NDRU said:

Certain Asians and Caucasians look beautiful pale.

Milky white skin with dark black hair has always been attractive to me. I simply love the way it looks, and don't think it looks sickly on a person who's skin is prone to being pale--even if they 'assist' it a bit cosmetically.

But the Thai's that look sickly when the bleach their skin are red, brown, and olive skin thais--folks who look better when their skin is slightly sunkissed.


It really depends on the person whether a slight tan looks good, or a slight milky complection looks good.

But the homogenous nature of the fashion industry and television tends to make everyone think that they can look a certain way--moreover, that they should look a certain way. It's one thing to want to be in shape and healthy--but something altogether to feel you must have 'good hair' if you're black, or 'pale skin' if you're Asian--it all depends on your base complection what looks best...not what some magazine says.

There's Sinead O'conner who looks beautiful pale..... then there's Michael Jackson who looks.....well, just pale.

Imago said:

There's also plenty of light-skinned blacks that have beautiful, natural skin tones as well, and look good the way they are. Also, darker-skinned Blacks where many have flawless skin tones. There's so many variations of brown to dark-skin it would be impossible to put them in one category. It all depends on what looks good on an individual, but when you try to lighten your skin 5 times lighter than your natural skin tone, it can look a bit odd.

2elijah said:

lawd, I need to take some snapshots when I'm in dowtown Bangkok and show you some scariness. It's like girls thinking they look good pale, but it looks Skelator from he-man trying to be a Geisha.

well I love having melanin in my skin and I feel much pity for people that buy into a mentality that the amount of pigment in your skin cells has anything to do with your intelligence or worth as a human being.

http://bossip.com/178054/...ore-178054

Nah you're not "racist" buddy..You just hate yourself. SMH

2elijah said:

And what manly man admits to wanting "soft" skin. I'ma go on and say it: "Nucca puhlease!" (See, 2E, there's no other phrase that adequately addresses this BS. )

paintedlady said:

He looks awful. Not to mention what kind of poisoning that could have on his blood and organs. He used way too much. He needs to just embrace the beauty of his skin and be done with it, and if someone has an issue with the hue of his skin....then F*ck them.
[Edited 11/11/09 8:22am]

SCNDLS said:

I hear you. How did he think he could get away with that, without people questioning what the hell he is doing. It appears he was ashamed of who he is, as if his skin tone was a curse. It's all that colonial/plantation mentality. How stupid can he be to do that to himself just to be "accepted" by others? I have no sympathy for jackasses. What he did was lack of self-love and respect for himself.

Moonwalkbjrain said:

You would think he was entitled to live as he chooses . . . .
Guess not.

ufoclub said:

Yes. if he used it every night, and who knows how long, then it doesn't surprise me that his skin lightened like that. I think he may have used another type of procedure, but probably won't admit it.

As far as your scar, you probably could have used natural cocoa butter. The one that is sold in solid, stick form, because it works faster. You can also use the one from a company named "Palmer's" cocoa butter that is sold in the jar. I had burnt my arm while taking something out of the oven and it left me with a bad scar. But I used natural cocoa butter, and also opened up some Vitamin E gel capsules and poured the oil from the capsule on the scar. It took a long time to see any difference, almost 8 months to a year, but now, you could see it just a little, as before it was really showing, and I had to hide it with bracelets.
OR you could open an aloe vera leaf and rub the contents of it on the scar. It takes a long time to work, but it is natural and good for healing scars and getting the scar back to its natural color, depending on the severity of the burn or scar.

This is something my mother who is from the Caribbean told us about years ago, that they used to grow aloe vera in her mother's yard, and that people in the Caribbean used the contents of the aloe vera leaf, as a lotion for their skin. They also used it for scars to get the scar back to their natural skin color or close to it.
[Edited 11/11/09 8:59am]

I think the most interesting part of the story is that he is actually admitting to doing this. I am sure there might be a whole racial theory written about cases like that(and have, Frantz Fanon's "Black Skins White Masks" for one) but it is intriguing that he treats skin bleaching as a purely aesthetic procedure, or so he claims. Let's face it, bleach creams are out there so they are used by somebody.

It makes me wonder whether there will be a time when stuff like that will be treated with such lightness as spray on tan or hair removal.
[Edited 11/11/09 9:26am]

rushing07 said:

Not for people of color who do this because they think being lighter is closer to being white which equals "better" in their twisted minds.

