Adventures in skin bleaching ep. 3: Weird science, plastic tubes & pots and pans....

Yes, yes, again your mad scientist/independent researcher ousted from Johns Hopkins AND Dartmouth has returned. Over the weekend, since we had so much fun being horrified the last couple of times, we deliberately spent part of our day looking for skin lightening products.

First, after a nice walk in the park, we tried a Walgreen's in a mostly upper class neighborhood, mostly white & mad hipster yo. They had a teeny tiny black hair care products section but no skin bleach. Damn!

So, we tried our own neighborhood Kroger. If you remember our first encounter with these products was in a Kroger in an upper middle class black neighborhood. Well my neighborhood is just about exactly the opposite--lower class, black majority, projects, gang neighborhood, etc etc.

So we went to our Kroger, to grocery shop & conduct our mission. And lo & behold, this Kroger has the black hair care section FIRST. Their selection of skin lightening products was small but we saw some disturbing things:

 

Look at the "Ultra Glow". Look at the name, first of all, then LOOK WHO'S ON THE COVER DAMNIT. We found some of the same products in that first Kroger we went to but I don't think I got pictures of the Ultra Glow?

Anyway...

How nice, a black soap bar next to complexion soap (again). And fade cream. Yeah those are the prices. You'll notice all the nice, fancy names the products have.

 

Medicated face cream, more complexion soap...you can see the relaxer products that once again the skin lighteners were right above, but they were also next to some products for men. I wonder, are they marketing DIRECTLY TOWARDS WOMEN? *mouth slant*

Now here's the good stuff. Pay attention. You may still be saying, "Xands, this is all well & good and I'm sure it's fun for you, but what proof do you have that these are naught but innocuous products? So what if you found them in the black hair care section? What if white folks use em too?" (other than the fact that there are like 10 white people in my neighborhood & they live in the same house)

Skin "beautifying" milk. And at the bottom, you may not see it clearly but...

 

It says, "Formulated for People of Color". Hmmmmm.

I SAID HMMMMM.