‘Big Wahala’ For Juliet Ibrahim, Diamond Appiah & Other Ghanaian Celebrities Over Bleaching Cream Ban in Ghana

A few weeks ago, I went for my own ‘friend’ actress Juliet Ibrahim’s head for the fact that she was proudly advertising for a bleaching cream-Carotone as their poster girl in Ghana.

In the said article, I mentioned that “You wouldn’t catch anyone selling a cream with the words ‘Skin Bleaching’ anymore and this is because, we’ve aggressively tainted this phrase, killing the business around those two words.

However, the desperate and shrewd manufactures have adopted various industry synonymous and as such, today’s bleaching creams are inconspicuously called ‘Skin Whitening’, ‘Skin Brightening’, ‘Skin Toning’, ‘Skin Lightening’ ‘Skin Polishing’ and sometimes ‘Skin Flourishing.’

It’s a smart disguise but mostly, the ingredients remain the same and commonly found in these creams is; hydroquinone. “In human medicine, hydroquinone is used as a topical application in skin whitening to reduce the color of skin. This use is banned in some countries, including the member states of the European Union under Directive 76/768/EEC:1976.”

This week, I was met with deep smiles when I read that Ghana’s Food and Drugs Authority has finally seen the light—the government body has announced that, all creams with the common bleaching ingredient- hydroquinone will be banned in Ghana from August 2016.

Of course this means, those ‘perpetual bleachers’ will have to hoard as many of these bleaching creams as they can—and even that, these creams will become illegal to have in your possession when this law comes into force. Let’s just hope it happens as announced.

Beyond the bleaching inconvenience this move will cause for those who find light skin more ‘palatable’ compared to their natural skin tone in our part of the world, the ban will hurt the pockets of so many Ghanaian celebrities—including actress Juliet Ibrahim and Diamond Appiah. The latter even has her own brand of bleaching cream.

Since my Juliet Ibrahim and Carotone article, I’ve had behind the scene conversations with the actress and even though I did not push for how much she was paid for what seems like a poor business judgment, she definitely must have been paid a lot. Meaning, a ban on the sale of Carotone in Ghana will be a big pocket hit— that’s unfortunate for Juliet Ibrahim but fortunate for the bleaching crusaders such as actress-Ama K. Abebrese whose campaign seems to be winning.

It’s exciting to know that Ghana is at least considering all the necessary avenues to keep in check the increasing bleaching of a large portion of its population—made attractive by certain on-screen personalities.

Banning bleaching creams is a good start but surely, a lot of things are illegal in Ghana which you can find on the streets without a hustle—therefore, it’s the enforcement of the ban which would bring the needed result.

Also, it shouldn’t take a committee of intelligent old Ghanaians to realize that, the first step to making bleaching unattractive to the Ghanaian mind is to ban the various celebrities advertising for such creams—or ensuring that the obviously bleached celebrities do not grace our screens each day and night. People want what they see and if you have a dozen of bleached ‘butt’ individuals making regular appearances on TV, you are guaranteed a following; people would want to look ‘beautiful’ like them.

Shockingly, most of the manufactures of these ‘everyday creams’ which are disguised bleaching products are compelled to boldly state on the containers the presence of hydroquinone and that has not stopped anyone from buying them and it hasn’t stopped the money-chasing celebrities from endorsing them either.

So leaving the ball in the court of the consumers and endorsers has failed—therefore, it’s time and right that the government of Ghana is taking the bold step to do what other countries with bleaching problems such as Ivory Coast are already doing.

This will hurt the pockets of the many bleaching cream companies operating in Ghana and some of our top Ghanaian celebrities but it’s good for us as a society…

Enough of that unique smell—and beyond that, the health risk can’t be played down any longer.