Ajai-Lycett: It’s disheartening for celebrities to bleach their skins

Taiwo Ajai-Lycett, the Nigerian actress, has advised celebrities to desist from bleaching their skins in a bid to present themselves as beautiful.

According to NAN, the movie star spoke at the maiden edition of the Creative Designers Guild of Nigeria (CDGN) culture and entertainment exhibition in Lagos on Friday.

The actress said it is disheartening to see celebrities, who should be role models, openly endorsing bleaching creams.

“It is disheartening to observe that celebrities and women who should be role models to the youths spend hugely to bleach their skin because they do not see the beauty in being Africans,” she said.

Ajai-Lycett enjoined celebrities to take pride in being an African. She also called on filmmakers to stop the habit of looking for light-skinned ladies to feature in their movies.

“As celebrities and women, we need to respect, love and be proud of who we are, starting from the externals, a lot of us don’t want to be dark, we don’t like the colour of our skin, that is what I call low self-esteem,” she added.

“Our responsibility as women is to represent our race, we are raising children and when they see that we are not happy with our skin and hair, then, you have those children believe that to bleach their skin and wear wigs will beautify them more.

“And what breaks my heart most is that celebrities are found in that habit of promoting skin bleaching, wearing wigs and they go as far as selling it to the public, this is bad and I advise that they desist from that bad habit.

“If we accept to maintain our natural skin and hair, we will be creative with them to improve our economy as a nation because there is a huge business in it for us but we are unconscious of it.

“We do not need to imitate the western world, I advise that we remain black, bold, and beautiful.”