Bleaching or toning to me is a case of inferiority complex, an attitude of belonging by force! Who say been white or yellow skinned makes you a pretty lady? People from European countries do go on vacation to North Africans countries and tropical world to sun tanned! That is to get darker.
Femi Kuti captured the complexity of African blacks when he said,“An African will prefer to be called John-Philip. If you said your name was Chukwu Emeka Afongkudong they will say you are from the village. You are backward. How can you have such a name? We really look down on our culture and heritage instead of being proud of it,”
“When the bleaching propaganda got so negative, they had to come up with toning. Bleaching sounds too hard, now it’s toning. I don't bleach, they say, I tone!” “They think bleaching is gege,” Femi said.
Some guys believes fairer skin could be her ticket to a better life in society, so mixing concoctions that promise to lighten their skin is a must as majority of this people are living under 1$ income per day.
Lightening creams in Nigeria are not effectively regulated; roadside vendors sell tubes and plastic bags of powders and ointments from cardboard boxes stacked along sidewalks in market districts. Many of the tubes are unlabelled as to their actual ingredients and this has hazardous health consequences.
The dangers associated with the use of toxic compounds for skin bleaching include blood cancers such as leukaemia and cancers of the liver and kidneys as well as severe skin conditions.
Hardcore bleachers use illegal ointments containing toxins like mercury, a metal that blocks production of melanin, which gives the skin its colour, but can also be toxic.
“Systemically it causes things like kidney failure because of the mercury in some of the products and it also causes eczema, skin pigmentation among a host of other infections,” Ayobode Williams, a medical doctor said.
with Aljazeera news
