I believe we all share the desire to change something about our physical appearance. Even the so-called “most beautiful women” have some niggling beauty problems. These desires are normal and dare I say… good? Those ugly days keep a lot of us humble and a bit more appreciative of the “look up the word hot in the dictionary and you’ll find my picture” days. It just gets problematic when we let those ugly days destroy our sense of self.
Why the preaching? Why bleech off your skin when you can make it look beautiful with natural non chemicalized products.
Back home in Nigeria, as a young child I remember hearing horror stories of women who bleached and had their skin turn green. In those days it was easy to identify women who had bleached from their unnatural skin color, weird odors, dark knees, elbows, heels, knuckles, scalp, and other telltale signs. Bleaching ain’t like it used to be, you have to be a pro or know the person to identify “bleachers”.
I’m going on and on assuming you know what bleaching is. Bleaching, skin lightening or “toning” (as some folks incorrectly call it) involves using chemicals to “lighten” (read change) your skin color. According to Web-MD, a large percentage of skin lighteners contain mercury, mercury is toxic and can lead to psychiatric, neurological and kidney problems, also causes some cancers, not my words though... But Reseachers has proven that.
I used to think Nigerians were the only consumers, or should I say victims of, skin lightening products. Untill i saw some white folks abroad who also indulgeces in such. My childish brain couldn’t logically process the fact that while Nigeria is a huge market, there was no way all these companies created products exclusively for us, and there must be a market elsewhere. As my knowledge of world history grew, I realized that most cultures had at one time or the other placed a high value on fairness/lightness of skin. Of all the theories explaining this trend, there’s one argument I buy into; when societies were mostly agrarian, only the wealthy could avoid being out in the sun all day. I assure you, regardless of how fair or light-skinned you are continued sun exposure seven days a week will change that. Lightness was therefore a sign of wealth, the ability to pay or own others who would perform all your back-breaking tasks. Of course nothing involving humans is ever that straightforward, there are always other contributing cultural and societal factors.
However, meeting people from other nationalities also helped me realize that Nigerians aren’t the only ones with this light vs dark mentality. From a good Italian friend I learned that her mum and aunts used lightening creams, apparently it was a relatively common practice. Another French friend of mine also said her mum was disappointed when she married a “dark” brown french man, (*imagine), she was sad that her grand-kids would be dark, rather brown.
These experiences among many others led me to look kindly on bleaching Nigerians; if other people experienced the same dilemma then I couldn’t hold my people to a higher standard.
That had been my stand for the last few years, but encountering the reality of bleaching in Nigeria has made me reevaluate things. I’ve seen pictures and run into old classmates who I’m totally unable to recognize because they are 4 or more shades lighter. I have a complexion that’s very variable based on the weather, I’ve looked at summer pictures of mine and cringed at how orange I looked, yet in winter I get so pale. Unfortunately, I’ve been subject to an assortment of questions because of this; someone actually asked if maybe I was unknowingly bleaching. Ouch... Considering my personal experience I realize that complexion is not static, yet when you go from a dark mocha to a light caramel something unnatural has occurred.
So what prompted my sudden desire to write about bleaching? Some years back i took a trip to Prince Ebeano supermarket has the dubious honor of being my inspiration. I had heard a bit about this Ebeano place, apparently they had natural hair products and you know I’m all about that. The first floor was dedicated to beauty products, so I headed upstairs to explore their natural hair section. I was very disappointed that none of the staff knew about the supposed natural hair products, so I went exploring. As I wandered through the aisles, I saw the usual, relaxers, shampoos, cleansers and then I found myself in the ‘bleaching world’. I noticed they had a large selection of body washes, as I was about to pounce on a bottle of Olay body wash I noticed ‘lightening’ written in cursive. Huh? I performed the mental equivalent of a head scratch, when did Olay start producing bleaching shower gels. I began to pay attention and I noticed that virtually everything around me was marked lightening, whitening or toning, of course no one used the controversial term, bleaching. I was so disgusted, it is one thing to know that bleaching is an endemic problem but to see the products so boldly displayed was a shock to my system. For some reason, I imagined the bleaching trade existed as a back door/ under the table business, naïve of me I know. I had seen enough, so I grabbed some face wash and was ready to be out of there, I totally forgot about why I had come up in the first place until my sister brought my attention to the pitiful number of natural hair products they had on display. There really wasn’t anything I wanted, so I guess the search for natural hair products continues.
What’s that they say? Until you walk a mile in someone’s shoes don’t judge. Truthfully, we all perform some level of body modification; extensions, fake eyelashes, acrylic nails, none of those things are naturally part of us, bleaching is just taking it all a step ahead. Yet, I do feel that our government and these cosmetic industries deserve a tongue lashing. Skin lightening creams do have their uses, they are sometimes used to fade scars and dark spots, but many countries regulate their use and production. It doesn’t mean that there’s no illegal trading occurring, but you won’t find major stores with aisles dedicated to bleaching products. I remember when Olay’s slogan was “Love the skin you’re in”, I guess the change to “Challenge what’s possible”, is quite apt considering their involvement in the bleaching skin industry. I understand that for most companies profit is their bottom line, but governments have a duty towards their citizens. Granted the Nigerian government has not fulfilled one hundredth of their responsibilities to their people, so regulating the bleaching industry is probably not a priority. Yet, for every educated and enlightened person who bleaches, you have 5 others who do not fully comprehend the consequences of their actions and are mentally and financially unable to handle the potential complications.
Whenever I think of bleaching, I remember my mother’s story about when she first came to Lagos as a corper. A lady at the market stopped her and asked what “cream” she used. My mum being the totally oblivious person she is answered honestly that she used Vaseline Intensive Care Lotion. Let’s just say the woman was not impressed and abused her thoroughly.
This story always cracked me up, but it gets less amusing every time the question is directed at me. Apparently bleaching is so pervasive in Nigeria that the idea of a person being naturally light-skinned is so foreign.
Your mission if you choose to accept it is to dissuade everyone you can from bleaching and try not to get slapped or insulted in the process, In view of this, on this blog I will be sharing with us the basic home made natural products we can use to get a fairer even tone skin without bleaching the skin.
I hope you keep a date with us on our subsequent post.
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