![]() ![]() “I’m not a racist,” he said in the interview. Sosa, a Dominican-born American citizen, told a reporter from that he had used a cream nightly to “soften” his skin and that it had bleached it, too. Online critics accused him of wanting to be white. In November, some fans of Sammy Sosa, the former Chicago Cubs slugger, were surprised when photographs from the Latin Grammy Awards ceremony showed his face as uniformly lighter. A small percentage of men in such countries also use the creams. Some users are seeking to lighten dark spots caused by acne or brown patches known as melasma, which are triggered by pregnancy, menopause or birth control pills.īut many others seek to lighten their entire face or large swatches of their body, a practice common in developing countries as disparate as Senegal, India and the Philippines, where it is promoted as a way to elevate one’s social standing. The patients are “Ph.D.’s to women from corporate America, teachers to engineers the entire broad spectrum of women of color,” Dr. Battle Jr., who has a dermatology practice in Washington, where he treats side effects from lightening creams “not only containing corticosteroids, but mercury,” a poison that can damage the nervous system. Users are not necessarily immigrants, said Dr. Gilbert attributed the frequency, which she called surprising, to the fact that the hospital served an “amazingly international cross section of women of color.” Erin Gilbert, a chief resident in dermatology at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, said that she or a colleague saw a case of severe side effects from skin-lightening creams at least once a week. Ethnic beauty supply stores, where clerks often shrug at selling prescription creams over the counter, report that sales are strong.ĭr. ![]() But dermatologists with practices that cater to darker-skinned women say adverse effects are on the rise. No major studies have focused on the use of such creams in this country. Fair & White, from France, normally contains no steroids, but counterfeit versions with undisclosed ingredients have turned up in stores. Hyprogel, made in Germany, contains the powerful steroid clobetasol propionate and includes a warning to use only as directed by a doctor. Ross’s from the misuse of skin-lightening creams, many with prescription-strength ingredients, which are sold in beauty shops and bodegas and online. “Once somebody told me Fair & White was the one they were using, I’d go to the Korean store and ask for it,” she said.ĭermatologists nationwide are seeing women of Hispanic and African descent, among others, with severe side effects like Mrs. Instead, she took her cues from friends, many of them, like her, from the West Indies. A doctor told her that all three were side effects of prescription-strength steroids in some of the creams, which she had bought over the counter in beauty supply stores. Her capillaries became visible, and she developed stubborn acne. Ross, 45, who lives in Brooklyn, also said that she used the lightening creams “to be more accepted in society.”Īfter months of twice-a-day applications, her skin was not only fairer, it had become so thin that a touch would bruise her face. ![]() She said she wanted to even out and brighten the tone of her face, neck and hands. For years, Allison Ross rubbed in skin-lightening creams with names like Hyprogel and Fair & White. ![]()
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