Bleaching is not entertained in our household. How can we be so self-loathing as to bleach our skin? Never. It is for people who do not know that black is beautiful. The word does not exist; therefore, it does not happen.
When my mother tells the story of my birth, she describes how fair I was that the doctors thought I was an albino.
“Nwa gị a na acha ezigbo ọcha.” Visitors complimented the blinding fairness.
“Your child is brighter than the morning sun.” My mother swelled with pride and thanked the creator for the opportunity to steward such a gift.
When I was about 13, she started complaining that I was not maintaining my complexion. “You are not baffing very well. Look at your forehead; it is darker than the rest of your body,” she said. I was a youngin who only cared about running around in the sun with my friends and throwing sand at each other until we were exhausted and filthy.
“Look at your knees! Why are they so dark?” she would ask after I returned from school. As the class talkative, I took my role seriously, talking for every second the teacher left the class. The class captain, whose job was to take note of noisemakers, also took his role seriously; therefore, I was punished often. As punishment, the teacher would command me to kneel down, raise my hands and parade the perimeter of the school corridor on my knees until they bled. When your knee is used to polish every corridor at school, it calluses and darkens.
After my punishment, I dusted my knees, returned to my friends, and continued the crime of noise-making. To make up for lost time, I invented an over-exaggerated story of the drunk bus conductor and orange hawker who left their wares to fight on the road that morning because of change.
“The bus conductor knocked the woman’s tray off her head, and she spat on him.” I stood on the table to describe how he reached out to slap her and her shock when she received the message. I asked a classmate to hold me back so that I could demonstrate how passersby gathered to hold the woman back as she threatened to give the conductor the beating of his life. The theatrics continued until I landed my next punishment.
My mother was annoyed at my stubbornness. I was no longer her innocent light skinned baby. I was a teenager with hyperpigmentation, uneven skin tone, and a penchant for trouble. When you buy a white T-shirt the first day, it is blazing white. After the first, second, or third wash, it gains this faded color: dull and unimpressive. This requires an intervention. You can bleach your T-shirt to get it back to its original color, but you can’t call it bleaching. You are returning the white T-shirt to its original color.
We headed to Alaba market for my intervention. The skincare store was a massive warehouse in the middle of Alaba main market. The couple who owned the store were so excited to see us. It was packed with people but they took the time to greet us and be personable. We found out that they started out selling skincare products on a small table on the outskirts of the market but the business exploded and they moved to this warehouse because everyone became complexion conscious.
We looked around the store. Products on their shelf said things like “brightening,” “clarifying,” “toning.” The fair lady walked toward me and asked to examine my skin. Her skin was the whitest complexion I have ever witnessed. It was even, shiny, and without blemish. Mummy and I looked at her longingly.
The lady grabbed my arm and turned it. “Wow! Your daughter is so fair,” she exclaimed, examining my skin.
“My sister! Don’t mind her. She too dey play. See her forehead. Very dark. She does not listen,” my mother replied.
“I have the perfect cream that will bring out her complexion,” the fair lady said.
The fair lady went to the back of the store and returned with a small white tub of lotion that said “brightening cream” on its body with the picture of a fair, slender woman with radiant skin.
“How much is this?” My mum asked, worry creased into her brows.
“I see you as my loyal customer so I will give you cheap price,” the fair lady replied.
My mother was excited by this news. She paid the price. The fair lady gave us instructions on how to apply the products day and night. We packed our haul of brightening lotions and soaps excited for our new skins.
Nigeria was in global news as the epicenter of bleaching creams and the dumping site for toxins known to cause kidney failure and skin cancer. I ignored the news. There was no way I was part of that statistic of people so eager to be fair skinned that they would resort to bleaching. God forbid! I loved my skin. I was not changing from dark to light skinned. I was returning to my original complexion.
Months after our trip to Alaba Main Market, I noticed a marginal difference in my skin. My suspicions of the creams I applied day and night reduced. Mummy was finally happy that I was taking care of myself. When you’re transitioning from a dark-skinned person to light-skinned, the bleaching is obvious. But when you tell yourself that you’re taking care of your skin and returning it to the color that God gave you, the lie is easy to swallow.
The first time I realized that the creams at home could be bleaching creams was when our J.S.S 2 Business Study teacher paused class to vent about the bleaching epidemic. He was so frustrated with the collective aspiration to be fair skinned.
He challenged us to go home and check if our lotion tubs had dark circles around their rims, an indicator that they contained bleaching elements. He asked us to research the ingredients on those creams and reflect on our choices.
I thought all creams formed dark circles around their lid when exposed to air because you lost the lid. I was confident in my choice until I checked my creams. I did not find a dark circle. It was a brown faded line. I was relieved. Months went by and the circle around my lotion tub got darker and thicker.
Awareness of a national skincare epidemic increased. News channels carried stories of market women who went to skincare houses to sit in a solution that washed the pigment off their bodies. We heard stories of people who bleached and could no longer receive blood transfusions or injections because their skin was damaged. Celebrities started speaking out about skin bleaching and its health effects.
I stopped using the creams. My mother stopped patronizing the light-skinned couple at Alaba market. We never talked about the bleaching creams. We bought creams that boldly said, “Made for Children between ages 1-6.” The rims of the new creams never turned dark. I became so afraid that I would bleach by mistake and my skin would tear and never heal properly that I stopped using creams completely. I only used shea butter, which was abundant in my house.
My mum asked why I stopped using lotion.
“I don’t want to bleach,” I responded.
“Bleach? How can you say such a thing? I would never do such a thing. I love your color, I was trying to maintain it,” she said. We wanted the same things. She was trying to maintain my color because it is important for a woman to be beautiful and beauty means light skinned thanks to media and colonization.
I believe her.
