Bleaching...

*Please note that this is my personal experience and opinion on bleaching and what may not have worked for me may have worked for someone else. I do not claim to know about the effects of bleaching for Vitiligo on any grand scale nor do I advocate or endorse any product that changes skin colour. In expressing my opinion however, please note that I do not condemn bleaching for those who seriously feel that it may help them with their condition, or those who have already undergone de-pigmentation*

My skin turned white completely naturally, of its own accord, without any bleaching or other treatment from the age of 12. To this day, the only dark spots on my entire body are on my face, looking more like freckles or moles than Vitiligo patches. During times of great workload or long periods spent with family, these spots may either shrink and disappear (stress causing de-pigmentation) or grow and multiply (lack of stress causing re-pigmentation). At least, this is what I believe it is.

This may seem incredibly silly, but when I see too many dark spots appearing or when they start growing to a size that is considerably larger than a ‘beauty mole’ or ‘freckle’, I start getting a little anxious and trying to find ways to stress myself out on purpose, because in my head, being stressed means staying one colour and reducing my dark spots. Ask anyone who knows me and they will attest to the fact that I am always busy and I always take on a lot more than I should, and I am a bit of an over-achiever… Try to psycho-analyse me and you will probably see that this is one of the reasons why. I often joke to my closest friends about being “the poster child for stress”. I also remember joking to my ex that he was good for me because he was “always stressing me out” and therefore stopping dark patches from appearing. What a warped way of thinking!

At some point last year, during a pretty vulnerable time, I became particularly bothered by the amount of freckles on my face that had decided to grow and multiply. Usually, I can gauge how many dark spots are on my cheeks, nose or around my lips during the year depending on the weather, and I can point them out blindfolded because I know them so well. But leading up to August of 2008, I felt like it was getting out of control and it really started to bother me.

I asked a dermatologist if there was a way that I could eliminate some of the dark spots, but not all as I had grown emotionally attached to a few of the spots that had always been there since my complete transformation (amusing as this sounds, it’s true!). These were namely one on my cheek, a tiny one on my right eyelid, one above my lip and one at the corner of my bottom lip (once mistaken for a spot of chocolate by a friend, leading to me furiously rubbing around my mouth to eliminate the mysterious chocolate patch before realizing that they had been referring to a permanent patch of pigmented skin!).

Aside from these special ‘beauty moles’, I wanted to reduce or eliminate the rest of the spots that were now beginning to take over and so I was prescribed a 14% bleaching cream called Tri-Luma, which I was meant to apply nightly with a Q-tip to each of the spots for two months. I began doing this and saw within a couple of days that the skin surrounding the spots was definitely a little lighter, therefore the spots themselves must be getting lighter also.

After a week, I noticed a slight burning whenever I applied the cream to the spots, which were looking somewhat red, but I took this as a good sign because they were no longer as dark as they had been. Within two weeks, my skin had started peeling and was raw and sore. Makeup made it look worse and yet no makeup was just as horrendous. When I applied the cream, it burned the raw skin and became painful to continue and also painful to cover with makeup. In my eyes, I looked like I had open sores all over my face and put the cream away, never to be used again. I thought that this was how bleaching creams worked – they peeled back all the layers of the skin to reveal the fresh, raw layers without pigment underneath… Then I decided that if that was what I had to go through simply to eliminate a few unwanted spots that looked like moles, it certainly was not worth it. It most certainly was not worth damaging my otherwise flawless skin because I felt uncomfortable with a few dark spots... Makeup could cover the dark spots (thank the Lord for MAC concealer), but nothing could repair my skin if it got permanently burnt or damaged by the bleaching cream.  My skin was reacting too violently to a cream that was not even supposed to be that strong.

After I stopped using the cream (at about three weeks or so), one or two of the spots disappeared completely. Most of them came back and some of them were reduced but some of them were also darker than before. I have not tried the cream since and am reluctant to do anything else because it is not worth it. I’m sure my anxiety over a few dark spots is mostly because of my own thoughts in my head, and no one actually cares about a few dark spots on my face. They simply look like moles. Furthermore, Vitiligo sufferers with patches are going through a hell of a lot more on a daily basis on their arms and legs, let alone their faces, so I decided to stop being so selfish and use makeup instead.

Today, I have a total of about twenty freckles or moles on my face and two on my shoulder. The ones on my face do not show when I apply my makeup, unless I choose to highlight them with a makeup pencil as a beauty trick. The two on my shoulder arrived shortly after my first TV appearance and I have been monitoring them closely as I find that they have been growing quite rapidly, although to be honest they are still small enough to be considered beauty marks and not even moles. Nevertheless, I am still careful to take note of any changes.

The idea that my skin may once again become patchy does scare me, but at the end of the day if that is what is meant to happen to me, then so be it. The idea of what bleaching could have done to my skin is not one I wish to consider and will never be trying again, and certainly not one that I would recommend to anyone, including those women around the world who seem to be addicted to bleaching creams and skin-lightening products.

It is not worth it. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. I would much rather have my skin as it is now, than truly destroy it forever for the sake of eliminating a few minimal patches.