How light skin obsession affects women

In her early twenties, Ashura Mbaraka now 34 enjoyed spending money on various beauty products. The fact that she had dozens of them already didn’t stop her from purchasing new products available in the market.

However, following her obsession with beauty, it didn’t take long before she decided to start using products which had dangerous ingredients, to get more positive results.

She says it started six years ago when she was desperately looking for products that would help her get rid of pimples on her face but unfortunately that led into something else.

“I didn’t know what happened but I started having pimples on my face, at first I thought it was due to something that I ate or maybe one of the creams I was using. I dint like how my face looked, I started asking around from my friends on the best products to use,” she recalls adding “they recommended all types of products from cheap to the expensive ones,” lamented Ashura

As expected, the results were positive within  the first few weeks she started using the creams recommended by one of her friends, “Things started to get better, the  tone of my skin changed even the  pimples faded away, I was impressed with the results,” she recalls with a smile.

Following the good result on her face, she looked for something that would complement her new facial tone. “Although I loved using all sorts of beauty products, I had not thought of bleaching myself, but after I managed to get rid of the pimples with the help of creams. I got carried away, I wanted my whole body to look exactly like my face,” she stated.

Things went well the first three years “I was happy, I got so much attention even my husband liked the way I looked.

But I fear now that I won’t be able to conceive because the products I had been using affected me. We have been trying to have a baby for two years now in vain. I haven’t told my husband but I secretly went  to seek professional advice at the hospital. They have analysed my case and told me I have a higher risk of infertility because of the products I was using.

“They  said the ingredients in these creams and lotions I pumped into my skin had chemicals to assist  the  effectiveness in  their absorption. They also have the ability to send these dangerous toxins straight to the cells and bloodstream where they can travel through the body’s systems. After hearing these I have  made a decision to stop whatever I am using to give myself some time to recover before I go for proper treatment,” explains Ashura.

 Ashura’s case highlights the growing obsession among women to look perfect and has been on the increase in recent years and the high price they have to pay in a long run. Like many parts in Africa, our country is no exception to such havoc. Dar es Salaam for instance, one of the busiest cities in the country, has streets lined with endless rows of beauty shops and parlours some which secretly operate.

Women would go for anything  that would define their beauty including bleaching , fake buttocks and extreme  measures to get slender bodies for the  sake of beauty. While the case is different for those who live in countries with more advanced technologies, people still flock beauty clinics for plastic surgeries.

However as women continue to undergo different beauty treatmnets, some of these procedures have not always lived up to their expectations as they put the lives of women at risk.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that countries such as Nigeria have 77 per cent of its population using some form of skin bleaching products, where as 59 per cent in Togo, 35 per cent in South Africa, 27 and 25 per cent in Senegal and Mali respectively.

What experts say

While many women are making very positive changes to combat the negative impact their buying decisions have on their health, majority of them are still uneducated when it comes to understanding the impact of using certain products.

According to a Dar es Salaam based dermatologist, John Mwenda,  products which contain ingredients such as mercury  or Hydroquinone are  very dangerous “they are banned and government  has done its best to get rid of them,however there are still products out there in the market containing these chemicals. Some researchers have even shown that the liver can never be cleared of these products,”

He also noted that these creams can cause health issues, such as “acne, thinning of the skin, glaucoma if applied near the eye or to the whole body, they can cause high blood pressure and diabetes,” explains the expert.

Laws in Tanzania have attempted to control the most toxic skin lightening creams but they are still easily available on the black market. Nor is the practice restricted to women.

The Tanzania Food and Drugs Authority (TFDA) which  was established  under the Tanzania Food Drugs and Cosmetics Acts, 2003 to regulate among other products, the quality  and safety of cosmetics has been taking a lot of measures to curb the use of restricted drugs.

