PharmaAccess
| Product | Quantity | Per Unit | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hydroquinone - 4 % | 1 tube | £35.00 | £38.89 £35.00 −10% | |
| Hydroquinone - 4 % | 2 tube | £27.50 | £61.11 £55.00 −10% | |
| Hydroquinone - 4 % | 3 tube | £20.67 | £68.89 £62.00 −10% | |
| Hydroquinone - 4 % | 4 tube | £17.25 | £76.67 £69.00 −10% | |
| Hydroquinone - 4 % | 5 tube | £15.00 | £83.33 £75.00 −10% |
Specialised cells in the skin called melanocytes produce melanin, and an enzyme called tyrosinase controls the critical step in making it.
When those cells are overstimulated — by sunlight, by inflammation, by hormones — they produce more pigment than the surrounding skin and a patch appears.
Hydroquinone inhibits tyrosinase.
Less pigment gets made. The patch does not vanish, but as the skin renews over weeks the darker cells are replaced by less pigmented ones and the contrast fades.
It works best on recent, superficial pigmentation. Deeper, long-standing pigment responds more slowly and less completly.
This is the single most important paragraph on the page, and it is treated as an afterthought by most people.
Sunlight is what stimulates pigment production in the first place. Suppressing the enzyme while continuing to stimulate the cells is working against yourself.
And hydroquinone makes skin more reactive to sunlight on top of that.
So: high factor protection every morning, year-round, including through windows and on overcast days. Reapplied if you are outside.
People who do everything else correctly and skip this see very little result and conclude the product does not work.
Keeping it to the affected patches matters. Applied broadly, it lightens the surrounding normal skin too and you end up with a different unevenness.
Test on a small area first if your skin is sensitive.
Important, and widely ignored.
This is not something to use indefinitely. Prolonged uninterrupted use can cause a paradoxical darkening — a bluish-grey discolouration that is difficult to treat and sometimes permanent.
It is used in defined courses with breaks in between, typically a few months on and then a pause.
During breaks, sun protection and gentler alternatives maintain the result.
If the treated area starts getting darker rather than lighter, stop and get it looked at. That is the warning sign.
Pigment sits within the skin and has to be shed as the skin renews. That takes time.
Early changes may appear within a few weeks. Real assessment takes a couple of months at least.
Photograph the area at the start under consistent lighting. Gradual change is close to invisible in a mirror and obvious in a photograph.
Not for use in pregnancy or while breastfeeding.
Picking at acne is a direct cause of the marks people then try to treat. Not picking is cheaper than any cream.
Treatment runs in multi-month cycles, so people generally buy enough to complete one.
Pick the strength and the pack size, put in a delivery address, confirm. Couple of minutes, any time of day, no queue and no conversation accross a counter.
It goes out in plain packaging. No pharmacy name on the outside, nothing that hints at what is inside. How long delivery takes depends on where the parcel is headed.
On price it comes down to strength and pack size. Larger packs generally work out better per unit.
Parcels leave on working days, so UK public holidays and weekends push everything back. If it matters to a date, order with a few days to spare rather than none. Nobody can promise a calendar day.
