Hi there! This post contains affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products I genuinely use and love!

Four weeks ago I was cautiously hopeful about a propolis serum and my stubborn age spots. It was working, just slowly — and then I ran out. Here’s what I’ve switched to instead, and the honest reason why.

If you read my last post about paring my routine down to almost nothing, you’ll know where I landed: Beauty of Joseon’s Light On Serum in the morning, and — though I didn’t dwell on it at the time — their Glow Serum (Propolis + Niacinamide) in the evening, doing the quiet work on the age spots across my forehead and cheeks that I’ve been documenting honestly rather than hiding.

I’ve now finished that bottle, and it’s worth being honest about what four-plus weeks of it actually did, because “it worked” is doing a lot of unearned lifting in most skincare reviews.

What the propolis serum actually did

Looking at my most recent photos against the ones I took at the start, my skin tone does look more even, and the age spots themselves seem to be genuinely starting to fade — not dramatically, but noticeably, if you know what you’re looking for. That’s a real result, and I don’t want to undersell it just because I’m moving on to something else. Slow and real is still real.

But it was slow, and it’s not actually the first serum I’ve tried for this. Before the Beauty of Joseon products, I was using The Ordinary’s Alpha Arbutin serum, which I was never quite convinced by — partly, I think, because it doesn’t contain niacinamide, and I’ve never fully understood why the two aren’t simply combined into one product. That’s really the honest reason I keep trying different serums rather than settling: I’m not chasing a trend, I’m trying to work out what actually moves the needle on my own skin.

Why I picked La Roche-Posay this time

When the Glow Serum ran out, I didn’t just repurchase — I went looking for something different, and landed on La Roche-Posay’s Mela B3 Serum. Part of that is simple trust: it’s a brand dermatologists reach for, and for me that’s genuinely reason enough to try it, without needing to interrogate every ingredient myself.

It’s also roughly double the price of the Beauty of Joseon serum. My honest guess is that comes down to a stronger concentration of the active ingredients — the box leads with 10% niacinamide and their own Melasyl™ technology, aimed specifically at dark spots and pigmentation, rather than the more general soothing job the propolis serum was doing. Though I’ll say plainly: I don’t think the price tag has all that much to do with what the ingredients themselves actually cost. That’s just how skincare pricing tends to work.

One thing worth flagging if you’re sensitive to it: the Mela B3 is scented, where the Beauty of Joseon serums weren’t. I’m not against scent in principle, but I do generally lean towards unscented products, so this is a small adjustment for me rather than a non-issue.

The routine, and what I’m actually starting with

Nothing else is changing. Light On Serum stays in the morning — it’s still calm, still doing its job, still the product I trust most day to day. Mela B3 goes on in the evening, on cleansed skin, in place of the Glow Serum.

The photos here are the same honest starting point I gave you last time: no makeup, no filter, the age spots on my forehead and both cheekbones exactly as they are today, mid-fade from the last four weeks. I’m not promising you a transformation, and I’m genuinely not sure yet whether this will move faster than the last one did. I’ll tell you either way.

---

If you’ve made your own switch based on trust in a brand rather than a deep dive into the ingredients list, I’d love to hear how it’s going for you in the comments.