There are two procedures that you must perform to reduce the amount of skin pigmentation in an area of the body: bleaching and exfoliation. However, you must remember that there is a certain amount of natural skin pigmentation that you are endowed with. Understanding this will allow you to temper your expectations of fairness to something more realistic. First, you must understand the mechanisms of skin pigmentation, why it happens, before you try to inhibit it.
Skin pigmentation and the color of your skin are controlled by a bunch of cells in your body called melanocytes. These cells create a substance called melanin. Melanin is a widely available substance in nature and is even present in plants. This is very important to many living things because of dangerous radiation from the sun. Melanin absorbs ultraviolet radiation from the sun and converts it into harmless heat in a very fast reaction. This is the primary role of melanin in the human body – to act as a natural sun block. However, you would have noticed that over time and exposure to the sun, one gets darker and darker. This is because of the oxidative stress placed on melanin as it performs the reactions with ultraviolet light. Therefore, when this stress is placed on melanin, it darkens and we darken along with it. However, the permanence of this situation depends on how long we spend in the sun. Normal exposures of 5 to 10 minutes of sunshine at a stretch will not cause a permanent tan but longer than that will cause the initiation of a process called melanogenesis. This is a process in which more melanin is created in the skin and this causes a slow and permanent tan. Therefore, start reducing your exposure to the sun. Melanin is not a permanent fixture in the skin and is removed as the skin layers are shed – therefore the two-pronged treatment.
To start with, start an exfoliating ritual using lemon juice and sugar. Rub some lemon juice over your skin and then sandpaper your skin with the sugar. This will remove all the dead skin a little bit with each exfoliation. Next, you should use the lemon juice and add it to some onion juice, which can be acquired by dicing an onion and squeezing out the juices from the pieces. Apply this mixture to your skin everyday to see the useful effects in a few weeks.