Hello everyone, Now that we are approaching the month of February, I feel it was necessary to address an issue that has had many black women in a very dangerous cycle of skin damage, the issue of skin bleaching.
Now I could easily attach a bunch of GIF's to this post and attempt to make a joke out of it like I do most of the subjects that I choose to discuss; this is not one of those times. This epidemic is truly something that breaks my heart. A pretty easy process, one can walk into their nearest beauty store like Sephora or go online and buy a cream that is made with natural ingredients to lighten problem spots on the skin. Issues like age spots, hyperpigmentation (acne scarring), and malasma, a skin condition that typically occurs in pregnant women. Melasma causes gray or brown patches to appear on the face near the nose, forehead, chin, and around the mouth.
When used for the correct reasons, the creams can do great things for the skin. Brands like Maladerm produce great results with prices ranging between $25-$150 depending on what kind of product you are shopping for.From a professional standpoint, it can be done but what happens when this innocent beauty hack becomes a blatant act of self hatred? In Kingston, Jamaica skin bleaching has become a real lifestyle choice that has become more popular over the years and doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon.
These products can be purchased for about $7.00 which seems like quite a bargain... When your living wage isn't $50 a week. Even with that being the case, many women have admitted to spending upwards of $30 on their products based on an article by Marie Clare where they referred to the issue as an epidemic as well. An epidemic indeed, based on a health and lifestyle survey conducted in Jamaica last year, 11% of people admitted to bleaching their skin.
Here's what's crazy, of that percentage, there were more men that answered "yes" to this question than women. The number of men being 12.5% of the population and the women being 8.5; what doe this mean? Well, when you take a country of people with centuries worth of oppression in their bloodline based on what we know about Jamaica. The French invaded, sent people from other parts of the country into villages to take other people into captivity, chain them up, beat them, and for walk them to slave ships where their living conditions were absolutely heartbreaking and disgusting, sent to a foreign country, sold and mistreated.
What do we know about slavery? All of our dark skinned folks were forced to do field while if you were light skinned, your living conditions were much better as you usually got to work inside and were much more favored.
Now this may sound a little extreme but, decades later, this ideology is STILL around. Women that are dark skinned report being mistreated by other people of color because hatred and ignorance is passed down generations.
Men have admitted to being more attracted to light skinned women because they appear more "exotic". Some may argue that many of these men and women just want to "keep up" with the latest beauty trend. To that, I say, we can all only hope that eventually things change and these people no longer have a desire to harm their skin in this way, simply to be accepted by society's idea of what beautiful looks like. For now, this practice continues and people continue to go to great lengths to accomplish their goal of "browning".
Many Kingston residents have said they mix their own concoction of products together to create a more potent product called "Deluxe Silken" or "Nadinola" that is sold in buckets to street vendors and sold for about $.075; once applied, you must cover your body with seran wrap and then cover the seran wrap with long sleeves and pants to protect the skin from any sun exposure. I still have yet to make my way to Jamaica to experience the culture or the weather up close; if it is anything like Nassau, Bahamas, it's the last place I would want to spend in a long sleeve and jeans... Especially in the Spring!
This is no longer a beauty trend, it has become a lifestyle for many and will continue to be passed down from generation to generation. Mothers instill this practice in their daughters and encourage these creams to help rid the skin of acne. This, too, is false as many of these creams may worsen skin conditions and cause further breakouts and damage to deeper layers of the skin. Living outside out their means, running the risk of heat exhaustion in the heat on the island, and causing a great deal of damage to their skin with products that contain ingredients the average person is not familiar with.
Many of these skin lightening products are given names to sound as if they're prescription creams, brands like "Neoprosone" which contains ingredients that can actually cause the skin to become darker in some skin types. It has also been reported that women will put a small amount of cleaning bleach into their bath water in order to speed up the process of lightening. These practices can be very detrimental to the skin and can cause a plethora of skin conditions and internal diseases.
I will reiterate the importance of naturally healing your skin and destroying it in order for it to appear differently. When shopping for products to help with the skin concerns listed in this posting, it is best to look for products without bleach, hydroquinone, mercury, or steroids. These ingredients are not safe to apply to your skin. Below are some more natural lightening serums and creams.
Aveda Tulasara "Bright" Serum: The main ingredient being licorice root which helps with the appearance of dark spots. I can personally vouch for this product and its efficiency, I began to see a difference in my skin within two weeks of using this product twice a day before my moisturizer.
Shop here: Bright serum
Ren Clear Skincare "Ready Steady Glow" Daily AHA Tonic: One of the main ingredients in this product is lactic acid which helps smooth the surface of the skin, you pair that was the Azelaic acid that helps with hyperpigmentation, and you have the great combination for wonderful results.
Shop here: Ren Clean Skincare
I hope this posting was helpful to some of your struggling with some of these very common skin concerns and I hope I educated the rest of you on some real life issues that we tend to overlook or turn a blind an eye to because its simply not being shown to us. As always, please share this posting. Reach out to me if you would like to discuss other products that can provide great results to your skin, please email me.
With love and light,
Bruklin.
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