Lighter skin is fair but Black is more beautiful

A number of women including high class ladies like Princess Komuntale, have been lured into bleaching their skin to look for beautiful. We have seen socialites like bad black, Vera Sidika who once had that beautiful black satin colour also try to get that fair light skin. Lighter skinned women are considered beautiful in most parts of the world for example USA, Philipinnes, Nigeria and now East Africa. 

Bad Black before bleaching

After bleaching

 Former city socialite Shanita Namuyimbwa well known as bad black also bleached her body and she was severely blasted by people on social media.

 

Bad Black before bleaching

 

After bleaching

Former Rubaga division mayor Peter Ssematimba is also said to be bleaching his body  allover and that explains the sudden change from black to brownish color. 

Peter Sematimba

Vera Sidika is sometimes dubbed "Kenya's Kim Kardashian", as - like Kardashian - she is famed for posting photos of her voluptuous backside on social media. But this time, it's not her bottom that's under scrutiny.

Vera before bleaching

On Friday night she gave an interview on Kenyan TV in which she spoke openly about the skin lightening treatment she has recently undergone. "Looking good is my business," she said matter-of-factly. "My body is my business, nobody else's but mine." Sidika said she'd had the skin lightening done in the UK and suggested it cost somewhere in the region of 15 million Kenyan shillings ($170,000; £100,000). She says she's already seen an increase in demand for her services.

Vera Sidika

The response on Kenyan social media was huge. "I was accused of promoting or endorsing a white-centred view of beauty for African girls by interviewing her," the host of the programme Larry Madowo told BBC Trending.

Vera before bleaching

 "The criticism was quite intense." NTV decided to run a follow-up programme to discuss skin lightening, and encouraged people to share their thoughts using #BleachedBeauty.

Bleaching creams work by stripping the skin of its natural pigmentation.

Vera after bleaching

However in dark skinned people the pigmentation is the skin’s natural protection from the sun`s strong radiations.

Vera after bleaching

Bleaching doesn’t just superficially lighten the skin it changes the skin’s normal structure removing and inhibiting the production of melanin by cells called melanocytes.

Once the skin has been ‘bleached’ it loses its natural protective barrier making it susceptible to damage by the sun’s radiations and it is the reason why most if not all bleach creams come with instructions advising people to use sun protection creams called sunscreens along with the product.

Persistent use of these bleaching products will leave the skin lighter but also leave it more vulnerable to damage.

Cameroonian/Nigerian pop singer, Dencia, before and after using skin lightening cream. She recently released her Whitenicious product.

In Kampala there are household names like Mama Lususu known for their magic wand when it comes to bleaching someone’s skin.

Skin bleaching is becoming trendy but hazardous and very expensive. A bleaching dose in this shop goes for between sh400, 000 and sh600, 000. 

One of the proprietors revealed to me that she makes up to sh4m on a daily basis. She also said the process of effective skin bleaching takes up to six days if creams and soap are properly and constantly used.

Many of these bleaching agents contain steroids, hydroquinone and mercury which can affect the body as drugs do, given the fact that they interfere with the production of melanin- group of naturally occurring dark pigments, especially the pigment found in skin.

In communities, the problem has not gone unattended to and last year, The International Anti-Corruption Theatre Movement (IATM), a pressure group against bleaching, indicated that thousands of women in Uganda use soaps containing mercury to obtain a lighter complexion without knowing the health hazards of using such soaps.

Mercury according to findings through Nordic Chemicals Group, the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland and Ms. Uganda, causes a number of health problems such as skin cancer and nervous disorder.

Steroids, on the other hand, could cause diabetes given that they increase the amount of sugar metabolism in the body thus worsening the infection, Dr. Karuhanga adds. He points out creams like Pimplex usually used to treat pimples, contain mercury which is reportedly poisonous.

According to mercuryexposure.org, mercury-based bleaching creams contain ammoniated mercury or mercrous chloride as a bleaching agent. Some of these creams may contain up to more than 2-5 per cent mercury that will be harmful to health, therefore resulting in mercury poisoning, especially chronic mercury poisoning.

Cameroonian/Nigerian pop singer, Dencia, before and after using skin lightening cream. She recently released her Whitenicious product.

“In the Minimata epidemic in Japan, there were 42 brain-damaged children in 400 live births. Only one of the mothers had no sign of having mercury poisoning.

Majority of the mothers had used mercury-based bleaching creams during their childbearing years,” mercuryexposure.org explains.

“The biggest problem is that by the time someone realises signs of the effects, the damage is already done.

In neighbouring Kenya, there has been a ban on bleaching creams with stringent laws and public campaigns have been launched to address the harmful effects of these products on the skin.

Much as effort has been taken to ban the importation of skin lightening creams, they are still in plenty and sold across the counter in most shops and on the roadside in Uganda.

Ideally, skin whitening could be advised to treat pigmentation (coloration of tissues by pigment) disorders like spotted skin tone, age spots, freckles- small, usually yellow or brown spots on the skin, often seen on the face and pregnancy marks.

Beyonce before and after bleaching

Unlike in India where lightening creams are very common, in Kenya, skin lightening remains quite hush-hush, and is generally done in small backstreet venues. Experts believe it's on the rise, and warn of the dangers of unregulated black market treatments.

Skin lightening has been an issue in Africa for some time and came to the fore earlier this year when Nigerian-Cameroonian pop star Dencia launched a cream called Whitenicious.

Nick Minaj before and after bleaching

 According to Dr. Pius Okong, a health consultant with St Francis Hospital Nsambya, this remains a big problem he attributes to inferiority complex where women are not satisfied with the colour of their skins and therefore go out to try and achieve a light complexion which comes with a price to pay. 

In most cases, the products have found their way to shops unchecked yet the effects of the chemicals used in making (such) products like soaps and creams, as Dr. Vincent Karuhanga explains, have been found to have adverse effects on unborn children, women and men.