Table I Characteristics of the Included Studies (=24) Author/year Country Study design Sex Age Financing Conflicts of interest Azzam et al.2009 ,(18) Egypt Randomized clinical trial F (=45) 24–50 Not reported Not reported Costa et al.2012 ,(19) Brazil Randomized clinical trial F beginning (=120) end (=102) 18–50 Material supplied by Mantecorp Chemical and Mantecorp Skincare None Berardesca et al.2019 ,(20) Italy Case series F (=91) M (=9) 18 Relief Srl, Italy None Desai et al.2019 ,(2) Brazil Case series F (=55) 27–60 Not reported Not reported Bhagwat et al.2016 ,(21) Pakistan Randomized clinical trial F and M (=60) 18–45 Not reported Not reported Chowdhury et al.2012 ,(22) Bangladesh Case series F and M (=30) 15–50 Not reported Not reported Fragoso-Covarrubias et al.2015 ,(23) Mexico Randomized clinical trial F (=63) 29–59 Not reported Not reported Tsilika et al.2011 ,(24) France Case series F (=10) Not reported Not reported None Xing et al.2021 ,(25) China Case series F (=26) M (=1) 18–65 Natural Science Foundation of China and Shanghai Sailing Program None ()108 JOURNAL OF COSMETIC SCIENCE

Table I Characteristics of the Included Studies (=24) Author/year Country Study design Sex Age Financing Conflicts of interest Draelos et al.2010 ,(26) United States Randomized clinical trial Unreported sex beginning (=80) end (=79) 25–60 Not reported Not reported Deo et al.2013 ,(27) India Simple randomized blind clinical trial F (=67) M (=13) 18–58 Not reported None Arunnair et al.2021 ,(28) India Randomized clinical trial F (=71) M (=31) 18–65 Not reported Not reported Garcia Fulton, 1996 (29) United States Randomized split-face clinical trial F (=38) M (=1) 24–80 Not reported Not reported Srivastava et al.2020 ,(30) United States Case series F (=6) 36–59 Not reported None Cotellessa et al.,1999 (31) Italy Case series F (=36) M (=4) 33–61 Not reported Not reported Lim et al.1999 ,(32) Singapore Randomized split-face clinical trial F (=40) 32–58 Not reported Not reported Wali et al.2013 ,(33) India Randomized clinical trial F and M (=100) Not reported Not reported Not reported F: female M: male. 109 Application of Kojic Acid in Treatment of Melasma