Hey guys, this is my first question here, just started the course this spring 🙂
I’ve tried to do some research on this but it’s hard to find info that isn’t behind a paywall.  I read somewhere in passing that lemon balm Melissa officinalis can affect melanin production but have never heard any herbalist talk about that.  I found several scientific studies on it but couldn’t read them.
So…story time… in the summer of 2021 I saw this effect first hand.  I had a nice lemon balm patch and was making lemonade from it every week and drinking some almost every day.  I was drinking it to see if it would help me focus (ADHD), which it did to some degree and also made me feel better because it’s delicious lol.   I soon noticed that all my existing freckles got a lot darker and I seemed to tan faster (but I try not to get too much sun because I am pretty pale!)  I lost access to the lemon balm patch the following year due to a move and it took until this year to get another patch going.  I harvested from it in April and had some of my “lemon drank”.  The next day I worked in the garden a little bit but not long enough to get a sunburn.  The day after that, I had noticeable patches of “sunspots” on my face that were not there at all the day before.  They have stayed pretty prominent since then even though I have mostly avoided further sun exposure.

Has anyone heard about lemon balm doing this or have experience with this?  What little I was able to read from the studies I found suggests that lemon balm both enhances melanin production and reduces its formation…how does that make sense?

I will attempt to post a link to a picture now…
https://imgur.com/a/fsB7slL

The Left image is from before I got the spots in April.  I was showing of my makeup in this pic, but as a rule I do not wear foundation, so there is nothing on my cheeks but a tiny bit of blush.  The pic on the Right is from today but looks the same as when the spots first appeared .  It was so weird how suddenly they appeared after having the lemon balm.