No cream cures vitiligo, and three kinds of cream genuinely repigment it: topical steroids, calcineurin inhibitors, and JAK inhibitors, all of them faster when combined with light. Ruxolitinib cream, the first drug licensed specifically for vitiligo, is not approved in India as of September 2026. Here is what each does, who it suits, and what to check before buying anything sold online as a vitiligo cream.
Vitiligo is an immune attack on pigment cells. Every cream that works on it does one thing: it quietens that attack in the patch it is applied to. Corticosteroids do it broadly, calcineurin inhibitors such as tacrolimus do it more selectively, and JAK inhibitors block the specific signalling pathway the attack runs on.
The colour itself comes from pigment cells that survived inside the hair follicles, which is why a cream can only ever be half of the treatment. Light is what wakes that reservoir fastest, and the combination of a cream between sessions and light at them is the pattern behind most good outcomes.
It is also why a cream is judged at six months. Repigmentation is slow biology; a tube that has been used for four weeks has not failed, it has barely started.
Dr. (Lt Col) Khagendra Varada
Reg. No. 10461, Hyderabad State Medical Council
Full background →“I have been going pillar to post to get my son cured of his white spot on his left side of lip and chin. It appeared 8 years back. I was told it’s special type of nerve vitiligo which has no cure. After reporting to him he told us that it is SEGMENTAL VITILIGO and unlikely and difficult to be cleared by medications alone. He suggested for surgical melanocyte transplant… I was amazed after around one month that he started rapidly getting pigmentation. I wholeheartedly suggest please do not waste time like I did.”
“Dark spots are seen in one month… Even before perticular treatment for vitiligo, great”
No cream contains pigment. What a good one does is stop the immune attack on the patch, so that pigment cells surviving inside the hair follicles can climb out and repopulate the skin — islands around each hair, and a band creeping in from the edge.
This is why the same cream does well on a face and poorly on a fingertip, and why a patch whose hairs have turned white barely responds to any of them. The cream is only ever half of the mechanism; the reservoir is the other half, and light is what wakes it fastest.
Illustration, not a photograph.
| Cream | Suits | In practice | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Topical corticosteroid, potent | Body patches; short courses on the face only under supervision | Cheap and effective; used in cycles, weeks on and weeks off | Thinning, stretch marks and visible vessels with unbroken use, especially on the face and folds |
| Tacrolimus or pimecrolimus | Face, neck, eyelids, folds; children | No thinning; slow alone, good with light; the usual facial choice in India | Burning or stinging in the first weeks, which settles |
| Ruxolitinib 1.5% (JAK inhibitor) | Non-segmental vitiligo, up to a tenth of the body surface, age 12 and over | Twice daily; in the licensing trials about half of patients reached the facial target at six months against one in thirty on the base cream, and colour kept coming to a year | Acne and redness at the site; a weekly amount cap; not approved in India |
| Calcipotriol (vitamin D analogue) | Add-on with a steroid or with light | Weak alone; modest help in combination | Irritation; no reason to use it by itself |
| Psoralen preparations, including bakuchi | Historical; only ever with metered light | Genuinely active; the plant version of PUVA | Phototoxic burns and dark marks when used with sunlight |
The steroid row is the one most often misused. It is a good drug in cycles on the body and a damaging one applied for months to a face, which is exactly how it tends to be sold when it is hidden in a herbal cream.
A low dose of a corticosteroid on two consecutive days a week, for a few months, to stop rapidly spreading vitiligo. It halts activity; it does not repigment. Light or a cream does that afterwards.
Tofacitinib and baricitinib, licensed for other immune conditions, are used for extensive or fast-moving vitiligo alongside narrowband UVB. They need blood tests before and during, and a frank conversation about infection risk.
Vitamin D where deficient, and a handful of antioxidants with small trials behind them, may help a little as add-ons. None repigments on its own, and none is a reason to delay treatment that does.
Ruxolitinib 1.5% cream, sold as Opzelura, was licensed in the United States in 2022 and in the European Union in 2023 for non-segmental vitiligo in people aged twelve and over. As of September 2026 it has no marketing approval in India, and the licensed product is not sold here. Its list price abroad is over two thousand US dollars for a 60 g tube.
What is sold online in India is a ruxolitinib cream made in Bangladesh under a different name. It is not the licensed product, it has not been through the same regulator, and a cream’s effect depends on its base as much as on its active ingredient, so equivalence cannot be assumed. If you are considering it, bring it to the consultation rather than starting it quietly.
The clinic’s position is straightforward. The licensed cream will be prescribed here when it is approved. Until then the same pathway is treated with what is licensed and available: tacrolimus and light on the face, steroid cycles on the body, and an oral JAK inhibitor with narrowband UVB where the extent or the pace of the disease justifies the monitoring.
Every cream on this page does better with light than alone, and most of the trial evidence for creams was generated with light in the protocol. The practical pattern is a cream applied between sessions, never immediately before one, and a review at eight to twelve weeks at which a patch that has not moved gets a different plan rather than a repeat prescription.
A cream used alone for a year on a patch that needed light is the commonest waste of time in vitiligo, and it is usually the patient’s money that paid for it.
How narrowband UVB worksTacrolimus between excimer or NB-UVB sessions is the standard combination, and the site that responds best.
Creams and light both struggle here. If the hairs are white, the conversation moves to grafting rather than to a fourth cream.
Three kinds have evidence: potent topical steroids in cycles on the body, tacrolimus or pimecrolimus on the face and folds, and ruxolitinib cream, a JAK inhibitor, where it is licensed. All three work better with light. No cream cures vitiligo; the aim is repigmentation of the patch it is applied to.
No. Ruxolitinib cream has no marketing approval in India as of September 2026, and the licensed product is not sold here. Ruxolitinib creams sold online in India are made abroad under other names and are not the same regulated product.
Abroad, the licensed cream lists at over two thousand US dollars for a 60 g tube, and a course runs for months. That figure is the reason imported tubes are rare and the online copies are tempting; it is not a reason to use an unregulated one.
Only briefly and only as prescribed. The face thins and reddens fastest under a potent steroid, which is why tacrolimus is the usual facial choice and a steroid, if used there at all, is used for a short defined period and then stopped.
It is widely used in children and does not thin the skin. Early stinging is common and settles. It is combined with light where the child can cooperate with goggles, and reviewed like any other treatment.
No tablet cures vitiligo. A short oral steroid mini-pulse stops rapid spread; oral JAK inhibitors, used off-label with light, can repigment extensive disease under monitoring; supplements are add-ons at most. Anything sold as a curing tablet is mislabelled.
Some do something, which is the problem: the ones that work fast tend to contain a hidden steroid and the ones that work with sunlight tend to contain a psoralen. Both are drugs without a dose. Ask for the ingredient by name; if there is no answer, that is the answer.
The clinical statements on this page follow the guidance and evidence below. They are independent sources. None of them is connected to this clinic, and none of them sells the treatments described here.
Not a treatment plan sold on the spot. Message the clinic and bring your history.