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Maelove

Fade Away Dark Spot Correcting Serum.

Maelove Fade Away Dark Spot Correcting Serum
Serums

About this product

A brightening serum formulated with alpha-arbutin, kojic acid, and licorice root extract designed to fade dark spots, hyperpigmentation, and post-acne marks.

Full ingredients

Guru Score

81%

Yay

6 experts · Moderate agreement
6Gurus
5Yay
1Mixed
0Nay

What they liked

  • Hydrating, evens skin tone noticeably
  • Gentle enough to layer with retinol
  • Multiple brightening actives work together

What they flagged

  • Can pill under sunscreen, better at night

What the gurus are saying

Visible brightening and an evening of skin tone emerge as the standout finding, with gurus reporting improved luminosity and radiance that goes beyond simple hydration. The serum pairs multiple dark-spot actives in one formula, making it straightforward to layer with other treatments like retinol or vitamin C, and can be used once or twice daily. Apply to damp skin after cleansing for better penetration, using a full dropper to cover the face and neck, though those with sensitive skin may want to wait until skin has dried to avoid stinging.
Synthesized from 6 expert reviews · most recent take June 2026

What the gurus are saying.

Every take we've logged from this product's reviews across YouTube. Click any row to watch the moment they said it.

All takes Yay takes Nay takes Mixed takes Hide sponsored
Yay
"One of my most frequently used products from Maelove is their dark spot serum. I love the green aesthetic, and I also love how they have complementary ingredients to help address that one problem."
All 2 takes from Doctorly
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"This is the Maelove Fade Away brightening serum. Dark spots are my main skin issue. Texturally I think it's great. This is one of those dark spot serums that covers multiple different ingredients. You will take your hydroquinone, which is your bleaching agent, use it for three months out of the year, take a break, you use your tretinoin, that is your standard staple foundational ingredient you continue nightly ideally for the year, and then you find a robust over-the-counter dark spot serum, dark spot product. You can get a cream, you can get a serum if that's your texture, and this is where over-the-counter shines. You get tons of ingredients in one product and it keeps your skincare simple. So that's why I love this. The only questionable ingredient in this is the witch hazel. I have a suspicion it's there for a purpose. I feel like maybe it helps with the absorption or skin penetration enhancer or something like that."
Dermatologists' Most Underrated Skincare Brands of 2026
"One of my most frequently used products from Maelove is their dark spot serum. I love the green aesthetic, and I also love how they have complementary ingredients to help address that one problem."
Yay
"I love May Love's discoloration serum. It's excellent. I used it consistently for over a year and got really great results."
Top Pick: brightening serum
All 13 takes from Dr Dray
My Top 5 Most Purchased Skincare Products Of The Year!
"This product is one that for me I see visible changes, visible improvement, an overall just brightening effect. I notice an overall improvement in skin luminosity and radiance above and beyond what I see when I just simply use a hydrating serum. I get improvement in skin luminosity using snail mucin, which is another love of my life, but I would say I get a little bit more of an improvement with this product above and beyond. A few years ago I fell in love with it Cosmetics SK II Liposome Effector, and then they changed the formula, it's not as good anymore. The results I was getting from that SK II Liposome Effector before they changed it is what I'm getting with Maelove, so it's replaced that for me. You can use it one to two times a day. You want to apply it to the skin after cleansing while the skin's a little bit damp that way you get better penetration of the active ingredients, unless you find that that burns and stings, at which case you might want to wait until the skin has dried. You need a full dropper full to cover the face and the neck."
SKINCARE PRODUCTS I USED UP 🗑 EMPTIES 2023 @DrDrayzday
"I finished the Maelove Fade Away brightening serum, this was a 2022 skincare favorite and I continue to use it. I've repurchased this multiple times. It's a serum that has kojic acid in it which is helpful for hyperpigmentation, but the formula overall is like very hydrating. I definitely see an improvement in overall skin luminosity and an even skin tone. I come back to this and it is very good."
New Korean Skincare Rapid Fire Reviews And First Impressions
"I'm going to come on over with my Maelove Fade Away brightening serum, just need a full dropper worth of this. This is the kojic acid arbutin licorice root skin brightening serum that I use."
Fading Hyperpigmentation On The Face With Arbutin?
"This is a product that I personally use and I've used a lot this year in fact it was one of my most repurchased. I found personally for me to be very effective for brightening up my skin tone and lightening some dark spots hyperpigmentation. What I like about this is that it's arbutin and it's also kojic acid and it's also licorice root so those three are very gentle pigment lightening ingredients to brighten and improve skin tone and they tackle slightly different aspects of the pigment producing machinery in a slightly different way so they exhibit synergy. The formula overall is also very hydrating and moisturizing and when it comes to improving the appearance of hyperpigmentation there's something to be said for moisturizing because improving the moisture content of the topmost layers of the skin ultimately through light scattering helps dark spots appear less noticeable. If your skin's dry, moisturizing can just by light scattering help that and moisturizing also improves barrier function cutting down on the potential for you to develop irritation that ultimately works in hyperpigmentation. It's a very hydrating serum. I apply it and I usually only apply it once a day although arbutin can be used twice a day."
