Bleaching is not all white

Mikeisha Simpson covers her body in greasy white cream and covers herself in a track suit to avoid the sun of her native Jamaica, but she’s not worried about skin cancer.
The 23-year-old resident of a Kingston ghetto hopes to transform her dark complexion to a cafe-au-lait-colour common among Jamaica’s elite and favoured by men in her neighbourhood. She believes fairer skin could be her ticket to a better life, so she spends her savings on cheap(cheap handbags) black-market concoctions that promise to lighten her pigment.
Simpson and her friends ultimately shrug off public health campaigns and reggae hits blasting the reckless practice. “I hear the people that say bleaching is bad, but I’ll still do it. I won’t stop ‘cause I like it and I know how to do it safe,” said Simpson.
In the slums of Jamaica, doctors say the skin lightening phenomenon has reached dangerous proportions.
“I know of one woman who started to bleach her baby. She got very annoyed with me when I told her to stop,Nike airmax,” said Neil Persadsingh, a leading dermatologist.
Lightening creams are not regulated in Jamaica, where roadside vendors sell tubes from cardboard boxes.
“Many of the tubes are unlabelled as to their actual ingredients,” said Richard Desnoes, president of the Dermatology Association of Jamaica. ################ bleachers use illegal ointments smuggled into the country and some are known to make home-made mixtures of tooth-paste or curry powder, which stain skin with a yellowish tint.
Jamaica Ministry of Health director of health promotion and protection Eva Lewis-Fuller said: “Bleaching has gotten far worse and widespread in recent years.
“(Bleachers) want to be accepted within their circle of society. They want to be attractive to the opposite ######. They want career opportunities. But we are saying there are side effects and risks. It can disfigure your face.”
The trend has even inspired reggae hits to celebrate the practice, or condemn it.
Singer Vybz Kartel, whose complexion has lightened in recent years, is one of those to address to trend in his ‘Look Pon Me’ track which contains the lines: “Di girl dem love off mi brown cute face, di girl dem love off mi bleach-out face.”
But Kartel insists that skin bleaching is simply a personal choice like tattooing.
However, others say it raises awkward questions about identity and race. “If we really want to control the spread of the skin-bleaching virus, we have to admit that there’s an epidemic of colour prejud-ice in our society,” said Carolyn Cooper, a professor of lit-e-rary and cultural studies at the University of the West Indies.
But Felicia James, a 20-year-old resident of the Matthews Lane slum, said skin bleaching just makes her feel special. “It’s just the fashionable thing to do. After I bleach, I’m cris,” she said, using a Jamaican term for cool.
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