At this year’s Afro Hair Beauty show in London there was an outrage at a stall selling and promoting skin lightening products with many women protesting that such products are unsafe, offensive and their use should not be encouraged.
Yet such products seem to sell like hot cake, especially in Africa, even when numerous warnings regarding their negative effects on skin have been discussed. There are some skin lightening products that are not banned and which continue to be advertised.
The issue of concern here is why women believe that being of a lighter skin tone will somehow increase their beauty. A combination of low self-esteem and a false belief that light skin and lustrous long hair equal beauty, success and attractiveness is recipe for disaster.
The 26-year-old Melissa bleaches her entire body and she says: “I was always considered too dark and I hated it. While on campus, a friend told me about these products and managed to get me some, it costs me a fortune but I did not like being the darkest in school or in my family.”
Aisha was given a skin lightening product to get rid of her acne and spots. When she applied it, she received numerous compliments as her skin looked brighter and beautiful. The spots have since cleared but she wants to retain her attractiveness. So, she continues using the cream.
Kampala-based hairdresser Daisy, 35, started using skin lightening products and within a year she began to suffer patches, a burning sensation, leaving her skin badly damaged.
This obsession with light skin can be linked to colonisation. The white man’s dominance translated into light skin being associated with power and authority. The success of women like Halle Berry and Beyonce who are considered to be light skinned and the introduction of western films, soap operas and imagery into African culture have all contributed to the bleaching phenomenon.
Now women aspire for light skin, which may not be natural to them. In countries like India, some beauty products are top sellers because there is a belief that men prefer fairer girls, this has not skipped consciousness in Uganda either.
Numerous singles ads of men looking for women illustrate how rife the ‘colour complex’ is. Men asking for fair or light skinned ladies and some men emphasising the fact that they themselves are light skinned, perhaps in the hope that this will increase their eligibility is a common occurrence.
But instead of spending on bleach, so as to fit into a made-up ideal of beauty, buy yourself a pair of shoes, a new lipstick or an outfit to show off your figure.
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ebony and ivory
written by Betty Long Cap , November 30, 2011
Samira Sawlani, you hit a sensitive note on both sides of vanity. White women lie in tanning beds or bask too long under the sun to get darker while black women bleach their skin to get lighter. Both directions are self-destructing as women age.
In my haste I blame men. “Love does not alter when it alteration finds.” Shakespeare
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