Wellhealthorganic.Com Lemon Juice Know Home Remedies Easily Remove Dark-Spots

The first time I put lemon on my face, I was nineteen and used half a lemon straight from the fridge. My mother said it would clear the marks on my jaw before my cousin’s wedding. It stung so badly that I washed it off after two minutes, and my cheek stayed pink until the next morning.

Raw Lemon Made My Marks Darker, Not Lighter

That wedding was in April. I rubbed lemon on the marks every night, and I was also playing cricket in the afternoons without any sunscreen. By the third week, two of the marks on my left jaw had turned a darker brown than when I started. I blamed the sun. I blamed the lemon. I think it was both.

Later, a dermatologist explained it to me in about thirty seconds. Lemon juice has a pH of around 2, and normal skin sits between 4.7 and 5.5. Put something that acidic on your face every night and the skin gets irritated. Skin like mine, and like most skin in India, reacts to irritation by making more pigment. Doctors call it post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation, or PIH. So I was making new marks on top of the old ones.

The sun part was worse. Citrus juice contains furocoumarins, and when they stay on skin that gets sunlight, they can cause phytophotodermatitis, a burn-like reaction that leaves brown patches for weeks. I never got the blisters, luckily. A boy in my hostel did, on the back of his hand, after squeezing limes for a party on the terrace.

The Lemon Mixes I Still Use, Diluted And Only At Night

I didn’t give up on lemon completely, which probably says more about me than about lemon. What changed was the amount. These days it’s a small steel bowl, one teaspoon of lemon juice and something to calm it down.

• Lemon with honey: 1 teaspoon of lemon juice and 2 teaspoons of raw honey, on the marks only, washed off after 10 minutes
• Lemon with besan and curd: half a teaspoon of lemon in a tablespoon each of besan and plain curd, the version my mother makes, left on until it dries
• Lemon with aloe vera: a few drops in fresh gel from the plant on our balcony, for the weeks my skin feels dry
• Lemon with water: equal parts, dabbed on with cotton and rinsed after 5 minutes

I use one of these twice a week, never more. Before trying a new mix, I dab a little behind my ear and wait a day. It took me an embarrassingly long time to start doing that.

Sunscreen Did More Than Any Face Pack

This part annoys me a little because it’s the least interesting. I started wearing SPF 30 every morning around the same time I cut the lemon down, and within five or six weeks the marks on my jaw had faded noticeably. The old ones went lighter, and new ones stopped showing up after every breakout.

Was it the lemon, the sunscreen or just time? I can’t separate them. Pimple marks fade on their own over a few months anyway. My guess is that sunscreen did most of the work and lemon helped a bit at the surface, but that’s a guess.

My Sister’s Patches Needed A Doctor

My elder sister tried the same lemon routine on the brown patches across her cheeks and upper lip after her first baby. Nothing happened for two months, and then the patches looked worse. That was melasma, which is hormonal and doesn’t behave like pimple marks at all. Her dermatologist stopped the lemon straight away and gave her a prescription cream along with strict sun protection.

If a spot grows, changes shape, bleeds or has uneven edges, don’t treat it from the kitchen either.

When I Skip Lemon Completely

I don’t touch it on active pimples, right after shaving, or on days my skin already feels tight. Friends with eczema or very sensitive skin shouldn’t bother with it at all. When I want something faster, I use a niacinamide serum from the chemist, which does a similar job without the sting. Lemon is cheap and sitting in the fridge, and I think that’s most of the reason people still reach for it first.

Disclaimer: This is my own experience, not medical advice. Please check with a dermatologist before trying anything on a skin condition.