Dermatologist Shereene Idriss explains how to treat melasma with hydroquinone for acute flare-ups, then maintain results with pigment-suppressing acids, retinol, and a flash mask two to four times weekly. She stresses hydroquinone shouldn't be used continuously.
Hey, Dr. Idris. Oh, yeah. What's your maintenance routine for melasma? Let's actually get into this. I had a few questions on my last post about maintenance routines versus therapeutic routines. When you have melasma, you have to be on a maintenance routine which doesn't involve hydroquinone, because hydroquinone is the gold standard for treating melasma. But you can't be on it forever. So you need to be on ingredients that are suppressing how your pigment reacts. And that's why I created my own line, the Mabresade line, the purple line, where you have over 13 different acids targeting hyperpigmentation. So I personally, genuinely, honestly use this every single day, twice a day, minus the flash mask, which I use like two to four times a week. And then I supplement with a retinol. I add a retinol on the nights where I'm not exfoliating or prescription tretinoin. And every now and again, I will throw in hydroquinone. So if I go to the beach and I come back speckly, I'll add hydroquinone for like a week or two, maybe three. But I try not to go longer than that. That's your maintenance routine with some treatment on and off.
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