Using A Clay Mask For Oily Skin
"I repurchased the Maelove Fade Away brightening serum. This is a 2022 skincare favorite. It's really good for brightening your skin, improving skin tone, and it's also super moisturizing."
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"I love May Love's discoloration serum. It's excellent. I used it consistently for over a year and got really great results."
*Vlog* YOU WON'T BELIEVE THIS SKIN CARE DISCOVERY @DrDrayzday
"My Maelove Fade Away Brightening Serum packs a nice punch of hydration by itself. Really what this is for is hyperpigmentation, the kojic acid and arbutin. This is good as is, I don't technically need anything else."
*Vlog* TRYING TARGET SALICYLIC ACID WASH & ALLERGIES @DrDrayzday
"I'm using the Maelove Fade Away brightening serum. It's very hydrating and it does smooth out and even out skin tone. Maelove's brightening serum has kojic acid in it and also arbutin, and I get a nice skin brightening effect from it for targeting hyperpigmentation."
SKINCARE EMPTIES FROM WINTER 2023 🗑 @DrDrayzday
"This is a serum I use every night, the Maelove Fade Away Brightening Serum, it has kojic acid, arbutin, and hyaluronic acid, so it's very hydrating but it helps improve dark spots and even out skin tone. I've been so impressed with this product, this is like my fourth bottle of it, the first bottle was gifted to me but I've since repurchased several bottles and I continue to use it. I highly recommend it if you're looking to improve the look of sunspots on the face, maybe you got too much sun exposure on vacation, this is a great one for lightening that up in conjunction with sunscreen."
*Vlog* SLEEP & SKIN / KBEAUTY ADVENT CALENDAR / 🎄 @DrDrayzday
"This is the Maelove Fade Away Serum, my 2022 skincare favorite, with arbutin and kojic acid. I think the kojic acid and arbutin probably are helping with the hyperpigmentation, but I think a lot of the benefit I see from this is just because it is so stinking hydrating, and I use it on a damp face, even up around my eyes, and I have not had any issue with that."
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"I purchased another bottle of the May Love Fade Away brightening serum. I have been really happy with this product, I genuinely see a difference in my skin. It has kojic acid in it and it also has arbutin and hyaluronic acid, so it's very hydrating."
Vlog: MAELOVE & TRETINOIN, CLEANING MAKEUP BRUSHES, POLISH FESTIVAL @DrDrayzday
"I'm using the Maelove fade away brightening serum, and I find that if you let it dry on there as it is it dries a little filmy, sticky, tacky, so I go over it with a moisturizer. This fade away brightening serum really does brighten up the skin, mostly through the humectants scattering light. It has kojic acid in it which can help inhibit the enzyme tyrosinase so it reduces upregulation of pigment production, plus antioxidants, and it has alpha arbutin in it, a natural form of hydroquinone. I think it does a good job brightening up skin tone, and if you've got residual freckles or age spots that darkened over the summer with UV exposure, I do think this will help. I've been liking it and want to use it up."
MAELOVE FADE AWAY BRIGHTENING SERUM | DERMATOLOGIST @DrDrayzday
"I actually really like this product. I found it very easy to tolerate and very hydrating, and I think it's well formulated. It has kojic acid, alpha arbutin, licorice root extract and glutathione to target hyperpigmentation, plus hyaluronic acid for hydration. I do appreciate an improvement in skin tone with it, almost instantaneous, though I think that's mostly through the hydration rather than the actives, which take time to work. It's $36.95, which is not inexpensive, so if you don't have any sunspots, age spots or hyperpigmentation you're looking to improve, I don't think this is going to be worth your money, but if you do have hyperpigmentation and want a serum that's hydrating and moisturizing, I think you might be happy with this. Possible issues are irritation, since it has kojic acid and other botanic extracts that can be irritating for some people, and it can pill under sunscreen during the day so I prefer using it at night. I actually really like it and I would repurchase it again."
Yay
"This is a wonderful serum for those that have hyperpigmentation stubborn dark spots post acne marks. This is a lovely serum that actually works to fade these areas especially when you are consistent. Consistency is key with skin care in general, you have to be consistent with your skincare products to see results."
All 2 takes from Sincerely Miss Ash
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"This is a wonderful serum for those that have hyperpigmentation stubborn dark spots post acne marks. This is a lovely serum that actually works to fade these areas especially when you are consistent. Consistency is key with skin care in general, you have to be consistent with your skincare products to see results."
