Falodun, who gave the warning in an interview on Thursday said that such thinning of the skin could lead to injuries.
He said that lightening creams had the capacity to bleach the skin and that bleaching and toning were the same thing, adding that the products used for both purposes could lighten the skin.
``Bleaching is something that you can also call skin lightening; now toning is a rather vague term used to mean different things.
``But most times when people talk about toning it virtually means the same thing because the products that they use are things that will actually lighten the skin or bleach the skin.
``We must understand that God has given us skin as a protection; it’s actually meant to protect the other organs in the body from external invasion.
``So, anything that affects the integrity of the skin is not good and that is exactly what bleaching does.
``A number of the agents that are used would thin down the skin, they would thin it out because the skin is meant to be a particular layer thick.
``By the time you do a lot of bleaching the skin becomes very thin and that is not good for the skin.
``So the tendency for the skin to easily get injured is very high and when injury is there healing is very poor because of that.
``When you talk about poor healing, it also has to do with surgeries. If someone who has bleached the skin goes for surgeries, wound healing is very poor. Most times it gets very difficult to appose the skin.
``There have been instances in which when one does some procedures you realise that when you use your instrument to pick the skin the skin begins to tear apart,'' he said.
Falodun identified some of the lightening agents as hydroquinone, steroids and kojic acid.
He explained that such agents, especially hydroquinone, caused patchy discolouration and pigmentation on the skin, whereas steroids caused diabetes and stretch marks on the body.
``For those who use steroids or when you use a lot of it over a long period, there is the tendency for the steroids to be absorbed into the skin and it can give rise to diabetes.
``And off course the tendency to infections in the skin not to talk of the bad odour that come from some of these agents a times.
``Some people are allergic to some particular components of those bleaching agents and they can have idiosyncratic reactions. Some people can even have allergic dermatitis from these agents.
``There is away you know someone is bleaching by the time you look at the knuckles and some parts of the face and parts that are exposed to the sun, you have patchy hyper pigmentation and discolouration.''
The dermatologist explained that in the past, people used heavy mercury and metal preparations to bleach the skin, thereby causing kidney failure.
He said that studies had shown that some of the bleaching agents exposed people to cancers because the protective layer of the skin called melanin had been removed with the bleaching agents.
He said that older women experienced more severe side effects, as a result of bleaching, adding that the skin of the older women were less likely to heal faster than the skin of younger women.
``To be candid, the effect is still the same. It’s just that of course when the skin is older the tendency to healing is less.
``So the older you are the less likely you are to want to bleach, unfortunately we still see a lot of older people that still want to look young and they end up bleaching.
``As you get older the skin gets wrinkles, then you have a lot of problems in fact for them the effects will definitely be worse with the older you get.
``So let’s face it older people already have wrinkles, they already have problems with healing, the tendency to healing is much less.''
``So the truth about it is that they will definitely have more of the side effects you will expect that as people are getting older they will think of other things to do than bleaching.''
The dermatologist, however, said that in dermatology practice, there were limited and guided uses of bleaching and skin lightening agents for therapeutic purposes such as in the treatment of vitiligo and melasma.
He explained that vitiligo was a condition that caused depigmentation to sections of the skin, as a result of an auto immune disease.
Melasma is due to hormonal changes in some women that left dark brown patches on the skin of the face.
``We use some of these bleaching agents to correct these conditions, but not the way the person, who is bleaching will use it, it is used with other combinations and it is must be guided.''
Falodun advised women to become more health-conscious and research more on the products they intend to use on their body to find out the pros and cons.
``Most products will have a list of the things contained in them, never mind that there are some that hide some of these dangerous components which is very sad.
``So you need to do some research about the products that will be used on your skin.
``And regulatory agencies need to do a lot more work because many of these products are just all over the place.”
He, however, advised women to appreciate their God-given colour and build up their self-esteem.
He described as fallacious the thinking that light-skinned people were more beautiful than dark-skinned people.
``Skin bleaching is not good and we advise that people should try their best to maintain whatever skin colour God has given them.
``This is because you realise that most times when people engage in this type of thing they damage their skin to the extent that this beauty they wanted to create is not obtained and they end up having more problems.''
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