Specific anti-discoloration products

Here on TP particularly in the last year the peeling approach has gained the biggest support in the long battle against discoloration.
Certainly, freezing/drying/burning skin cells will help in removing surface darker areas, but it seems to me it could easily be disproportionate and unnecessary, if not dangerous.
We’re actually replicating the effect of a sunburn, to rush and trigger the generation of new skin: even without the risks of a direct UV exposure, I think the damage to outer layer and protection could be dangerous.

Apart from that, I consider the word ‘discoloration’ misleading. Usually something ‘discolored’ LOSE color, while in our case it’s the opposite: stressed skin reacts with hyperpigmentation , producing more melanin.

Considering that this isn’t a problem limited to PE, I began wondering about which products exist to ‘dissolve’ melanin (reducing the amount in skin cells) rather than typical chemical peeling products (to destroy the cells with more melanin).
You can find an endless offer of similar products; among the others this attracted my attention:
ANAL/VAGINAL BLEACHING CREAM

I have very little faith in the product by itself - the auction doesn’t look very professional, and there’s no mention of product components (only a generic reference to "a multitude of different skin bleaching agents").

It’s interesting anyway that products like this are already used by many users on delicate areas: anus, vagina (have you ever rejected a woman for a too-dark vagina? Now you know you can!) and even ‘male genitalia’.
I’d be curious to give it a try, maybe finding a more reliable brand and product…

Anyone with a direct experience?

I think about a year ago anus bleaching came into the public eye here in the states. So I don’t know how popular it is but it’s defenitely something people are doing. I would try and find a product that actually lists it’s ingredients because you don’t want to be rubbing unknown substances on your junk.

The labia and bum hole are totally different to a man’s discoloured (via PE) shaft skin. So I doubt it would have the same effect. I don’t understand why people aren’t willing to wait up to 6 months for it to naturally fade away.

I think PE discoloration (yes, misleading term for non-english speakers) is not related to melanin, but more to hematoma. We may injure capillaries at a rate exceeding the natural healing capabilities of the tissues, hence the discoloration.

If it was about melanin, Michael Jackson could have been of great help!

Also, the asshole bleaches contain hydroquinone which is carcinogenic and is banned in a bunch of countries.

Exactly. Hematoma is blood that end up outside of blood vessels (i.e. under the skin) thanks to burst capillaries from too much pressure (like from clamping). That has nothing to do with melanin, which is usually caused by exposure to UV rays (i.e. sunlight).

I really don’t understand how you can consider the skin darkening a consequence of hematomas.

An hematoma is just a blood deposit, forming a sac of blood beneath the skin which is reabsorbed over time. But:
1. It’s easy to verify (by just moving the foreskin) the rather than ‘beneath’ the skin, the darkening is ‘inside’ the skin: the foreskin is too thin to make possible an inner sac so thick to justify that much darkening.
2. Hematomas this small (we’re not talking about litres of blood) disappear in a matter of days, not weeks or months, especially in a moving appendice like the penis.
3. Hematomas usually have very defined borders (especially when they’re thin), because a minimal amount of blood so close to the skin surface is sufficient to cause a sensible change in color.
4. The smaller are the capillaries you’re talking about, the faster they recover. Moreover, a lesion in capillaries so severe to cause serious discoloration, in a skin as thin as the foreskin, would result in an external bleeding.
5. When an hematoma appears, it’s always red-blue, the color of hemoglobin. It’s only after some time that it turns to blue-green (bilirubin) and finally gold-brown (hemosiderin).
6. The hematoma-induced color would be rather uniform, while looking at the discolored skin I have I can easily see many white dots, where the skin have grain cells of a different type - the same pattern and structure I’ve always seen looking closely a tanned skin.

To support all this, I actually have from time to time hematomas on my penis (consequence of vacuum hanging), and believe me - they’re VERY different. They’re particularly bothering because, even if only a single capillary hasn’t repaired yet, the entire bruise forms again (turning to a deep purple color) just after a few jelqs.

Maybe we have different types of discoloration: looking at mine I could swear it’s just tanned skin.

Apart from that, it’s interesting that I have a rather defined discolored band only near the glans: that has nothing to do with jelqinq, which 1) involves more the skin at the base, and 2) would have generated a more gradual color change.
The band is exactly where the vacuum sleeve stretch to.
In my case, that’s really a skin not particularly stressed: on the contrary, I’d say it’s the least stressed (the base being more stretched in jelqing, the glans being pulled by vacuum pressure).
So, if it’s turning color it can hardly be a consequence of stress, considering that it’s the only part darkened. It seems that the skin there ‘cannot breathe’ beneath the silicone sleeve, and this changed its metabolism.