SCNDLS said:

Exactly, and how very sad to believe that. Now whether it is his freedom of choice to erase his skin tone then that's on him, but at the same time, the general public also has the freedom of opinion to comment and inquire about it, whether they agree with what Sammy did or not,
[Edited 11/11/09 12:07pm]

KidaDynamite said:

I also don't think it has the same implications

2elijah said:

YES! CO SIGN!
it really saddens me that there are whole sectiosn of beauty supply stores devoted to this shit. like literally shelves upon shelves
right next to the shampoo and moisturizer theres skin bleachers wtf?
and wat makes it even worse is that idk...most beauty supply stores *in my area* are asian owned and they stock there shelves with this
i really want them to stop perpetuating this shit in my community
idk if they really understand the deepness of it all but idk...i had never even HEARD of skin bleachers til i saw them in a store when iwas younger, so i can just imagine how often this happens with others. the same with drug stores

Moonwalkbjrain said:

Agree about these creams being sold mostly in beauty supply shops owned by Asians. Many that are not legal or approved by the FDA. They make a killing off of Black Americans. I almost wonder if many of these shop owners take a special course in all the products many Black Americans use,(Africans and Black Americans 101 ) as it seems to carry just about many of the products they use from haircare, weaved hair, body lotions, creams, natural products, etc., and even the products that's the subject of this thread. Scary as hell.

On top of that, many of the fruit and vegetable stores owned by Asians, also carry many of the Caribbean products that Blacks from the Caribbean use, that you will not find in a regular grocery store. Everything from the fruits to Bay Rum...go figure.

Bottom line, Sammy is sending the wrong message. Makes you wonder how he feels about people his original skin tone. I swear somebody should send his ass a big box of dark chocolate congratulating him on his "new look".
[Edited 11/11/09 13:25pm]

Moonwalkbjrain said:

They can perpetuate all they want....doesn't mean people of color have to fall for the bs.

PanthaGirl said:

I had no problem if he wanted to do it. The problem is he lied about it.

SUPRMAN said:

He can do whatever he wants. The public has the right to comment on it, positive or negative.

Imago said:

Imago, I remember working with an Italian co-worker who had a Japanese friend, and she told me and the other co-workers that her Japanese friend did not like going to the beach or staying in the sun, because she feared become dark-complected. I was pretty shocked when she was tell us this, but apparently it was a true story.

As far as in the black community, and I am only speaking from my own experience not for any other person of African/African-American descent. Anyway, some use it because they scar from acne, and will put it on the scars to bring the area back to their complexion, but often times, it will leave discolored patches, and makes the complexion uneven.

Then you have some that use it temporarily to have an "even" complexion, but then you have those that are actually trying to "lighten" their skin, because they want to be "lighter", due to how beauty is perceived in society and various industries, (i.e. advertisers/cosmetic industry, fashion industry, etc.), that promote the "fair or lighter skin". Since this Sammy Sosa situation, I'm basically now finding out it affects more communities than I originally knew about.

The light vs dark complected has been a problem within the black community for years. More than likely developed during the slave era, and passed down into this generation, as the light-skinned and mixed slaves were allowed to be in the slave owner's house, and many were treated better by the slave owners, while the darker-skinned slaves were forced to work in the fields and treated more harshly. This light vs dark skin, is a situation that has plagued the black community for years, and it's been discussed in the P&R forum before, but it is something many of us have been trying to clean up by educating those within our families, friends, associates, and where discussions of this situation has been taken place, etc. It's done a lot of damage within the black comunity over the years unfortunately, which is why some of us feel the way we do about what Sammy did.
[Edited 11/11/09 16:19pm]

Why can't I make the same accusations that someone white hates their skin color?
They are choosing to change it after all.

Self hate is self hate right?

uPtoWnNY said:

it's not about falling for it. if it's something that is SO engrained within you how are you supposed to react?
me personally i never dealt with it externally, i never had relatives that said don't stay in the sun cuz you'll get too dark, i never grew up with the good hair/ bad hair mentality, i never had relatives tht favored my lighter skinned relatives over me.
but i know of people that did and for them it isn't about falling for it - it's about having it so engrained within you that you believe the hype.
i feel that if these creams were not made so available then people wouldnt be so able to experiment.
yes you would have the feelings of negativity toward your dark skin, but without knowing that these things existed that you could possbily use then maybe that would be a step in the right direction of getting over those negative feelings.

Imago said:

Well, I can't speak for Thais, and have no idea why they would want to change the natural beauty of their skin tone just to be accepted by society, but I guess not everyone is confident and accepting of their natural gifts.

I think it's older than that.

uPtoWnNY said:

Absolutely. It makes me laugh when people will jump on a thread without reading it fully just to go after specific posters just to stop them from expressing their right to their opinions, yet no one put a bullet to the complainers' heads and forced them to read it. That kind of bullying tactic throws the thread of course, and the reason it ends up getting deleted or locked. Same poster does the same sh*t in P&R. I just ignore him.

As long as everyone stays within the rules of the forum, then no one shuld be telling us that we can't express our opinion on the topic. On top of that, not one single poster on this thread said Sammy couldn't do what he wanted with his skin.
[Edited 11/12/09 8:41am]

SUPRMAN said:

Dude, come on, you're really reaching with that. Look at history - when has white skin been considered negative like dark skin? Yes, some white folks tan, but that's not the same as permanently altering your features to look 'more African'(like Downey's character in Tropic Thunder). How many would do that?