The Industry which makes a fortune with beauty products of bleaching the skin is becoming a trend between celebrities.
Michael Jackson was the first who shocked the world with his change of skin colour and became unfortunately a role model, who decided to change their skin colour from black to white. Over the years the world has observed what happened to his face and appearance.
Now the singer Beyonce is the latest, who is using the products to change her skin colour from dark to light skin tone. Or perhaps we should say as the media watchers claim that L’Oréal cosmetic giant has lightened the skin tones of one of its most prominent marketing model Beyonce. Well of course L’Oréal denies the claim.
What can be the reason for a beautiful young and famous woman to come to a conclusion to turn her back on her origins and deny the natural skin colour? Is there too much pressure in the entertainment buissnes to be accepted only if the skin colour is fairer than dark? Difficult to answer but it is a serious issue for undertake an indephs research on this subject.
Perhaps everyone’s trying to capture the perfect balance between black and white, so black skinned people wanting to become whiter and some white skinned people are sploshing themselves all over body with fake tanner.
Or is it that darker skinned women using more all these products to become whiter?
The industry is enjoying good buissness in Asia as many Asian women try to use skin-lightining cosmetics to change the colour of their skin. This is a shocking and rarely discussed phenomenon.
It is sad that many people think, even in the 21st Century, being white offers to many minds a stamp of supposed cultural superiority. All these enforced by the media and by powerful Hollywood.
Models are mostly white in fashion magazines, TV presenters are mostly white on TV, in advertisements people are mostly white and in high end jobs mostly white people are on the top of the ladder. The politics of daily life reinforces that people with dark skin colour are not worth it.
And research has long shown that all things being equal, lighter-skinned black people get more jobs and enjoy better life chances than do those with darker skins.
But knowing all this, not acknowledging the facts and still denying the natural skin colour is difficult to understand. All those people with darker skin colour who have made it to the top in their career should set a good exsample as role models for young people both black and white.
I am sure there is more happiness in seeing young people gaining self confidence by being a role model, than bleaching the skin. The external appearance simply should not deny the struggle of those, who have fought to be recognised for who they are and their history.
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Semra Eren-Nijhar 