“Bleaching” is the preferred term in many parts of Africa
for the use of cosmetics that lighten the tone of the skin.
In 2011, the German government funded a study by the World
Health Organisation into the dangers of bleaching with these cosmetics, many of
which apparently contained inorganic mercury, a substance that can cause kidney
damage, suppress immunity, induce anxiety and depression, and even permanently
destroy the nerves in the limbs and skin.
The report placed the stamp of authority of a leading
inter-governmental agency on a matter that had long attracted negative
attention: many women of African ethnicity – 77% in Nigeria for instance –
around the world bleach intensely at a high risk to their health in order to
feel attractive. Indeed a significant portion of their income goes into
sustaining this practice.
African critics of bleaching were however surprised to learn
that the practice was widespread in Asia as well, since for many of them bleaching
was strictly an issue of racial pride, self-image and identity.
Those who had framed the problem as a pure African one would
have been puzzled had they heard that in the preceding year Indian activists
had taken on a Unilever skin brand for allegedly promoting “skin-lightening” as
a way of benefitting from the close-to-$10bn global trade in skin-whitening
creams.
So like several issues of similar hue, a widespread ‘third
world’ problem had been construed as a uniquely African problem, and much fuss
made around a self-serving ‘African exceptionalism’ charade.
A little bit of history would have also taught some of the
critics that in pre-modern Europe, women routinely ate arsenic in addition to
rubbing the poisonous stuff on their skin in order to lighten their tone.
A little sociology would also have thrown up the
uncomfortable fact that male bleaching is rising explosively and thus made a
bit of trouble for the thesis that bleaching is all about male pressure and low
female self-esteem.
Also worrying for the whole “self-image” framework of
looking at the ‘problem’ might be emerging evidence that ‘skin-darkening’ may
be the preference for the gay community in Asia’s hottest sex-spots, contrary
to folkloric beliefs that male bleachers tend to be gay.
The biggest effect by far, however, of the tendency to look
at bleaching only through the emotive lenses of racial self-identity, or in the
sterile fashion preferred by public health specialists, is to miss many more
fascinating facts about the self-care industry, and the social psychology of
marketing in general, but especially in Africa.
First of all, there are several things going on when it
comes to the skin-care industry.
Scandinavian women are buying ton-loads of skin-tanning
creams, and the practice is spreading across Europe, with some serious health
consequences too.
Fair-skinned women in the West who darken their complexion
at the risk of their health are not necessarily making a racial statement.
Whilst global sales in skin-darkening compounds are lower
(near $1 billion), that is no doubt because stronger regulatory enforcement in
their main markets – Europe and America – makes aggressive marketing of shady
stuff much harder. But the rise of internet marketing and more frequent travel
are leading to explosive sales growth.
Meanwhile, government regulators in the West continue to
warn stridently about the health dangers of anti-ageing products. The sale of
such products in Africa are nearly negligible largely because of the
demographic realities of a younger population, which have made being old the
gateway to special status. In places where being old is rather mundane, people
feel more status-anxiety about growing old. In a similar vein, it is trite fact
that ‘naturally fair’ people appear in African populations, and being rarer,
they could have been seen as ‘exotic’.
And therein lies an intriguing clue: it is most likely such
intra-population ‘status determinants’ that fuel the global urge in humans to
etch medals onto our largest and most outward-projecting organ, the skin, and
perhaps not some macro-ethnic identity thing. It is the need to define some
niche to slot ourselves into, to be part of some rare, non-mundane, segment of
the population, which drives most people to experiment with their skin tone in
search for some niche shade.
The search for ‘personalisation’, the desire to
customise for self, the fear of melding into the crowd, of not standing out in
some way – these are the key factors racking up sales for the various
skin-change solutions. Intriguingly, in market sentiment surveys, many African
women who use creams that affect the tone of their complexion routinely mention
‘chocolate’ as the shade they are aiming for.
In fact, the most successful skin products are marketed as a
tool to help you carve your own niche, achieve the complexion nature’s higher
powers ordained for you in the pre-life. The makers sell you on the ability of
their product to unearth some unique potential of your skin, help your deeper
beauty emerge, restore the natural vibrancy and vitality of your skin, help
assert your individuality, and indeed find for you: a golden niche.
No product that I have seen – and in preparing to write this
I did see a tonne – announces an offer to turn you into some random sample of
another race, gender, or age-group. Even anti-ageing creams promise to arrest
deterioration due, not to natural aging, but hostile influences of the
environment, such as that vile ‘oxidation’. And truth be told, each
individual’s skin is different, and its health therefore requires deliberate
interventions.
That some of this skin stuff is made by snakes-oil salesmen
who exploit their customers’ search for a niche is to be expected; that’s the
reality of all commerce. The extremes of the trade should of course be dealt
with by the appropriate laws and regulations. For example, certain substances,
such as hydroquinone, are banned from use in topical products because they are
dangerous. It is a simple matter of enforcing those bans.
As for the rise in the skin-care industry on the back of the
individual aspirations of black women and men alike, we have only scratched the
surface.
Companies like Tiossan, Tara International, Ghandour, and
Natura Sarl are a few players in a fast-emerging African home-grown skin-care
industry with global ambitions that do not so much as whisper ‘lighter skin’ in
their marketing campaigns. Clearly, these nimble, well-run, companies have seen
beyond the $10 billion skin-lightening trade and are happier targeting a
healthier chunk of the more than $170 billion spent globally on cosmetics.
And what have they seen? That the deeper need that skin-care
customers of all backgrounds are trying to serve is to heighten their belief in
their own inner uniqueness, a yearning for a golden niche. These emerging
African brands sell themselves by emphasising rare attributes of dark skin and
proclaim themselves as uniquely able to serve it. Far it be from them to offer
some generic ‘ethnic stranger’ as the model for these special, unique,
customers they are aiming to engage.
But thinking about it critically, shouldn’t this African
skin-care marketing approach – of flattering the human ego’s yearning to be
unique – become the benchmark of all marketing in a post-industrial age?
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