I Almost Lost Myself To A Bleaching Cream

The blistering January sun in Kampala coupled with the ostensibly fierier air had painted my usually coffee brown skin the deeper shade of mahogany. This was easily visible after chilling with friends at the local outdoor pool and the horror of walking into Valentine’s with this darkness was not on my plans. I took a detour to a local beauty shop in my neighborhood. “I’ll have my dream cream,” I told the Mose, the shopkeeper. He hands me two bottles of what I called my “dream cream” – a skin lightening cream that unknown to me had elements of hydroquinone, a chemical ingredient that had been banned due to high amounts of mercury. How he attained them, I don’t know and I never cared to ask about the ingredients either. I do know he seemed to have a never-ending supply and that was all I needed.

The posters of the cream claimed that it contained ‘traditional herbal’ ingredients and would produce lasting changes in lightening and toning the skin. Before and after pictures showed women with dark complexions metamorphose into beauties with fair skin – my exact hopes for the fourteenth of the next month. Within the first ten days of usage, my skin got visibly whiter and brighter, and I was very happy. I began buying more of the cream and increased my usage to several times a day.

I rubbed the cream three times a day on to my face and body. I remember the harsh, metallic scent that reminded me of ammonia and made me smell like a chemical lab. I remember the dense, sticky texture that took forever to rub into my skin. I remember waiting, motionless, for 10 minutes to let it dry. Later, it made my skin sensitive to sunlight and I had to wear a strong SPF cream. It left a faint purplish coating on my skin, which was already taking on a dull, greyish hue –I ran through bottles of product like my life depended on it; That’s when my troubles started.

My skin started to feel irritated and itchy, sensitive to sunlight, and papery to the touch. Soon, my face erupted in acne. Spidery red veins became visible on my cheeks as clusters of dilated capillaries began showing through my hands and feet. Discoloured blotches also appeared on my face, a condition known medically as melasma. I developed an allergic reaction to the cream that turned out not to contain herbal extracts but ammoniated mercury; a highly toxic chemical once used in disinfectants.

I sought medical treatment, but some of the damage to my skin was really bad. Once I had been an outgoing girl who loved dolling myself up, but now I had become unassuming and withdrawn. I wore my hair in bangs and rarely went outdoors without wearing oversized sunglasses to try to hide my skin condition. I suffered a lot emotionally and I couldn’t really look in the mirror and see myself.

I know my case is hardly unique because just as many women before me, my toxic love affair with skin lighteners began when I lost my self-confidence. I would watch all the boys fawn over lighter-skinned or mixed-race girls, then I would come home and watch mixed-race models pursued by dark-skinned rappers in MTV Base rap videos. So my worth as a woman meant nothing as long as I had a darker pigment. After about 18 months of bleaching, I had to stop. My natural pigment slowly returned, giving me physical relief but also leaving me with grief – I was upset that I had to let go of achieving the skin tone I dreamt of.

Looking back, I feel a deep sense of pain and regret. I wish I could tell teenage Babra that she was blessed with beautiful skin, and not to try to change it. She is worthy and valued as a darker-skinned woman.

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