[michaeljr]

6 yrs ago I joined this forum. Looking back, I have tried so many products, concoctions, and wasted at least over $15,000 in products and dermatologist visits.

I thought I'd give a yearly recap, like last, as a veteran of AMHD skin lightening.

Here's a timeline or synopsis of my skin lightening journey, some of the past will be in present tense as I'm pasting the previous years:

(2007) 5 yrs ago - My mother and other family members commented I had gotten much darker than when I was younger. I never really paid attention to my skin color but suddenly began comparing my arms and face to others and I was so much darker than every one else around. I found AMHD and a few other forums (brighterskin, brightskin, depig) and was told monobenzone is the only permanent lightener. I purchased monobenzone/microbenzone from various online sources. It was very expensive, at $100s of dollars for a few ounces.

(2007-2008ish) 4-5 yrs ago? - Monobenzone lightened up my neck and face about 1-2 shades fast but it only lasted about a month! After which brown spots started appearing overnight all over me from head to toes. Just when I thought I had found a miracle, it was like someone had pulled the plug and all my lightening I obtained in just about 4 weeks or so was so quickly reversing before my eyes. At first I blamed the suppliers, suspecting they were selling fake or mixed up mono. But after buying monobenzone directly from Spectrum Pharmaceuticals (I work at a lab in a major univ) for around $2000 for 1 kg, even that didn't work and I just got more and more blackish spots.

(2009-2011) At this point I don't remember everything exactly, because so many products just didn't work well. Some were so excessively expensive, like fairandflawless I was silly initially thought, "Oh, this is custom, and hollywood people use it? It must work!" and did nothing but burned then hyperpigmented up my skin! Stuff that did work, always had a catch-22, like Mequinol 20% kind of helped, but it burned my skin and I was always black cherry red, inflamed, peeling and smelled like kerosene! I moved onto Herbalinn which also worked and was milder, but it seemed homemade and one order/batch would vary wildly from another, first it was a thick cream in sealed jars, then it was liquidy lotion in bottles, it was weird and shady but worked, then they suddenly disappeared and by 2010 I ran out of the supply I had stashed. While it lasted, I really liked that I could be out in the sun and it kept working, unlike monobenzone where you have to hide from the sun in a dark closet for the rest of your life like MJ may he RIP. Well after a few months of not being able to get more herbalinn (benzyarbutin?) Some of the brown patches returned, but at least they weren't black, they are brownish.

(2011- 2012) Most recently, I went to a few derms and they did TCA peels but the those peels actually stimulated so much hyperpigmentation it was unbelievable. I still remember like 10mins after the derm did the peel, my skin turned black with a white frost and he said it would peel, but when it peeled, it remained a dark brown color So no more peels. I fired that derm, got some money back, and went to another derm who prescribed Hydroquinone 5% as a prelightener for a couple weeks, then spent hours lasering me each brown spot all over my body. That hasn't worked well enough for me to return for those expensive sessions. They'd seem to lighten the brown pigments at first but it was just the redness that gave that appearance, and laser, like TCA peel, tends to leave dark ridges of hyperpigmentation between the treated skin and not treated. Again, it is the melanocytes fighting back fiercely. Its like they got gotten smarter and tougher over the years!

At 5 years gone by, I was about a shade darker than I started overall, because my skin was probably fighting off the monobenzone crystals embedded deep in my dermis basal layer, according to derms. In addition to being a shade darker than my beginning coloring, I had lots of black marks on my back, black streaks around my neck, and black marks around each hair follicle on my hands, arms, legs, feet, everywhere. My face had black freckles that seem to be growing out of my beard and sideburn stubbles, and my forehead has black streaks growing down from my hairline. I am like the black Frankenstein, of skin lightening!

Monobenzone was my biggest regret in life. I can't believe I used it 5 years ago and only for 1-2 months and I was still suffering the disfigurement, and it left me darker and patchier instead of at least a little lighter.

2012-2013, Present! I last shared a little bit of success getting biweekly cortisone shots in the buttocks. I was able to move onto mixing my own cream from scratch under guidance from a lot of emailing and private messaging including here. I use only natural stuff now including GREEN TEA, TURMERIC, and ALPHA HYDROXY ACIDS 12% cream all purchased in bulk from eBay. All mixed up its very dark and leaves a slight yellow-brown stain in my skin And I have been doing this for about 6 months along with going vegetarian and against chemicals use. I was so skeptical because these are such ordinary ingredients and I remember herbal creams like herbal inn and Himalaya I wasted so much money on in the past and didn't work in the long run or permanently as they said.

Somedays I miss the chemical burn feeling of mequinol, monobenzone but in the end my skin from head to toe has evened out a whole lot better. I began my journey with a mixed skin tone that I wanted to even out and have ended up not white, not pale, but a nice caramel color. People assume I'm puerto rican, cuban, or other south america despite my nappy hair and big lips. My skin isn't perfect because of all the monobenzone hyperpigmentation, but about 2/3 has blended away into a new light brown color. My feet, arms, back aren't blotchy as I showed you guys in my feet and body pic in earlier years.

What's best is the lesson I learned, that its more important to live a normal life in the sun sometimes, not hiding indoors or under umbrellas gloves and confined to long sleeves for the rest of my life just to try and be something I am not. Looking back at the start of my journey, I had an unrealistic fantasy that I would transform into a better person than just another mixed black dude. I realized it would be too much too change, my hair eyes nose, and not even my skin was easy so I have resolve to accept myself that I'll never be white and I'm glad in the end my skin is finally clearing up and the hyperpigmentation is going away and my color is coming back in a lighter shade of brown.

I was wondering what you guys and girls use for maintaining your skin, not lightening it anymore but keeping it bright and preventing hyperpigmentations?

[joypulv]

WOW. I hope a lot of people all over the world see this. Too many cultures compare skin shades even within a 'color.' Too many people come to AMHD every day, hoping for that magic skin lightener. Too many companies want to exploit them.

I'm Caucasian, and blonde/blue eyed to boot, with a family history on both sides of skin cancers including melanoma, and my skin produces moles very easily in addition to the many I was born with. I have tiny red blood vessels on my face (like the noses of alcoholics) from exposure to the sun, and various permanently non-pigmented spots that are ultra white. All in all, how are we much different? Splotchy about sums it up.

I don't use much of anything on my skin except lotion. I stay out of the sun mostly. I mainly have to keep my eyes on bug bites and scratches so that the sun doesn't hit them. They pigment up within a week.

I think the honey tones of mixed races are beautiful. What more can I say? If the human race lasts long enough, we may all be one big mix.