Quick Answer
How do you get rid of sun spots?
Sun spots (solar lentigines, also called age or liver spots) don't fade on their own, and prescription creams usually lighten them rather than clear them. In-office light and laser treatments work fastest: a 2025 systematic review put IPL success rates at roughly 75 to 90 percent. The step that decides whether any of it works is confirming the spot is a sun spot first. Melasma looks similar but can darken with heat-based treatments like IPL, and any spot that is changing, raised, or irregular should be checked by a dermatologist before it's treated. Fall and winter, when skin isn't tanned, is the safest time to start.
For the light and laser options we offer in Encinitas, see our laser services.
Every fall the same consult starts showing up on my schedule. Summer is over, the tan is fading, and what's left behind is a scatter of brown spots across the cheekbones, the forehead, and the backs of the hands. The first question is almost always some version of how to get rid of sun spots, and how fast.
It isn't just a feeling that this happens in fall. Across roughly 300 pigment-treatment visits at our Encinitas studio since early 2024, August was the quietest month on our books and November was about three times as busy.
My answer starts with a question of my own: are you sure they're sun spots? Most of the people who tell me a treatment "didn't work" on their spots were treating something else.
First, Confirm It's a Sun Spot
A sun spot, which dermatologists call a solar lentigo, is a flat patch where pigment cells have clumped after years of UV exposure. Age spots and liver spots are the same thing under different names. They're harmless. But several other things look close enough to fool people, including some providers.
That last row is the one I care about most. The American Academy of Dermatology is blunt about it: what looks like an age spot could be skin cancer, so get a skin exam before treating. Their ABCDEs of melanoma (asymmetry, border, color, diameter, evolving) are the checklist I want everyone to know. If I look at a spot and I'm not comfortable with it, I don't treat it that day. I send you to a dermatologist, and we can talk about the rest once it's been cleared.
Why Melasma Changes the Whole Plan
A lot of people on skincare forums describe booking IPL for their "sun spots," showing up, and being told at the door that it's melasma and they can't be treated. That provider did them a favor.
Melasma isn't just sun damage. It's pigment driven by hormones, heat, and light together, and it comes back readily. The European Society for Laser Dermatology's position statement says lasers and IPL are highly effective for lentigos but should be used "with great caution" for melasma, and that getting the diagnosis right is mandatory before choosing any device. Heat from a light treatment can set off the same pigment you're trying to clear, and the result is often darker and more widespread than where you started.
When I'm deciding between the two, a sun spot is a spot. It has an edge, and it sits where the sun hits hardest. Melasma is a pattern: soft-edged patches, usually matching on both sides of the face, and often with a history that includes pregnancy, birth control, or summers when it gets worse. When I see that pattern, IPL is off the table for that area.
What melasma gets instead is slower and gentler. The AAD's approach starts with daily sun protection and prescription topicals, with a laser or light treatment added only for some patients who are already on that routine. For those patients we use a low-energy fractional laser, LaseMD, paired with topicals, rather than IPL. Plenty of people have both: melasma on the cheeks, ordinary sun spots on the temples, each treated differently.
What Creams Can Fade, and What They Can't
Creams are where most people start, and they're worth understanding before you spend money on a procedure.
Hydroquinone is prescription-only now. People still ask where to buy it over the counter. Since September 2020, the FDA considers no over-the-counter skin-lightening product legally marketed in the US, which took hydroquinone off drugstore shelves. Anything sold online as "prescription strength" without a prescription is exactly the kind of product that FDA warning was about.
Retinoids help, slowly. Tretinoin speeds up cell turnover and lightens pigment over months. It also makes skin more sun-sensitive. A common complaint I hear is "tretinoin gave me more sun spots," and the usual cause is using it without daily sunscreen. The retinoid didn't make the spot. The sun did, on skin that was less protected than before.
What they can't do is reliably clear a distinct, dark, long-standing spot. Creams lighten overall tone and soften newer spots. A lentigo that's been sitting on your cheekbone for ten years is usually beyond what a topical will erase, and months of a cream for a spot like that is a slow way to spend money. The AAD notes that procedures tend to work faster than creams and lotions.
How IPL Clears a Sun Spot
Intense pulsed light isn't a laser. It's a filtered flash of broad-spectrum light, and the brown pigment in a sun spot absorbs more of it than the skin around it does. That pigment heats, the clumped cells break down, and your skin carries them off over the following days.
The evidence here is solid. A 2025 systematic review of sun-spot treatments reported IPL success rates of roughly 75 to 90 percent across clinical trials. The same review found IPL less likely than several other options to cause the rebound darkening called post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation.
