Kenyan top model campaigns against skin lightening cosmetics

AS you leave Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA), you will be confronted by large billboards on which the models advertising products are either white or very light – none is dark-skinned.The mass media seem to be saying that really black women are the opposite of the ideal.Magazines, TV, radio and movies and the rising influence of Western pop culture are fervidly promoting a Eurocentric, blonde-haired, light-eyed and stick-thin standard of beauty.And no one seems more peeved by this emerging trend than Kenya’s top model Ajuma Nasenyana.“It seems that the world is conspiring in preaching that there is something wrong with Kenyan ladies’ kinky hair and dark skin,” says Ajuma, a woman with dark skin, short hair and high cheekbones, complains.On a visit to Kenya, British supermodel Naomi Campbell, who has complained that she is rarely featured on the cover of British Vogue, raised concerns that black models were being sidelined by modelling agencies.“It’s a pity that people don’t appreciate black beauty,” she said.In Africa, many women use various cosmetic products to make themselves more attractive. They straighten their hair because they do not like their natural curls.Skin-bleaching products like Carol Light are now some of the fastest moving in Kenya. Sunday Nation

Leisure

Kenyan top model campaigns against skin lightening cosmetics