skin – BeauTea Community

Credit: https://media.giphy.com/media/xT0BKoT4doD35kvu6I/giphy.gif

Not long ago, I told you about the danger of tanning, and I concluded the article by telling you about the depigmentation of the skin in the black community. Recently, I read an article about the lightening products that were banned in Rwanda my country of origin. Indeed, the Rwandan Ministry of Health is starting to fight against those kinds of products that are harmful to the health of their user, which is a majority of people in Africa. (see article)

Lightening cream
Credit: CNN https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/09/health/rwanda-ban-skin-lightening-cream-africa-intl/index.html

Why do African women and men want to lighten their skin? This is called colorism, it is a discrimination against black people with a dark complexion. People of color make their own categories from the less dark to the darkest. So how did people develop this sense of shame about their skin color? This goes back to the last century, soap ads promoted their merit by saying that they had the ability to whiten the skin of blacks. Black skin is associated with dirt against white skin which is associated with purity. Black people have therefore whitened their skin for a guarantee of social integration into the white community. These things descending from colonialism and segregation are still relevant today.

Old French advertising for soap
Credit:

**https://www.nofi.media/2015/09/le-blanchissement-de-la-peau-un-complexe-dinferiorite/23216**

Today, we hear about white skin, brown skin, dark skin, to give you an example, we talk about white skin for Alicia Keys, brown skin for Beyonce and dark skin for Kanye West.

Alicia Keys: Allure https://www.allure.com/story/alicia-keys-on-makeup-no-makeup 
Beyonce: Who What Wear 
https://www.whowhatwear.co.uk/beyonce-stella-jean-red-dress/slide3
Kanye West: W Magazine https://www.wmagazine.com/story/keeping-up-with-kanye-west-and-everything-hes-done-in-the-last-four-chaotic-days

Black beauty is not represented by dark skin in beauty magazines. Indeed, many advertisements or first pages of magazines have whitened the skin of people posing for them. Like Beyonce for L’Oreal, Kerry Washinton for Instyle or Rihanna for vogue.

Credit pictures: https://fr.trace.tv/people/ces-celebrites-dont-la-peau-a-deja-ete-blanchie-pour-des-photos/

Being mixed race, since I was a child, I have been considered black in the West and white in Africa. What puzzles me is that since I was young, I have only seen white models in the majority. The exceptions are obviously Katoucha or Naomi Campbell , but skin color is not everything.

Credit pictures: 
Katoucha: Vogue 
https://www.vogue.co.uk/gallery/yves-saint-laurent-exhibition-paris-and-marrakech
Naomi Campbell: Pinterest 
https://www.pinterest.ie/pin/173810866854216483/?autologin=true

A woman’s beauty is also judged by her body, after years of thin bodies, here comes the arrival of bootylicious women with shapes. Beyonce, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, these women, and their shapes have made it possible in a way to allow women of black and Afro origin to assume their bodies like me.

Instagram: @nickiminaj
Instagram: @badgalriri
Instagram: @beyonce

Speaking of Rihanna, she has revolutionized make-up with Fenty Beauty©, her range of foundations adapted to all skin colors (see article), but with her range of lingerie, she also promotes the positive bodysuit by promoting models of all sizes.

Instagram: @savagexfenty
Instagram: @savagexfenty

Black positive increases more and more, first of all with the hair. The Afro cut made famous by Jackson 5 is back in fashion. It is certainly a hair fashion, but it is also a strong act, assuming your hair naturally after years of dictatorship of the straightening of Afro hair. They named themselves ‘nappy’. In addition, relaxers have risks on the hormonal system and their compositions lead to the development of fibroids and even cancers. Many celebrities have been criticized for their choice not to highlight their hair as Beyonce who is blonde.

Brands like Shea Moisture offer organic products, vegan without animal tests adapted for every hair types, and very popular in the Afro community. This brand was the victim of a scandal by highlighting white models in their ads while the majority of their sales are made in the black community.

