It is awful how society has concluded that dark skin is unacceptable, or rather ugly, if l am to be blunt.
Growing up, l would often hear my elders talk of how one was beautiful because of their light skin. l would in turn scrutinize the mentioned person and discover that nope, my elders were wrong. Beauty is beauty, light-skinned or not.
Skin lighteners were such a weird concept to me and still are because in high school when one of my friends started using them with disastrous effects, man did we laugh at her. Little did we know that this was actually a serious issue – an issue that has gotten worse over the decades, an issue of accepting one’s appearance in its unique beauty.
There’s nothing wrong with being light-skinned, but who came up with the idea that darker skin was bad and unacceptable?
I mean every time l roam the streets, l see women selling skin lightening products which have caused harm to both women and girls. The fashion and beauty industries have been of no help in this issue well until recent years, of course, where the likes of Alek Wek, Nykhor Paul, Ajuma Nasenyana, to name a few, have become symbols of acceptance that black is beautiful!
Even though there are more dark-skinned women, we do still hear of unpleasant scenarios taking place due to one’s darker skin tone. Favouring lightness of skin extends beyond Africa and goes as far as Asia and the Americas, imagine!
Will this fever of wanting to be lighter ever pass over? Quite a number of women have become mixtures of skin tones because of the use of skin lightening creams on their face, hands and legs, leaving the rest of the body darker.
Far be it from me to dictate what one should or should not do, but what l will say is that beauty goes beyond the tone of one’s skin. Black skin is beautiful and light skin is beautiful, too!
