The main types of dark spots on face skin are post-acne marks, sun spots, melasma and freckles. Colour does not separate them; the border and the pattern do. Post-acne marks are round and sit where you broke out. Sun spots have crisp edges. Melasma is soft-edged and symmetrical. Freckles are small, many, and fade without light.
Why colour is the wrong thing to look at
Almost everyone identifies a mark by how dark it is. It is the first thing you notice, and it is the least useful thing about it.
Depth of colour tells you two things only: how much pigment is sitting there, and roughly how deep it sits. Shallow pigment reads brown or tan. Deeper pigment reads grey, slate or blue-brown, because you are seeing it through more tissue. Neither of those tells you what put it there.
The border does. A mark with a clean, drawn edge was made by something that stopped at a line. A mark that fades into the skin around it was made by something diffuse. Add the pattern — one, a few, or a spread — and the history of what happened in that spot, and four types separate cleanly.
The four, side by side
Four different dark spots on face skin account for nearly everything people ask us about. Read each one for its edge first, its arrangement second, and what you remember happening there last.
Post-acne marks
Edge: round and reasonably defined, because the spot that made it was round. Arrangement: scattered, one at a time, wherever you break out — jawline, chin, cheeks, forehead. History: you watched the spot heal.
They arrive after the spot has gone, which is what makes them confusing. Nothing is wrong with the skin any more; the pigment is a leftover. Of the four, this is the type that responds best to what you can buy.
Sun spots
Edge: crisp, almost drawn on, with a clear line between mark and skin. Arrangement: separate spots on the highest-exposed parts — the tops of the cheeks, the bridge and sides of the nose, the forehead, the temples. Often uneven between the two sides of the face. History: none you can point to, because they build over years.
Melasma
Edge: soft and blurred, with no line anywhere. Arrangement: patches rather than spots, and close to symmetrical — a matching pair across both cheeks, a band on the upper lip, or a wide area across the forehead. History: it often follows pregnancy, the contraceptive pill or hormone treatment.
Symmetry is the single most reliable signal on this page. The other three types do not bother to match themselves across the middle of a face.
Freckles
Edge: soft but small, with each one clearly its own. Arrangement: many, in a spread rather than as individuals, across the nose and cheeks. History: they were there in childhood, and they darken with light and lighten without it.
Small dark spots on face skin that come in groups, sit mostly across the nose, and get darker in strong light are almost always freckles. They are a normal variation, not a mark, and there is more about them on the freckles page.
Flat and raised are not the same question
Before any of the four, check one thing with your fingertip rather than your eyes. Close them and run a finger over the mark.
A flat dark spot on face skin is pigment. Everything on this page is about pigment. If your finger cannot feel the mark, you are in the right article.
If you can feel it, you are not. Little dark spots on face skin that stand slightly proud of the surface are growths rather than pigment — the small, dark, raised papules that are very common on deeper skin tones around the eyes and cheekbones, or a mole, or a seborrhoeic keratosis. All of those are harmless in the ordinary case and none of them responds to a cream. They are removed, if you want them removed, in a clinic.
Two of the four a cream is the wrong answer for
Melasma is the first. It is driven from inside, it returns when the trigger returns, and the treatments with the best record for it are prescribed. A cosmetic can support a plan a doctor sets out. It cannot be the plan. If your pattern is symmetrical, book the appointment before you buy anything.
Freckles are the second, for the opposite reason. Nothing is wrong. They are what skin with a particular pigment pattern does in sunlight, they have always been there, and they do not need to be treated. Sun protection keeps them from deepening. That is the whole intervention.
Which leaves post-acne marks and sun spots as the two that a shelf can genuinely help with — and the two that most people looking at this page actually have.
What this page cannot settle
Reading a mark from a description is not diagnosis, and it only goes so far.
Types overlap. A face can carry post-acne marks and sun spots and a hormonal patch at once, and where they sit on top of each other the edges stop being readable. That is normal and it is the commonest reason a mark refuses to match any of the four.
Some marks are none of the four. Pigment can follow eczema, a burn, a reaction to a product, or a medicine. And a mark that is changing — growing, changing shape or colour, developing an uneven or ragged border, itching, crusting or bleeding — is not a skincare question at any point. Photograph it and take it to a doctor.
How deep the pigment sits also decides more than the type does, and that is the subject of where the pigment ended up.
Which one fits, once you have named yours
For post-acne marks and sun spots, the useful products are the ones aimed at pigment already made rather than at the spot that caused it. The cream that leads on kojic acid puts its most expensive tone ingredient first on the list, which is unusual, and it is worth knowing that it is built as a cold cream with no detergent in it at all.
If you want to understand what that ingredient is doing before you buy, how kojic acid behaves covers it, including the parts that are less flattering.
If you have not yet worked out what set your marks off in the first place, what set each of them off is the page to read before this one, not after it.
And the pigmentation hub sorts the range by what each product is aimed at rather than by price.
Frequently asked questions
Can a dark spot turn into skin cancer?
An ordinary flat brown mark is not a cancer and does not become one. What matters is change. A mark that grows, shifts shape or colour, develops a ragged or uneven border, itches, crusts or bleeds needs a doctor’s eyes, whatever it started as. Photograph anything you are unsure about so you have something to compare against.
How do I tell a dark spot from a mole?
Touch first. Moles are usually raised or at least slightly thickened, and they have been there for years without changing. Pigment marks are flat and have a beginning you can often date. If a mark is flat but has never been flat before, or was flat and now is not, that is the version worth showing to someone.
Are freckles and sun spots the same thing?
No, though both come from light. Freckles are small, numerous, appear in childhood and get lighter when the sun goes away. Sun spots are larger, arrive later in life, come one at a time and stay put regardless of the light. If a mark has never faded in its life, it is not a freckle.
Can I have more than one type at the same time?
Very commonly, and it is the main reason people find these guides frustrating. A single face can carry all four. Work out which type each area is rather than trying to label the whole face at once, and treat the areas differently — the cheeks and the jawline are often two different problems.
Do dark spots look different on deeper skin tones?
Yes. On deeper tones, marks tend to read as deep brown, grey or slate rather than pink or red, they often look larger than the spot that caused them, and they last considerably longer. On lighter tones the same mark is more often pink or red at first and fades sooner. The types are the same; the colours they present in are not.
Why do my marks look worse in some light than others?
Because different light shows different things. Flat, even light — an overcast window, a lift mirror — shows pigment and hides texture. Light from the side shows texture and hides pigment. Overhead lighting does both badly. Judge marks in the same light each time, or you are comparing two different pictures.