When I began wearing sleeves, the glans too changed; I had its surface peeling off (just like after a sunburn) maybe 2 or 3 times, then it gradually adapted and now I can wear the sleeves for 8 hours continuously without any sensible effect on glans skin.

Another reason against hematoma just came to my mind: in this thread a user proved that strong peeling completely removes discoloration.

Actually, it can also remove it in spots: if you peel only a limited area, forcing new skin formation, that’s the only area which will be without discoloration.

That, of course, would be impossible if the cause of the discoloration was an hematoma beneath the surface.

It isn’t hematoma, it is hemosiderin, a protein bound iron-containing compound which is a complex of ferritin released from hemolyzed red blood cells. High pressures in the tissue capillaries can force red blood cells out of the vascular system into the tissues, whereupon they die and release hemoglobin. The iron gets bound up in hemosiderin and deposited in the cells and stays there. This has nothing to do with melanin.

If you are convinced that it is melanin-related discoloration and not burst blood vessels, then I can tell you the only bleaching product that actually works is benoquin (the stuff Michael Jackson used). However, it totally kills your melanocytes, so if you don’t already have fair skin you could end up looking like a Mediterranean with an Irish guy’s penis.

Some of the objections still stand against hemosiderin:
For example, it takes some time to convert hemoglobin into hemosiderin, and it would go through the different colors mentioned above.
To generate that much darkening we’re talking about, a remarkable amount of hemosiderin would be necessary: thus, either you have a lot of blood involved (like in a big ecchymosis), either it adds up over a long time. This of course could be the case for PEers, but over the same long time hemosiderin would be also dispersed.

I mean, to justify a serious hemosiderin deposit its generation rate must be much higher than its dispersion rate.
IMHO you cannot build up so much hemosiderin to darken the skin over months or years, because in the same time circulation contributes to disperse what you could be storing in the small skin area we’re talking about.

Moreover, as I said in my case at least discoloration is NOT caused by stress or high pressure (in the vacADS the pressure only applies to the glans, there’s really no pressure whatsoever on the darkened skin).
So, why should I have bleeding or hemoglobin released in the skin cells?

Ah yes, hemosiderin, I always forget that word. :)

I’m reading now that Benoquin contains monobenzone, which has the irreversible effect you mention.
Another lighter compound is mequinol, which seems to melt melanin - bleaching the skin as much as the monobenzone do - without altering the skin capacity to regenerate it.
This at least would be reversible, but I cannot imagine having penis tanning session.

That kind of bleaching it’s too intense; however, I guess mequinol could be diluted to reduce its effect.

No you are wrong about that. Discoloration due to hemosiderin depostion is very common among people with venous stasis dermatitis due to varicose veins. The skin does not go through a sequence of color changes as with a bruise. And it can happen very quickly.

I got some significant skin discoloration from extravascated red blood cells from hanging one 20 minute set with a wrap that became to tight just behind the glans. The discoloration took more than a year to fade.

I have no idea if your discoloration is due to melanin or hemosiderin, but discoloration from hemosiderin is very real and very common.

Looking for further information about discoloration from hemosiderin deposit, google sent me to this forum. :)

This is an excellent thread about the use of the thioglycolic acid against discoloration.
You may be right, but I’m still not convinced: here a plastic surgeon says that there’s no proper way to get rid of the hemosiderin induced discoloration.
For everything I read about it, it seems that most of the this discoloration is too deeply rooted in the skin, thus the inefficacy of skin peeling techniques - not even with recent lasers.

But in this case, how is it possible that we can remove the discoloration just by burning the skin, to force a new layer formation?

The experiment conducted with thioglycolic acid (TGA) could be misleading. As Zarathustra noted in his thread, the same depilatory powder he used on his test containing the TGA also triggers skin replacement.
Just like sulfur masks, they tend to dry out the skin: a milder type of the burning experimented by other users with wart removal creams.

Maybe we should focus on the causes, rather than trying to observe and interpret the symptoms.
We still have no idea of why hemosidering should deposit in the skin (at least, I have no idea in my case), nor we know what could trigger the melanogenesis.

edit: here another plastic surgeon says he doesn’t know any solution to ‘cure’ hemosiderin deposit, but he alleges that heat could foster reabsorption from the body by increasing blood circulation. If that was true, hot wrapping in PE should reduce discoloration.