are you, you know, you're going to get that beautiful added benefit of

more collagen, more light reflectivity. Who doesn't want that? But then those little

channels are ripe for putting those actives. So

something like the Accelerated Serum that we have for, for which has some

tranexamic It has tranexamic acid. And it has niacinamide. So,

and those ingredients are going to get deeper into the skin. And I think

people will often question the safety of microneedling in the

summer. And I mean, you just had a treatment. I had it done last week.

Yeah. And you're brown. Yep. Like naturally.

And have melasma. Yeah, I, yeah, I do. Um,

and I think it's a great treatment to do. I would say be careful maybe

the 2 or 3 days after you have the treatment because you have that You

know, healing inflammatory process going

on. And if you're someone, for example, if you cut yourself and

you notice after when your cut is healing, it goes a darker brown, that's called

post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation. I get that,

you know, when you're in that healing phase of the microneedling,

maybe try to stay out of the sun, wear your hat. If you know you're

going to be out, be a bit more careful. But beyond that, it's, it's the

usual rules apply. It's not like you're getting a laser or anything like that done.

I think you did it what, Friday? What day was it? No, it's almost been

a week now. Yeah. Yeah. It was like Tuesday. Glowy. Yeah.

Jealous of her glow over here. Because like, yes, I have melasma. So

every— even though, you know, diligent with the sunscreen, I'm still going to live

and enjoy the beautiful outdoors that we have in the interior of

BC. And it's nice to have a few extra tools that you

can use to keep it at bay. I'm conscious that the skin's not going to

be as good as in the winter when I've just finished a course of hydroquinone.

But there are tools. And I think combining what you're doing at home and then

coming in with the microneedling, and like you said, it's like you're aerating your

grass and then you're putting fertilizers in, fertilizer in,

and then your grass looks much greener, just like your face will look more even.

And so the tone is more even. And by doing all of that in the

warm months, that just means that then when you get to laser

season and if you elect to do one of those

lasers because you are It's appropriate for your skin.

Well, you're going to get even better results because instead of starting with this much

pigmentation, you're starting with this much pigmentation. To your point about it being a chronic

thing, it's, it has a memory. It does. Yeah. And those,

um, those melanocytes, those minions are just

much more susceptible to excitation. It doesn't take much. The more

they've been, I suppose, activated or triggered, the

lower that threshold is for them to be like, hi, I'm back.

But between the 3 of us, mine are, mine are the

Laziest. So, yeah.

And you know, you had mentioned iron oxide and for people who

have higher, higher melanin skin types like

myself, iron oxide is actually a very, very useful tool,

especially for things like melasma, because your screens will

activate melasma as well. So, you know, do, do

look for those ingredients. And yes, microneedling is a

very, I think it's one of the most underrated treatments that we do because it's

low tech. Yeah. Right. It's low tech. This is

it. It doesn't look very exciting. There's no light coming out

of it. There's no giant screen and like case that walks

in and yeah. I love it. I think it's great. But the results are amazing.

So, so good. Definitely, definitely something to do in the

summertime. Absolutely for sure. And you can do it,

you know, every 3 to 4 weeks. It's not something that you have to

just do once in the summer. In fact, I would recommend a series of them.

You'll get much better results. Great for fine lines as well.

Not just pigmentation, that there are things you can do.

And I would say for those patients that we have that are,

have pigmentation issues, but it is not melasma, they

could consider Forever Young, some passes of that in the summer as

well. If you want to explain what that is. Yeah. So

Forever Young is a way to photobiomodulate.

I used that, that word before. It sounds a little bit like that Bugs

Bunny, the alien from Bugs Bunny, you know, photobiomodulation.

Marvin. Marvin. Yeah. But it's, it's a way

to reprogram your skin cells. So now if, you know,

longevity is a big thing in the popular vernacular,

and we talk about reprogramming ourselves and

genetic improvement and epigenetics, well, you

can use light to reprogram your cells as well. And so this

is what the Forever Young treatment does. It, it stimulates the

skin with particular wavelengths of light and it

will actually improve improve the genetic expression of your cells. So,

it has been very well validated in the literature. There was a

study done at Stanford where they studied the

genes of volunteers that had this treatment done. They were not

allowed to do anything else such as

Botox or fillers or anything like that. And they did this,

this series of treatments for a number of years. Mm-hmm. And took

skin samples and reassessed their genetic expression

down the road. And what they saw was they actually turn the

clock back. So before longevity was even a

thing or a thought, or aging backwards was a thing, we

had this tool called broadband light or

BBL. When used in this manner to do a Forever Young

photofacial, we can— we know we can turn the clock

back. So if you're really committed to improving your skin

and aging gracefully, whatever that means, this is a great way

to do it. Right. No. Yeah. And again, not

to confuse people because we were like, we can't do BBL in the summer. So

it's different. It's different. It's like, it's like a segment

of that particular treatment. Yeah. It's a lower

wavelength that's done. So you will not expect to see

immediate improvement like you do or any kind of

reaction in the skin. It really is a light-based facial

and the goal is really to improve the skin

cells underlying it and a great pairing is really to do

microneedling and Forever Young and really pair those

2 together. It would be a powerhouse. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's think about

that later. Cause I think I've got to come up with something,

some name that, cause I think that would be a

great treatment. They can come in, you know, do that. My,

we've done it in the past. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Provided they don't have melasma. But yeah, melasma, it's a

beast in itself. And I think that probably deserves its own episode because

it is maybe a couple of episodes. Yeah. It's just so

complicated. Well, and you have to be so careful

and people respond so differently to different things. You know, sun-damaged skin

is much— it's much more predictable. The

area is much, usually much more clearly defined that has the brown pigment

and it's easier to target. Whereas melasma

is just, uh, I think it was Dr. Gavin— It's

a whole body thing. It's a whole system. It's systemic. It's

systemic. Yeah. I think, I don't remember, a couple of years ago we were at

that conference in Toronto and I think it was Dr. Gavin Lim was talking and

he said, if, you know, if there's an apocalypse at the end of the, you

know, the world ends, he's sure of 2 things will remain. And he said

cockroaches and melasma. Right. And I think

that's kind of, yeah, you know, everybody's looking for

that magic wand or just You know, can you get rid of my brown

spots? Can you? And it, it, it's your point. Some

brown spots, and even some brown spots

need a concerted effort. As I said, even if you

don't have melasma, the fact that you have a brown spot is telling me you

have underlying damage that we need to manage. Yeah. So

definitely hit it hard in the winter with lasers

and in the summer, do all your maintenance with your sunscreens, your topicals,

Be vigilant about it. And if you want to move the needle even

further, do something like microneedling using targeted

serums that we can push into the skin.

That will actually move the needle quite a bit and make you feel like you

have some control over this thing over the summer. And then come

back and see us in the fall. So, yeah. Yeah. And we'll

talk to you all about things you can do in the fall close to the

time. Maybe in September you'll hear from us about that. That's right. We

always have things to chat about. We do. So if you have

any questions about today's episode, we threw out quite a lot of different

topics and treatments. Please feel free to send us an email at

[email protected] and we'll chat

to you soon. Bye for now. Bye for now. Take care.