Skin lightening products are chemical products that when applied to your skin over time, can lighten your skin. Skin lightening products include creams, but more recently, the use of glutathione pills and injections has risen across Nigeria and many other African countries. Skin lightening products often contain mercury and hydroquinone which can negatively affect the nervous and reproductive systems. Long-term use of these products can cause skin damage, such as unusually thin skin, skin burns, skin infections, and more. It can also be fatal.
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Skin Lightening Products have been used for centuries. In ancient Greece, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Rome, elites used skin whiteners made of lead and makeup paints on their skin to appear paler. Skin Lighteners today are a bit different from past skin whiteners, as they remove and alter the melanin of the skin.
The boom in the use of skin lightening products among black people goes back to the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the era of European colonialism in Africa. The darker your skin, the more inferior and subhuman you were. White skin was seen as superior to black skin and seen as the beauty standard. As mass production grew in the early twentieth century, skin ligthening products became leading comsetic brands. Even when many African countries became independent from their colonizers in the 1960s. colorism-- defined by author Alice Walker as prejudice of a race of people, based on their skin color-- and racism still existed in the countries. Past and current movies and television in African media industries often portrayed lighter skinned black people as good and beautiful and darker skinned black people as ugly and sinister.
Many young dark-skinned black people have absorbed the message that their skin is ugly because they see that their societies value lighter skin over darker skin, especially in the media industry. Skin lightening manufacturers use ads to push the narrative onto black people that using their creams to lighten their skin will make them more attractive, desirable, and postively impact their lives. In reality, these products can cause skin infections, mercury poisoning, and even be fatal.
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One specific movement is the Melanin Movement. Here is one quote from their website:
"The positive representation of black women is extremely important because of the benefits it will have on little girls who have no choice but to grow up black. Having positive black female images in movies, magazines, televisions shows, etc., will lead to the development of successful black women."
The Melanin Movement website has many resources intended to encourage young black girls to feel confident within their skin. The advice they offer includes boycotting brands that discriminate against black people, posting content to social media with #blackgirlmagic or similar tags, and reposting videos or information that positively portray black people. The main point of these actions is to work against the multi-billion dollar skin lightening market and other racist and colorist markets, in order to inspire black people to love themselves and feel confident in their skin.
Image taken from this website .