I wasn't sure how to start this blog post, I kept erasing every line I typed because I didn't know how to introduce this topic but basically it's about skin lightening creams, there I said it! I've been meaning to type this for a while now, I even told my friend how it was going to be my next post because I felt so passionate about it. However, I always felt guilty every time I thought about typing it because well, I wasn't doing that great with typing my thesis so I always figured I should concentrate my efforts on that.
Anyway, the need to blog about this came about when I saw a girl I've known for a few years now, we are not friends or anything, just someone I've seen on campus. Now the thing that shocked me about her was well how she looked considerably...different! No, she hadn't shed a few kilos and she might have had a different hairstyle but I wouldn't have cared about that. She was just, well...10 shades lighter in complexion than she used to be! Of course she wasn't the first woman I had noticed who had decided to lighten her skin but the question I've always wanted to ask them but have never had the courage to I guess, was, did they think we wouldn't notice?? I mean, if your shirt went from being brown in colour to being yellow, I'm pretty sure you would notice, ANYONE would! So what I'm always perplexed with is the question of that well has lightening ones skin become such a normal thing to do now that people are no longer embarrassed that people will notice or they just want to be light skinned so badly they really don't care what anyone says?
I'm not going to go into the details of all the bad side effects of skin lightening creams, I'm pretty sure we all know, we have seen the effects in older women in our parents generation when skin lightening creams were the thing to use and now they have black blemishes and scars on their faces or some look constantly sun burnt and their skin looks kinda red (FYI for those using them now, that's what you will look like when you are older).
I'm also not interested in going into whether if you use skin lightening creams you have self esteem issues and you don't love yourself the way you should because well you are probably beautiful they way you are. I'm not here to judge, I mean I hate the size of my feet and if there was surgery to reduce their size I would probably do it!!
AND I'm also not here to criticise all those people out there who think ones complexion is the definition of beauty. I will not call you shallow, it's probably not your fault that you think this way, it's the media's fault I've heard.
We are all allowed to have our preferences in what we think is beautiful and that's all fine and well. What I don't appreciate is when obviously someone will be regarded as not being beautiful because of something like their complexion and generally, dark skinned women are the target of such comments, that's that shit I don't like!
All I would really like to know from these women is if they didn't think we would notice and maybe when they decide to go on this venture to bleach their skin, isn't there a place where they could do their whole body because it looks so disturbing having to see someone who ONLY has a light skinned face and the rest of them is just...NOT!
My mother has always warned me about using skin lightening creams, that it's bad, bad, bad and she once told me this joke (well I think it's a joke, because if it's not then it's really tragic). She says once, an old man was sitting in a taxi and there was this woman in the taxi who was light in complexion. This old man proceeded to slap a dark skinned hand off this woman's face that looked to be the hand of someone else because it did not resemble the woman's face, and he kindly asked the owner of that hand to remove it from that light skinned woman's face. The punch line of the joke was that this dark skinned hand actually belonged to this woman!! I tell this joke to a lot of people because like my mother, I discourage people from using skin lightening creams because I just don't have want to have that awkward conversation with them to ask them what happened to their face that didn't happen to the rest of their body?!
Personally, I really believe that as a person you just have to work with what you've got. And this applies across the board, with your weight, your height, your hair...your you,whatever you is. There's nothing better than that, because frankly, no one can do YOU better than YOU so why create competition for yourself trying to look like someone else. That someone else will beat you with experience at being them. Now you're just going to be second place to someone else when you could have been first and only place at looking like you.
I was telling a friend of mine recently how I wonder how guys pick girlfriends now when the majority of girls now look the same, just variations of the same thing, same hair, same clothes, same everything. And I tried to console myself with that well perhaps their personalities are still different, and so they work with that distinction. Maybe I'm being dramatic and men don't even notice this?!
By the way, I have to mention that it's not only dark skinned women who engage in skin lightening apparently. I once overheard a conversation between two very light skinned girls and they were worried that they were losing their light skinnedness and they needed to use skin lightening creams to keep their pristine light skin complexion. I laughed, obviously, but I also felt sorry for them that that's all they felt they had going for them in the looks department.
Anywho...my thesis won't write itself!
Peace...
p.s I am not light skinned ;)
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