BB-Cream whitening effect: yay or nay?

BB-Cream is the newest trend, everybody is talking about it! I also ordered one of the fabolous creams from Korea and I'm very satisfied with mine. BB-Cream is usually hyped as an all-in-one wonder: moisturizer, foundation, anti-spots, anti-aging, whitenig effect... since I never use all of this products except foundation, the all-in-one feature isn't important for me, but I like the fact that BB-Cream hides rednesses like foundation, but feels like a moisturizer and is easy to apply! And once it is dried, it feels like you had never put anything on your face!

Now comes th big "but": The whitening effect! I think most people can imagine that bleaching your skin isn't healthy and can cause great skin irritations. When I bought my BB-Cream, I wasn't sure about the fact if it really contains bleaching or if whitening just mean "it's a light color and since it hides impurities, your skin looks fresher and brighter". So I informed myself about the ingredients and I want to share my results:

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Arbutin

Nearly every BB-Cream contains Arbutin, and it is really hard to find a good one without it. Arbutin is not a bleach, it just prevents the skin from tanning. When UV-beams hit the skin, it begins to produce Melanin, which is a dark pigment and the natural sun mechanism of the skin. But Arbutin stops this producing, so you simply don't get tanned. Because now the skin is more sensitive against UV-beams, the BB-Creams contain sunscreen (of course also to avoid getting tanned anyway or getting wrinkles).

Now the second fact is, that Arbutin can be converted into Hydrochinon by your skin flora, which was a often-used skin bleach, but caused great skin damages - so it is now forbidden for bleaching creams in many countries (as a side note, it is still used for medical purposes). Futhermore, Arbutin works the same way like Hydrochonin, that's why people are concerned about it.
But in the end, the main problem is that at this stage, it's just not well researched how harmful Arbutin really is if you use it long-term. Don't be afraid, you won't get immediately skin damage from using BB-Creams in the short-term, but since it is very hyped now and usually, if women find the perfect foundation she will stick to it her whole life, I just wanted to share this information, so you know what you are using.

For me, I decided to use my BB-Cream not so often anymore. I don't want to waste it but when my tube gets empty, I will search for creams without whitening effect - if you have any tips please tell me :)

Do you use BB-Cream? What do you think about the whitening effect? Write me a comment! <333

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