Skin bleaching (or skin toning as it is called in Nigeria) has reached an all time high in Africa with 77% of Nigerian women and 1 in 3 South African women admitting to using skin lightening products on a regular basis, according to the World Health Organisation.
Nigerian-Cameroonian singer Dencia recently launched a new skin lightening product, Whitenicious, which sold out almost immediately, despite generating much criticism and amidst growing concerns about the health risks that come with using these products.
But these women have only one concern, making their skin lighter, and to them $150 (for a 60ml bottle) and the risk of leukaemia, as well as kidney and liver cancer, and a skin disease known as Ochronosis, is a small price to pay for what they consider beauty.
The question remains as to why many black women (from Africa or otherwise) consider their dark skin to be so undesirable. According to a study conducted by the University of Cape Town, there are several reasons why women bleach their skin, the main reason being that ‘they want white skin’, or essentially they want to be white. When considering that many women believe that lighter skin leads to greater marriage prospects and upward social mobility this is not too surprising. Darker skin seems to be frowned upon in almost every society, and women with low self-esteem, internalised racism and arguably a degree of self hatred, feel that by making their skin lighter they are somehow making themselves more beautiful. In Africa this is most likely a throwback to colonialism where whiteness was associated with superiority and power.
However there are still many women who are proud of their dark skin and the heritage that comes with it. A lot of women have criticised Dencia and her advertising campaign, which shows her going from a dark brown complexion to a an eerie, almost translucent, white. Golden Globe nominee Lupita Nyong’o has been celebrated around the world, for raising Hollywood’s standard of beauty. Her dark skin and cropped hair-do has been plastered on the front of America’s top fashion magazines. Vanity Fair’s apparent attempt to lighten her photos was met with anger, and many people claimed that the magazine does not understand black beauty.
Despite all of this, we of course still have a long way to go when it comes embracing our looks and our culture. The number of people bleaching the skin is alarming at best, and serves to perpetuate the already mainstream view, that white is beautiful and black, simply is not.
