Splashed across a little kid's cheeks, a smattering of freckles is charming. Later in life, though, extra facial pigmentation in the form of brown patches or changes in tone and texture sends a different, less adorable message: You're aging. Do people really notice each other's complexions that much? Apparently, yes. A 2006 Procter & Gamble Beauty study found that skin tone alone can impact a woman's perceived age by as much as 20 years. So perhaps it's time to consider the slew of effective age spot treatments now available (some of them medical, some over-the-counter) that can deliver real, noticeable results.
Why do we get these spots, anyway?
Surprise: Age spots aren't caused by getting older. Instead, you can blame them (and nearly every other form of unwanted pigmentation) on what's become the 21st century's public enemy number one the sun. "Sunshine is an attack on the skin, and one way the skin defends itself is to make pigment," explains Ranella Hirsch, M.D., a cosmetic dermatologist in Cambridge, MA, and president-elect of the American Society of Cosmetic Dermatology & Aesthetic Surgery. If a patient is skeptical about her spots being solar related, Dr. Hirsch asks her to move her bra over a quarter of an inch to expose the skin that the sun never hits. "And then she sees what I mean," she says. "If these changes really came from aging, you'd have them all over."
There's one way in which age spots are truly associated with passing years: The older most people get, the greater the amount of sun damage they've accumulated, so the spots are more numerous and more visible. "That's why sunscreen and sun avoidance are key to any therapy you try," says Debra Wattenberg, M.D., assistant clinical professor of dermatology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.