Credit: https://fr.trace.tv/lifestyle/shea-moisture-coeur-dun-bad-buzz-suite-a-pub-controverse/

Thousands of influencers post videos to help maintain Afro hair, even Kim Kardashian has taken lessons to style her children.

Instagram: @kimkardashian
Instagram: @kimkardashian

To avoid damaging your hair, the new fashion is to use wigs like Cardi B; the wigs allow you to change your headstyle easily. Afro hair is very fragile, brushings, colorings, and others are even more harmful than for straight hair.

Instagram: @iamcardib
Instagram: @iamcardib
Instagram: @iamcardib

Even today people are still discriminated because they are too black, for example, recently the singer Aya Nakamura, well known in France and the Netherlands, revealed that she was told that she should whiten her skin to reach wider. We also compared a man to her, the fact that she was dark skinned made people want to destroy her femininity.

Aya Nakamura
Credit: Le Bureau Export
https://www.lebureauexport.fr/en/news/2018/08/the-netherlands-aya-nakamura-is-topping-the-dutch-charts/

Moreover, a new whim arrives on Instagram, indeed influential women tan so much that one would say they are black, it’s called ‘niggerfishing’, would the question arise to live in the skin of women of color, to suffer racism and denigration of their beauty? What do you think about it?

Credit: https://twitter.com/evandrra/status/1060098394801270784

By Tiffani Mochet

When I arrived in Ireland, I was amazed by the beauty techniques of young women. Discolored hair, dark eyebrows, false eyelashes, false nails, but above all a more than tanned skin tone. While walking around the beauty shops, I also noticed many cosmetic products aimed at darkening women’s skin. Tanning is everywhere, on social networks, in magazines, on television, its presence is everywhere.
So I questioned myself where this fashion for fake tanning all year comes from.
In France, I have never seen so many products that tan all year, most of the time in late spring and early summer, they are used to give themselves a healthy glow or to prepare their skin for the sun.

But it is also recommended to consult your doctor if you want to use these types of products. Also for UV cabins, the number of sessions is a maximum of 10 per year. Professionals have a duty to inform their clients of the risks involved in this type of practice. The greatest danger remains skin cancer. Indeed, we all know that the sun’s rays are beneficial for our body, in particular, they fix vitamin D on our bones. But its rays contain UV rays that can be very dangerous for our skin. This is why it is necessary to have sun protection for all types of skin. Its sun lotions will already prevent the risk of sunburn but also the appearance of wrinkles for light skin and brown marks for dark skin. Sun protections do not prevent you from getting a tan but allow you to have a tanned complexion in complete safety by limiting the risks to your skin.
I know that in Ireland the sun is not always out, so its products are a plus for a tanned complexion. But having a tan in the middle of December unless you come back from the Bahamas no one believes it. And I think that this is a difference that I have noticed between France and Ireland, in France, we focus on the natural while in Ireland on the superficial.

Moreover, a new tanning method has arrived on the market, the self-tanner spray offered in tanning salons. This method does not contain UV, but there are other risks. Its components like DHA, dihydroxyacetone, which represents a risk when inhaled during sessions, and when absorbed into the epidermis and dermis of the skin it can have a mutagenic risk and changed the DNA of users. The FDA has banned its application to the face in view of the risks of DHA on the mucous membranes of the human body.

For sunbeds, the World Health Organization tells us that the use of this technique increases the risk of developing skin cancer by 67% and the risk of developing melanoma by 20%.
The UV rays from sunbeds are more violent than the sun in the south of France when it is at its peak.
It is clearly not recommended, or even prohibited, for people with fair skin or freckles to use tanning beds.
If you have ever had skin cancer in your family avoid it too.

Recently in the black community, there has been a movement of self-acceptance, of acceptance of one’s skin color. Unlike in Ireland, many black women and men lighten their skin to have lighter skin. The criteria for beauty are different in different communities, but it is clear that the majority of women are never satisfied with who they really are. So influence from the media or others, who knows? But you have to accept yourself for who you are, the body positive is in fashion so why not the skin positive?