Skincare expert Caroline Hirons’ brand, Skin Rocks, spent four years working on this serum, which sold out within days of its launch in July this year. And with good reason. The before and after pics from the clinical trial were some of the best I’ve ever seen for an over-the-counter product. This creamy serum combines a number of ingredients – including antioxidants, peptides, niacinamide and vitamin C – that work at various points in the pigmentation production process, and has been clinically proven to decrease brown spots by up to 24 per cent after eight weeks. It’s also effective at removing red marks too.

Launched last year, this contains a patented new molecule, called Melasyl, that is exclusive to L’Oreal, the parent company of La Roche Posay. It works in a completely different way to most other anti-pigment ingredients as it intercepts the chemicals that make the melanin before they have a chance to create pigment. Because of this uniqueness, you could add the pinky, gel-like serum into any anti-pigment regime and not be doubling up. You’ll also find it in their Anthelios Anti-Dark Spots Facial SPF50+ Fluid, a good daily sun protection for anyone trying to tackle pigmentation.

Like La Roche Posay, Eucerin have developed their own ingredient to tackle pigmentation. It’s called Thiamidol and it works by putting the brakes on the activity of an enzyme that plays an important role in pigment production. With the enzyme disabled, the rate of pigment production slows down. It’s not the only ingredient to work in this way – alpha arbutin, azelaic acid and liquorice extract, all commonly found in anti-pigment products, do the same. But Eucerin say that a clinical trial involving 34 women using their anti-pigment serum, day cream and night cream showed that dark spots had faded by as much as 75 per cent after 12 weeks.

You may not have heard of this tiny brand which is the labour of love of a super talented cosmetic scientist called Amina Ajayi, but her philosophy is to use ‘clinically proven, science-backed, active ingredients with leading-edge technologies to deliver transformative results’. This lightweight brown serum combines peptides and innovative ingredients with other clinically-proven but more traditional anti-pigmentation big hitters, such as niacinamide, alpha arbutin and tranexamic acid, to tackle it on many fronts.

One of the fastest-growing brands in the US launched exclusively in the UK with Sephora in July and this, named for the vibrant green colour of the aloe vera-based gel, is their anti-pigmentation serum. Combining vitamin C, tranexamic acid, ionic acid, niacinamide and azelaic acid at levels proven to work on pigmentation, studies on the end product also show that it can brighten skin in just four weeks.