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Bleaching is a taboo subject but we need to talk about it !
I apologize in advance, but the topics I would cover will not always be gay 🤷🏾♀️
But since I consider ourselves friends, I think it’s important to do prevention ⚠️
What is the whitening of the skin?
Before getting to the heart of the matter, it's important that we understand what we are talking about.
Skin whitening is making your skin lighter, whiter.
However, there is a distinction between:
Cosmetic products (creams, lotions, which can be used to reduce the appearance of a scar, reduce redness of the skin, stains) that are authorized lightening products;
And depigmenting products, which are prohibited in France but sold on the black market or on the internet. These products are found in the form of creams, soaps, but more and more injections or tablets.
As you can see, the goal with these products is to change skin texture.
The dangers of money laundering
This practice is extremely dangerous to health ⛔️
They are not innocuous products but rather very aggressive, very picky, very abrasive (yes, I abuse the “very” because I do not want you to engage in this kind of thing 🙄).
They contain substances toxic to the body, especially if the use is regular.
Some women even use artisanal methods such as bleach that is added directly into the cream (I think you really have to be desperate to get to this point, but I’m not here to judge.) 😨
I’m going to make you a list of the known dangers of these products so that you understand that you really shouldn’t get into this hell.
They can cause infections, pigmentation disorders, burns, eczema, acne, stretch marks, hyperhair, difficulties to heal because the skin is weakened, skin cancers.
Sometimes we see high blood pressure, diabetes, kidney failure, neurological disorders and some irreversible side effects even if you stop using these products.
And as if that wasn’t enough, this practice also causes psychological damage with addiction. Once you start bleaching your skin, it’s very hard to stop.
Anyway… I’m not here to give you a health class 😏!
A social issue?
If these whitening products are used so much, it is to comply with a certain beauty standard. It’s a very Euro-centric vision of beauty (I’m not saying it’s the fault of Europeans, most of the time it’s our own cultures that inflict this).
To be beautiful, you would have to have the clearest skin possible and there is also the idea that you will be more successful in your life, career, marriage, by being clearer (I’m not the one who saying that!)
This idea is rooted in Asia, Japan, Korea, India, many African countries also, where having the whitest skin possible is synonymous with beauty and a certain social status, especially for women. This idea is integrated from childhood. Sometimes it's the parents themselves who bleach their infant’s skin (and this is where you hit the bottom) 😳
What about the future ?
This is beginning to change, especially among the younger generations, with a desire to return to naturalness and pride in identity, to accept oneself as we are, to no longer want to be subjected to social pressure.
It goes in the right direction, but as long as we live in a society that is partly racist, the market for bleaching products will still have good days ahead of it 😔
Another little anecdote: Aya Nakamura (Franco-Malian singer) revealed that an artistic
director had asked her to whiten her skin to please a wider audience.
Good thing she didn’t listen to him 😪
To conclude this article, what I would like to tell you is that, whether you are white, black, light-skinned, dark-skinned or whatever, you are beautiful as you are, do not change !