kudos to RT for addressing skin-bleaching. This is insidious practice. However, the reporter did a terrible job in this piece. Skin bleaching/skin whitening is more than just a matter of lack of “self-esteem”, "self-love" and "racial pride". First, skin whitening is a global phenomenon and not just African/black women’s problem. Second, skin bleaching industry in Pacific Asia alone is over 20 billion Euros per and fast expanding- the main players are some of the leading western cosmetics companies such as Protector and Gamble, L’Oreal, Unilever, Estee Lauder, etc. Thus, French U.S and Japanese cosmetics firms- run by men with white/lighte skin are spearheading the globalistion of skin bleaching. Fourth, the problem for African women- many who are poor- is not a simple matter of skin bleaching per se- for Asian women ‘off-white’ European women also bleach their skin- but because African women have become an ideal dumping market for the least the expensive but most toxic forms of skin-bleaching products. In this way, the badly damaged disfigured/bleached faces of African women make billions of dollars for western- and mainly U.S. French and British based cosmetics firms. Fifth, Hydroquinone's skin bleaching property was discovered in the United States in 1937 and has been poisoning black women and men ever since and to this very moment- hydroquinone based skin bleaching cosmetics are perfectly legal in the United States. Often, these bleaching creams contain additional unlisted but highly toxic agents such as corticosteroids. Sadly, absent from this report are such pertinent questions as who produce these deadly products—what the is French health authorities view on the that leading French cosmetics forms aggressive promote whiteness and fairness to women the world over?

As bad as this is, and the writer does a good job to point it out, there is another problem with skin care and skin management that is often overlooked. It's dangerous because it takes time before problems show up. The skin is not the barrier it was once thought of, but is more like a sponge. Problem with that is only about 7% of the chemicals- (and that is the correct term here) are tested. As 2010 unfolds, more will come up about this because the more one knows about the problem, the more frightening it is. http://budurl.com/non7toxic7skincare