Skin Lighteners, Black Consumers and Jewish Entrepreneurs in South Africa

Thomas, Lynn M.

doi:10.1093/hwj/dbr017

Cited by 37 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…In the late 1960s, 60% of urban African women reported using skin lightener formulations, making these formulations the fourth most commonly used household product (after soap, tea and tinned milk). 5 Further evidence of these practices is derived from local vernaculars -in Mali and Senegal, the terms 'caco' and 'xeesal' are used to describe the practice 6 , and in Ghana, the term 'nensoebenis' describes ochronosis (the hyperpigmentation and damage to the skin as a result of chronic skin lightener use) 7 . In South Africa, in various ethnic languages related to indigenous tribes, the practice is described as 'ukutsheyisa' (isiXhosa for 'to chase beauty') and 'ukucreamer' (isiZulu for 'applying creams on the skin').…”

Section: Sub-saharan Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

phenomenon of skin lightening: Is it right to be light?

Davids¹,

Wyk²,

Khumalo³

et al. 2016

S. Afr. J. Sci.

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Chemicals capable of lightening the skin – variously known as skin-bleaching, skin-lightening, depigmenting, skin-evening and skin-brightening agents – are among the most commonly used skin preparations in the world. Globally, Africa reportedly exhibits a high prevalence of skin lightener use. In this review, we provide both clinical and social perspectives on skin lightener use in Africa, with particular emphasis on South Africa. We narratively explore the timeline associated with skin lightener use in South Africa and attempt to interweave the social rhetoric of this specific paradigm. Despite the risks associated with exposing the skin to known constituents of these formulations, such as hydroquinone and mercury, chronic use continues. In spite of legislation banning hydroquinone and mercury in cosmetics in South Africa, these ingredients are present in widely available products. We recommend better implementation of policies and greater ethical responsibility of multinational cosmetic companies in addition to the initiation of a system of random product testing and penalties that could improve industry compliance.

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Section: Sub-saharan Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

phenomenon of skin lightening: Is it right to be light?

Davids¹,

Wyk²,

Khumalo³

et al. 2016

S. Afr. J. Sci.

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“…In 1990, South African regulation prohibited the use of hydroquinone in cosmetics. Moreover, South Africa became the first – and is still the only – country in the world that prohibits advertisement of lighteners and adverts containing words such as ‘bleach’, ‘lighten’ or ‘whiten’ …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, South Africa became the firstand is still the onlycountry in the world that prohibits advertisement of lighteners and adverts containing words such as 'bleach', 'lighten' or 'whiten'. 17,18 In a study carried out in South Africa in early 1980s, Findlay alluded to the notion that many black people dislike skin that has a dull, drab, dusty or scaly surface, and prefer brightness. 19 A recent paper investigating the contents of the top 10 bestselling skin lightening creams on the market in Durban, South Africa, showed that nearly half of the analysed products contained mercury as an active ingredient (banned for use in cosmetics), although this was neither declared on the ingredient listing nor the packaging label.…”

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confidence: 99%

Skin lightening practices: an epidemiological study of South African women of African and Indian ancestries

et al. 2015

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SummaryBackground Cutaneous adverse sequelae of skin lightening creams present with myriad skin complications and affect dermatology practice, particularly in subSaharan Africa where such products are widely used, with a prevalence of 25-67%. Objectives To examine the skin lightening practices of both African and Indian women living in South Africa. Methods A cross-sectional survey was undertaken in the general outpatient departments of two regional university hospitals in Durban, South Africa. All consenting African and Indian women aged 18-70 years were recruited and asked to complete a questionnaire. Results Six hundred women completed the questionnaire, of whom 32Á7% reported using skin lightening products. The main reasons cited were treatment of skin problems (66Á7%) and skin lightening (33Á3%). Products were purchased from a variety of sources. Twenty-five percent reported using sunscreen. Conclusions The use of skin lightening cosmetics is common among darkly pigmented South African women, including those of both African and Indian ancestries. Despite more than 20 years of governmental regulations aimed at prohibiting both the sale of cosmetics containing mercury, hydroquinone and corticosteroids, and the advertising of any kind of skin lightener, they are far from having disappeared. The main motivations for using these products are the desire to treat skin disorders and to achieve a lighter skin colour. Television and magazine advertisements seem to influence womens' choice of these products and, thus, would be efficient channels for raising public awareness about the dangers of using uncontrolled skin lighteners.

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“…Often assumed to be trivial and quotidian, and thus irrelevant, feminist work has shown these to be significant locales through which cross‐scalar, political‐economic processes are worked out. In this vein, a growing body of feminist scholars are demonstrating how beauty norms and institutions reflect and rework political‐economic and socio‐cultural relations in places as diverse as Iraq, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Ghana, India and South Africa (Enloe ; Fluri ; Langevang and Gough ; Oza ; Thomas ).…”

Section: Intimate and Emotional Nationalismsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… That is not to deny the trade's dominance by wealthy nations like the USA and France, nor the racialisation of beauty norms in terms of whiteness (Tanita ; Thomas ). However, understanding cosmopolitanism narrowly as a set of elite values, aesthetics and politics ignores the complex ways it is taken up, reworked and embodied in seemingly peripheral places. …”

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confidence: 99%

Styling the nation: fear and desire in the South Sudanese beauty trade

Faria

2013

Trans Inst British Geog

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Feminist scholarship on emotion and the ‘global intimate’ offers innovative ways to rethink nationalism as embodied, affective and lived in the everyday. This approach also brings into focus the significance of the transnational: flows of commodities, bodies and ideas that cross state boundaries and are taken up, reworked, celebrated and worried over as part of nation‐making. I approach nationalism here in this way, centring the beauty salon industry in the newly independent Republic of South Sudan. Beauty salons are owned, staffed and supplied by inherently transnational subjects: migrant workers and entrepreneurs as well as members of the returning diaspora. They are also stocked with transnational material objects: hair weaves, cosmetics and beauty technologies from across Africa, the Middle East, Europe and the USA. The fashioning of the nation through these salons is thus cosmopolitan in style: orientated outward, embracing the modern and privileging a sense of worldliness and affinity with distant people and places. However, this styling of nationalism is ambivalent and contested. Clients clamour for new fashions, the latest technologies in hair and beauty, and the know‐how brought by migrant ‘saloonists’, as they are referred to in the region. Yet this desire interweaves with a growing panic around the foreign: foreign styles, migrants, capital and commodities. Through this case study I argue that nation‐making in South Sudan is fundamentally transnational – constructed not in isolation from, but explicitly through, cosmopolitanism and the modern exterior. In connection I argue that nationalism is emotional – marked at once by contradictory feelings of fear and desire that require, and indeed depend on, a foreign other. In this way I demonstrate how quotidian spaces and subjects, transnational flows of bodies, commodities and styles, and analyses of emotion can all be richly explored to better understand and theorise the operations of nationalism.

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Skin Lighteners, Black Consumers and Jewish Entrepreneurs in South Africa

Cited by 37 publications

References 24 publications

phenomenon of skin lightening: Is it right to be light?

phenomenon of skin lightening: Is it right to be light?

Skin lightening practices: an epidemiological study of South African women of African and Indian ancestries

Styling the nation: fear and desire in the South Sudanese beauty trade

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