What catches people off guard is the first week. Within a day or two, the treated spots look darker, as if someone traced them with a fine-tipped pen. Over roughly the next week they turn into tiny dark flecks that flake away. People often describe them as coffee grounds. That's the pigment leaving, and it's the sign the treatment did what it should. Don't pick at them. Your skin sheds them on its own schedule.
One session makes a visible difference for many spots, but we plan IPL as a series of three spaced about a month apart. Older, darker spots and larger areas take the full series.
You may have seen at-home IPL devices. Most are built and cleared for hair removal, with settings, filters, and safety limits designed for that job. They aren't the same as an in-office photofacial, and pointing one at a pigmented spot on your face isn't a substitute.
Why Fall Is When to Start
IPL targets pigment, and it can't fully tell the difference between the pigment in your sun spot and the pigment in a tan. Tanned skin absorbs energy that was meant for the spot, which raises the risk of burns and blotchy darkening. That's why many of the treatment horror stories you'll find online start with a summer appointment or skin that was darker than the settings assumed. The European position statement notes that settings have to account for your skin type, not just the spot.
So I want you untanned: no beach days, self-tanner, or tanning in the weeks before. If you show up with fresh color, we reschedule. It isn't worth the risk.
Fall also gives you time to heal. The months after treatment are when new pigment is most likely to come back, and it's far easier to protect healing skin in November than in July. By next summer you're starting from clear skin rather than trying to fix it mid-season.
That matches our books: most patients start in fall and pause when summer arrives.
When Light Is the Wrong Tool
Light treatments aren't for everyone, and I'd rather say so here than in the chair.
Deeper skin tones. The more natural pigment in your skin, the more of the light's energy your skin absorbs, and the higher the risk of burns or discoloration. For many people with deeper skin, IPL isn't the right choice. Fractional laser, peels, and prescription topicals are the safer route, and that's a decision to make at an in-person consult.
A spot that isn't pigment. If a spot is raised and waxy, light won't clear it. The same is true when IPL "didn't work" after five or six sessions: most of the time the spot wasn't a lentigo. It's worth getting a dermatologist to look at it.
Promises of "all gone in one visit." Some of the worst outcomes people describe come from clinics that pushed the energy high to clear everything at once. Conservative settings over a series are slower and safer.
When another option fits better. Peels help overall tone and fine freckling more than a single dark spot. The 2025 review found chemical peels were among the weaker options for distinct sun spots. Our BioRePeel and ZO peels still earn their place for dull, uneven skin. Dermatologists can also freeze individual spots, which is fast, but the same review linked cryotherapy with more severe side effects, and the AAD notes that freezing can occasionally leave permanent marks. Picosecond lasers scored highest in that review. We don't have one, and for a few dark, isolated spots a dermatology practice that does is a reasonable choice.
Hands, Chest, and the Spots That Take Longer
The face gets most of the attention, but the backs of the hands and the chest usually show sun damage first, and people notice them later. Spots on the left hand and arm are common in anyone who's done years of driving with the window down.
Body skin heals more slowly than facial skin, so we treat it more conservatively and expect more sessions. There's good data specifically on hands. In a study of 31 patients with sun spots on the backs of their hands, up to five monthly IPL sessions produced more than 50 percent improvement in 62 percent of patients, with no scarring or rebound darkening reported.
Keeping Them From Coming Back
IPL clears the spots you have. It doesn't stop the sun from making new ones, and the AAD notes that age spots can return. Everything in our summer sun-protection guide applies year-round once you've paid to clear your skin: daily broad-spectrum SPF 30 or higher, reapplied, plus a hat for outdoor days.
Most people also need some upkeep. About half of our pigment-treatment patients have come back for another session, typically about six weeks after the last one, and a yearly touch-up each fall is a realistic expectation for anyone who lives outdoors the way North County does.
If you've got spots you'd like gone before next summer, the most useful first step is having someone look at them in person, confirm what they are, and tell you whether light is the right tool. Book a consultation at our Encinitas studio, ideally while your skin is still untanned this fall.
This article is for educational purposes and reflects our clinical approach at Call of Beauty Med Spa in Encinitas, CA. It is not individual medical advice, individual results vary, and you should consult a licensed provider about your own health history before treatment. Practice statistics are aggregate, anonymized figures from our appointment records for LaseMD laser and corrective peel visits, March 2024 through July 2026.
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Not sure whether it's a sun spot or melasma?
A pigment consultation at our Encinitas studio starts by identifying what your spots are. Olga maps which ones will respond to IPL, which need a gentler plan, and which should be seen by a dermatologist first.