Saturday July 12, 2025
By Kiin Hassan Fakat, Naima Said Salaah and Haliima Mahomad Asair
Skin-whitening products have for decades been sold in shops and markets in Somalia but some Somalis are now campaigning for natural skin due to the harms of bleaching.
Many Somali beauty influencers in Somalia and the diaspora promote pale skin and skin-lightening products. Photo: Others / Others
“Only foolish women and the night are black.” The combination of ancient Somali sayings like this and modern beauty messaging on social media is leading to what local dermatologists say is an alarming rise in the number of women in Somalia turning to dangerous skin-bleaching creams to lighten their complexions.
There are thousands of Somali beauty influencers in Somalia and the diaspora, some of them promoting pale skin and skin-lightening, including the products that claim to turn dark skin white.
Skin-whitening products have been sold in shops and markets across the country for decades but experts say that online sales of such products by beauty influencers are increasing their appeal among young women, including teenagers.
In a 2022 survey of women in the capital Mogadishu found that 75.6 per cent of those interviewed used skin-whitening products, which it said is “significantly higher than continental and global rates”.
Some influencers make and sell their own creams. Despite lacking qualifications in chemistry, dermatology or beauty, they add a variety of bleaching agents and other chemicals into creams, claiming they will have magical effects.
They post images of themselves looking ghostly white, lips painted blood red. The most popular ones have more than one million followers, with most of their posts receiving tens of thousands of likes.
Some influencers include their phone numbers on their social media profiles so people can call and order the creams. Others have shops and pin their locations so customers know where to find them.
Some of the influencers attempt to convince their followers that lighter skin is better that dark skin, sometimes using distorted photos and videos.
The hazards
“I make three different face creams as each one has a different effect,” one of the influencers told her unsuspecting followers during an online question-and-answer session which has been viewed nearly 360,000 times. Her video shows stacks of cardboard boxes filled with the different whitening creams she produces.
One of her most popular videos which shows her putting different creams on her pale face has been viewed 1.3 million times.
The potential hazards of skin-bleaching are never mentioned by the influencers.
Dermatologist Dr Mohamed Mude, founder of Bidhaan Beauty and Health Centre in Mogadishu, says about 60 per cent of his patients have skin irritation, redness and inflammation as a result of using creams yet few understand the risks involved.
“Many skin bleaching products contain harsh chemicals like hydroquinone and mercury which can lead to irritation and allergic reactions as well as long-term damage including skin-thinning and increased sensitivity to sunlight,” he says.
Exposure to mercury can also lead to kidney damage, visual, speech and auditory impairment, lack of coordination, tremors and neuromuscular changes. It can also be passed on to babies via breastmilk.
Several African countries including South Africa, Kenya, Ivory Coast and Ghana have banned skin whitening products but there are no regulations in Somalia. Products are widely available in shops and markets across the country. Anybody can buy them, no matter their age.
From bleaching fan to campaigner against it
Iman Osman runs the Maariin Skincare Centre in Mogadishu where she sells beauty products. She is trying to persuade women to use more natural, safer products both on social media and by speaking to the customers in her shop.
“Many Somalis are simply unaware of the risks of using bleaching creams,” she says. “Others know they are dangerous but insist on using them because they prioritise light skin and safer creams can be more expensive.”
“There needs to be a big campaign to inform people of the dangers of skin bleaching products,” she says. “It needs to be run by women.”
Some Somalis have extolled pale skin for centuries, with light-skinned women held up as the epitome of beauty.
“Everyone wants to have lighter skin because our society often judges people based on skin tone,” says Hodan Dahir Maxamad in the central city of Jowhar.
There are, however, some signs of hope, especially from those who have given up trying to make their skin paler.
“I bleached my skin for five years,” says Warsan.*
“I stopped after I started to develop small scars on my skin and was no longer able to tolerate sunlight. Now I tell my relatives and friends that healthy skin is better than pale skin.”
‘Black is beautiful’
Twenty-seven-year-old journalist Aisha started using skin-whitening creams when she was a teenager.
“My skin was black until I started using bleaching products,” she said. “After three years my skin became sensitive to the sunlight but I kept on with the creams for more than a decade.”
It was only after Aisha was hospitalised that she stopped bleaching her skin.
“One day I fell down the stairs at work,” she said. “The wound on my leg would not heal. I went to two hospitals and the doctors said my skin could not be stitched because the whitening products had made it so thin. They advised me to stop bleaching and I heeded their advice.”
Warsan and Aisha are not alone. Other Somali women have decided to stop bleaching their skin, although they do not want to speak about it in public.
Most of those interviewed said they stopped using the creams after learning how damaging they can be to the skin and general health. Others say they now know that black is beautiful and that it is better to celebrate the skin they have than to destroy it in the hope of becoming white.
* Warsan is not her real name.
The writers, Kiin Hassan Fakat, Naima Said Salaah and Haliima Mahomad Asair, are reporters with Bilan, Somalia’s first all-women media team, under Dalsan Media Group, Mogadishu.