You always come with the timely shit, Lauren. One of my old roommates came to my wedding muuuuuuch lighter than I remember her being. She was always a dark chocolate skinned mama and she showed up looking very milk chocolate so I made a comment about it (of course). At first she tried some bull about sunscreen and then she fessed up and showed me some bleaching cream from Japan that she's been using. I was blown away. First, the bottle was in Japanese so how the hell does she know how to use it (LOL!) and second, IMO there was such a striking difference in her skin color that there's NO WAY that bleaching cream can be healthy for her. She almost looked like a different person. Ok…that's a stretch, but she did look really diff.

I read an article about this about a month ago. And the creams seem to be very dangerous. It looked like the CDC and other groups in America were going to take a look at the over the counter creams that have been sold here for years.

It's par for the course. I was never lulled into believing that people were any less color struck…but I live in a region where red bone=fine. SMH in embarrassment.

I have to wonder about this. Hydroquinone is illegal there meaning that if you have dark spots you want to treat, there's no proven treatment available. I can't possible see why anyone would bleach non dark spots and just do everything. Why you ask? Exhibit A: Michael Jackson

Acetone is probably more toxic than hydroquinone and I'm sure anyone who frequents a less advanced nail salon inhales tons of that. It's a known fact. I have hyperpigmentation-prone skin. If there's a pimple, a black head or any skin trauma, it will darken. I'd like to be able to treat that without The Man getting in my way.

I have the exact opposite problem. I get light spots so there's no way that I can use bleaching cream. I use a cream from my derma that fades my spots back to my normal skin color. However I've used bleaching cream on my body (scars, to fade tats, etc.) NEVER on my face. My mom has terrible dark circles and she uses a cream with some type of bleach stuff for her dark circles. I think that's ok.

What the?

The only thing on my body that I would lighten would be my knees. I've always had uber-dark knee caps. It drives me insane.
To bleach anything other than that or some of the other things you guys mentioned above would be insanity. That or self-loathing.

I am as pale as casper some days but one of the wonderful side effects of my acne prone skin is that I have wonderful little dark spots scathered across my face. When I was younger, I tried ambi to lighten the spots but my mom put the fear of God im me saying that "that mess was going to have me looking like michael jackson". lol. I have learned to just embrace the flaws and wait patiently for them to fade.

Ya hear that bey? Now stop it before ou end up looking like michael jackson with a big booty lmao.

I don't think a little ambi hurts for scars. When I have little scars I use the head of a bobbi pin to put the lightening cream on. That way I know that I'm only getting the smallest amount possible onthe scar. You can also use a q-tip, but I find that it soaks up too much of the cream.

For under eye circles like my mom has lightening them is a good thing b/c they are NOT the business (sorry mom). LOL.

this is really frightening! who knew that this was still a common practice? not me. thanks for enlightening me on the matter. no pun intended.

It's really far more common amongst Asian (E & SE). Other than MJ, I've never heard of black folk lightening up everything. My East Asian friends tan though. Unless you're one of those people who freckles and becomes red in the sun, you could generally use some color. If it were culturally acceptable for brown skinned girls to go to a tanning salon and get skin cancer, I probably would go. My chest is so pale.

You know, some ppl just have issues one way or the other. One of my old college friends is mixed (looks like Neneh Cherry) and she lays out (to get sun) with her white friends. I'm always like, girl you're already brown! I guess she's not brown enough for her own likes.

The grass is always greener. People with pigment want less. People without it want more. White women with straight hair get perms. Those with curly hair get blow outs, relaxers and Japanese hair straightening. People with big lips get them reduced. The thin lipped fill it with collagen and even cadaver material. People with big butts get lipo. Poeple with small butts get implants.

It seems like women are never happy with what God gave us. ::grabs thigh and pokes at butt::

I'm one of those brown girls that tans (see earlier post referring to Casper). I have considered going to a tanning salon but that just seems a little extreme to me. I got the opposite of what many others seem to have gotten when they were growing up. My beautiful mocha hued mom made subtle and very not so subtle hints that she did not like my fair skin. I was constantly told to get outside to get some color and I always heard disparaging remarks about those light heffas. I can remmber many times basically apologizing to others for my skin color. But its funny that for much of my life I prided myself on the fact that my family never saw skin color the way other black families do. It wasn't until I was in my late twenties that I realized that my family just reversed the discrimination. I'm just happy at this point that I see if for what it is and I hopefully will not pass any color complexes on to my kids whatever their hue.

It's absurd to me to give people a complex since basically every family of color has a range. There are few families in which everyone is light skinned. There are so many genes that control for skin color that even the skin color.

Beautiful people were always treated better but that really happens in all families. It's hilarious to see two kids in my family act up in when everyone gets together. The cuter ones always get, "honey, you shouldn't do that" while the less cute ones get barked at or hit. The cutest child currently also happens to be the darkest.

Hydroquinone isn't toxic in very small doses, drugstore products contain less than 2%, the black market products contain 10X that much I don't know what percentage it takes to go from 1981 Michael to 2007 Michael. I don't think using something you got from the store to spot treat is going to be any kind of problem.

"The cuter ones always get, “honey, you shouldn’t do that” while the less cute ones get barked at or hit."

Daria - good observation.

A lot of continental Africans use this stuff too. So sad.

Maybe in some countries. I've lived in continental Africa.