Cited in may this year by the media,  Damas Matiko, northern zone manager from Tanzania Foods and Drugs Regulatory Authority (TFDA) said the  authority has been  striving to remove from shelves and destroy banned cosmetic products that many women use to bleach their skins. According to him, the majority of illegal skin lightening creams can contain between 8 per cent to 15 per cent of hydroquinone. The government has banned soaps, skin creams, ointments and other products that contain deadly intoxicants such as steroids, chloroforms, mercury, sulphur, hydroquinone and 11 other listed harmful chemicals.

Despite the ban, traders have been smuggling the compounds and selling them clandestinely due to high demand.

According to him we are now experiencing increasing cases of skin and liver cancer, women missing their menstrual cycles and some giving birth to retarded children. Other problems include brain tumours, sudden unexplained deaths, and prostate cancer for men and increased facial hair for ladies.

Men are not left behind

Despite all the negative effects and the cost one would have to pay in future if things go wrong as they are left to live with regrets , the case is different for Bukom Banku, the Ghanaian boxer whose pictures went viral recently for his bleached skin.

While being interviewed in a TV  programme “The Pulse” on Joy News, the boxer defended himself  and his decision to change his skin tone saying that it was his  wife who convinced him to bleach his skin. He said his ultimate goal is to reach Michael Jackson skin tone.

“My wife advised me. I took her advice because she is my wife,” he told the host when asked who advised him to bleach.

“We are all bleaching our bodies,” he added.

 Banku said he doesn’t want to be black again. “I don’t want to become black again. I don’t need black again in my life,” he stressed.

According to research published in several medical journals, and conducted by Harvard University  many of the ingredients found in common everyday skin and personal hygiene products contain high levels of Perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs).

Coming in contact with these PFCs can, and does, cause a variety of infertility issues, the experts claimed. One study conducted by UCLA researcher ChunyuanFei, and published online in Human Reproduction, states that women with higher-than-normal levels of PFCs have exhibited a 60-154 per cent  higher risk of infertility than those who do not.

Not only women, men also need to watch out for the skin creams, deodorants and sprays they use, which may contain the same high levels of PFC’s as women’s products. Like women, PFCs can affect their fertility by decreasing the volume, overall health and mobility of their sperm.

 Despite all that, still there are those who believe in all the beauty procedures so long as they are not overdone.

A Dar es Salaam based beautician, Doreen Mwema*, proudly admitted to using skin lightening cream because it makes her feel, more beautiful and confident. She said for many years she has been black and dark-skinned  therefore she wanted to how it would feel to be light skinned.

“I wanted to see what it would be like to be white and the truth is I enjoy every bit of it. The difference is that I get my products which are genuine from  abroad, they are expensive but worth it. I have lived in the US and I have seen women using products to get lighter skin. For those who wish to have implants, silicone breasts per se I don’t see any problem with that so long as the  silicone are in small quantities and If they are not going to hurt the baby in the long run.

“If they are not confident with how their breast appear and they lose confidence over them and they can afford to do something on their breasts, why not go for it?”

However she still insists that a woman who is natural will always look beautiful.

It becomes a personal choice whether to apply lightening creams on your face, weather to do plastic surgery or not even though the government has banned all products with dangerous chemicals. More  information needs to be  available and easily understood, for women to make informed choices.

Beauty procedures that went wrong

Jocelyn Wildenstein: a US$4 million monster

Known by the nickname of “The Bride of Wildenstein”, Jocelyn Wildenstein has allegedly spent almost US$4,000,000 on cosmetic surgery over the years, ending up as one of the worst and most famous cases of plastic surgery addiction. But who did that happened?

In the late 70’s Jocelyn Wildenstein was a fresh-faced mother of two and married to an extremely rich art dealer. That is until she caught her husband in bed with a 21 year old Russian model. For a normal person would have just leave her husband and take all of his money with her, but the case wasn’t for Jocelyn Wildenstein. Instead she decided to win back her husbands love and make herself more beautiful by going under the knife. Apparently her husband left her anyway, but Jocelyn will always have her plastic surgery.