I review beauty products and often get emails from people saying, “Oh, Dimma, can you please recommend something to make my skin glow?” Or, “Dimma, can you recommend something to make my skin fresh?” Or, “Dimma, can you recommend something to make my skin clean?”

Glow, fresh, clean: these are words that people use when they want someone to recommend bleaching products to them.

In all honesty, up until recently – really recently – skin bleaching was considered to be normal in Nigeria. Normal. I grew up around aunties that bleached; a lot of us grew up around extended family members that did.

It’s this whole thing of them wanting to look more beautiful – wanting to look, I guess, the way they feel men want women to look, because a lot of Nigerian men tend to prefer light-skinned women. Growing up, someone who was light-skinned was automatically considered better looking.

But then again, I feel like a lot of people were also consuming bleaching products not necessarily because they wanted to bleach, but out of ignorance. Black people are prone to hyperpigmentation. We’re out in the sun, it makes our spots darker. It leads to dark patches. If you’re trying to fix it, that’s not necessarily a bad thing – but for a long time, we did not have lot of healthy, safe options for tackling such minor issues.

You go to the market and the only things people are shoving at you have hydroquinone and steroids, and nothing with plant-based ingredients or harmless active ingredients. So you buy products, and it bleaches you.

quotemark Growing up, someone who was light-skinned was automatically considered better looking

My mom had seven children, and I’m a lot darker in complexion than my sisters. When I was a child I would hear adults say, “Well, why did you come out dark-skinned? You should have been light like your mom or your sister. Why did you take after your dad?” My mom was very, very quick to not turn it into a big theme. She always made a conscious decision to come and tell you personally to not mind that person. But for a lot of people, that’s not the case.

It’s that type of talk that leads to bleaching. It’s that type of talk that dictates the way that some banks hire people, or would hire people for certain positions because, for example, in marketing, you engage and interact with customers.

Fortunately, the newer skin-care campaigns I see now try to be inclusive. You now see billboards with very dark-skinned women. So if companies are trying to do a campaign that shows that it works for everybody, then they have a good range of people.