HEALTH KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDE REGARDING BLEACHING AGENTS IN WEST SAUDI ARABIA 109 WOMEN’S ATTITUDE TOWARD USING TPAs As shown in Table IV, minority of the participants (10%) considered the use of bleaching creams sold at herbal stores safe whereas 61% of them disagreed with that. Also, 9.3% of them would recommend the use of bleaching creams sold at herbal shops to others, whereas 70.2% reported that they would not do so. More than half of the respondents (55.3%) wanted the color of their skin to be lighter than its normal color whereas 26.7% did not want that. From Table V, it is shown that 45.5% of the participants believed that lighter skin color made them more beautiful, whereas 38.7% believed that lighter skin color made them more self-confi dent. More than one-third of them (36.2%) used skin TPAs to renew their look. Only 13.5% of singles believed that lighter skin color increases chances of fi nding a spouse and 9.6% of married participants believed that it stabilizes marriage. Sixty-three women (16.2%) reported that they would use bleaching creams that gave fast results, even if the components were unknown (Figure 8). Table III Duration of continuous usage ofng Bleaching Creams Among Current Users (n = 230) Duration Frequency Percentage 1 mo 27 11.7 2–6 mo 110 47.8 7–12 mo 60 26.1 12 mo 20 8.7 Unknown 13 5.7 Figure 4. Outc omes of discontinuation of skin TPAs use among women in Al-Madinah Al-Munawwarah, Saudi Arabia.

JOURNAL OF COSMETIC SCIENCE 110 FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH CURRENT USAGE OF TPAs Table VI presents the sociodemographic factors associated with the current usage of bleaching agents among women. Usage was the highest among those of the middle age (26–40 years) and lowest among those aged over 40 years (50% vs. 17.9%). The difference was statisti- cally signifi cant (p 0.001). Current usage of TPAs was signifi cantly associated with women’s educational level (p = 0.007) being the highest among females that are university graduated or higher (48%) Figure 5. Parti cipants’ knowledge regarding harmful chemicals to human health, which could be one of the components of bleaching creams. Figure 6. Health knowledge that overuse or misuse of topical bleaching creams could harm the skin.