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"When I was testing this out I was using this once a day in my morning skincare routine and I actually had a couple of post-acne marks already on my skin so this was perfect timing. I had one on my cheek and one on my chin and I was using this every day for about a week and a half and within a week and a half those areas definitely faded drastically where my skin was pretty much even again. So this really does work if you are consistent with it. Then once those areas healed up I actually started pairing this up with my tretinoin at night time and I did not experience any additional irritation or dryness. It doesn't mean that you won't, please be cautious on how you use this. This alone might be irritating for someone who has sensitive skin, but if you're going to be pairing this up with something else just be cautious. In the formulation there is red algae extract and glutathione and these two are antioxidants that have anti-inflammatory properties to it. So if you have a post-acne mark sometimes we have some inflammation in that area and so these two ingredients will help to decrease that."
Mixed
"It promises to fade dark spots, even out skin tone, and prevent future hyperpigmentation. I would say this is moderately helpful with dark spots and ever so slightly beneficial evening out the skin tone, but for me I just have found a ton of other products that work better. My hyperpigmentation is different than some other types of hyperpigmentation. There's many different types, there's hyperpigmentation from post-inflammatory like breakouts, there's dark spots, there's sun spots, melasma, something very specific. There's many different types and certain types respond differently to different ingredients. So I didn't find this to be super effective for me, but perhaps other people with newer hyperpigmentation might find it effective, or a different type of pigmentation related to different causes. I didn't find it to be terribly efficient and effective for me."
Yay
"I've been using the Fadeaway this year loving it. This is by Maelove, a new brand to me this year, and I would say they're in the mid-range of prices. This is $40, so this is the one item that is above my affordable price range but I still love it. This one has kojic acid and alpha arbutin."
All 3 takes from Beyond50Skin
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"I tried their anti-pigmentation serum"
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"I've been using the Fadeaway this year loving it. This is by Maelove, a new brand to me this year, and I would say they're in the mid-range of prices. This is $40, so this is the one item that is above my affordable price range but I still love it. This one has kojic acid and alpha arbutin."
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"Another serum I finished up this summer was the Maelove Fade Away. This is an anti-pigmentation serum that targets melanin production in the skin. It contains arbutin and kojic acid. I really enjoyed using the serum. It does have kind of an earthy green scent, but it's just from the ingredients in the formula."
Yay
"If you have dark spots or hyperpigmentation that you want to address, this is going to be for you. This has kic acid, alpha arbutin in it, licorice root extract. All things that can help lighten dark spots on the skin. You can use this morning and or night in your routine. All of these are tested together, made to layer together. So, say you want this in your routine and you still want to use a vitamin C serum, technically you can layer these. That is Maelove's whole point is to make easy products to layer. So it's just quick, easy, seamless in your routine."
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All 4 takes from The Budget Dermatologist
Layering Skincare Actives + Full Anti-aging Routine
"If you have dark spots or hyperpigmentation that you want to address, this is going to be for you. This has kic acid, alpha arbutin in it, licorice root extract. All things that can help lighten dark spots on the skin. You can use this morning and or night in your routine. All of these are tested together, made to layer together. So, say you want this in your routine and you still want to use a vitamin C serum, technically you can layer these. That is Maelove's whole point is to make easy products to layer. So it's just quick, easy, seamless in your routine."
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"The Fade Away, this has alpha arbutin, kojic acid, licorice root extract, some botanicals in it, and this is going to help fade dark spots."
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"Oh and their Fade Away Dark Spot Correcting Serum I'm going to link that below as well"
Skin Cycling Q&A | Anti-aging Skincare Routine Advice Part 3
"They have a great serum for dark spots that's formulated very nicely. It's called the fade away serum."

What the evidence says.

Independent of what the gurus think, this is what the published research supports about the main active ingredients here.

Humectants and emollients

Ingredients like these draw water into the surface layers and slow how fast it leaves. The evidence is for comfort, softness and hydration rather than for changing the structure of the skin.

Source: DermNet

Frequently asked.

What is Maelove Fade Away Dark Spot Correcting Serum?

A brightening serum formulated with alpha-arbutin, kojic acid, and licorice root extract designed to fade dark spots, hyperpigmentation, and post-acne marks.

Is Maelove Fade Away Dark Spot Correcting Serum worth it?

Mostly yes. 5 of the 6 gurus who reviewed it give it their stamp of approval, for a Guru Score of 81%.

What is Maelove Fade Away Dark Spot Correcting Serum's Guru Score?

Maelove Fade Away Dark Spot Correcting Serum holds a Guru Score of 81%. That is our read on how warmly the experts talk about it, based on the verdicts of 6 expert reviewers we have collected. At least one expert has named it a Top Pick in its category.

Who is Maelove Fade Away Dark Spot Correcting Serum best for?

Maelove Fade Away Dark Spot Correcting Serum is generally suited to acne-prone skin.

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