The CEO of skin care company, Second Image, says ladies who try to change their skin colour by bleaching may have a mental problem.
Nikki Boamponsem cautioned women who bleach their skin to desist from the practice. The Second Image CEO made the comments while speaking at a seminar organised as part of the Africa Makeup and Beauty Fair in Accra.
“If you try to change your colour, you are mad. Apart from the physical madness, you can become mad from using some of the products,” she claimed. According to her, it is very disappointing for any women to feel inadequate and therefore desire to changGod-given given skin colour.
She said, “It’s a (symptom of) very low esteem to say that ‘I don’t like my face; my man likes fair women so I have to change my colour’ at once it means you are mad.” Mrs Boamponsem urged women to be content with the natural skin that they have been blessed with.
“The reason why we are talking about skin is that, any colour of skin is beautiful if you look after it. If you have dark skin and you’ve allowed it to go dull, you think your colour is not nice… but then if you treat your black [skin] well, it will shine, it will glow and at the age of 90, you can still look good.
“Those of us with this colour, we struggle to keep it because if I get (a) mark (or two), it will show but if you have dark skin, you can get away with it,” she observed. The Second Image CEO cautioned women that bleaching could have dire consequences on their health.
“So be proud of your skin because all these injections, they tell you, they are causing cancer, they are causing brain damage, kidney problems and all that. Why do you want to interfere with anything in your body just because you want to be fair?” she stressed.
Mrs Boamponsem is absolutely right about that because I find it difficult to understand why women and even men subject their skin to this ‘unfair’ treatment despite the numerous campaigns against. And as she pointed out, it’s low esteem and extreme ignorance that drives women to do this.
In some part of the world especially Africa, people with light skin tone are held in high esteem and often get bigger opportunities at the expense of those with dark skins. It is high time we wake up to reality and stop living in the shadows of colonialism.
