The new product’s makers say it “brightens, lightens without bleaching skin out” and that it “leaves the complexion illuminated”.
US model Blac Chyna is facing backlash for putting her name to a skin-lightening cream which promises to give skin a “brightening glow” while users “retain luminosity”.
The 30-year-old, who was notably in relationships with TV personality Rob Kardashian and rapper Tyga previously, teamed up with the brand Whitenicious to release the product, which goes for $250 (£196) a tub.
According to promotional material for the Whitenicious x Blac Chyna Collection, it “brightens, lightens without bleaching skin out”.
It also “improves the appearance of dull, discoloured skin, visibly stamping out unevenness to leave the complexion illuminated” with users able to see a “reduction in the visibility and intensity of age spots, lightening their appearance”.
The firm behind the product was founded by Cameroonian singer Dencia and has been at the centre of controversy since in launched four years ago.
On Twitter, she hit back at critics claiming the product contained harmful ingredients, saying her range was FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and NAFDAC (National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control) approved.
Ahead of the product’s launch event in Nigeria on Sunday, Dencia wrote: “It’s a face cream, face cream 100g jar kindly read about it, why do u all seat (sic) & mislead people?
“Why can’t black folks be honest? What has it got to do with colorism?”
Whitenicious says its products are meant to be used for conditions such as hyperpigmentation, where people develop dark spots on their skin.
Actress and dancer Kelechi Okafor is among those to criticise the new product online, which she called “damaging”.
She said the demand for skin-lightening products were “inextricably linked to colonisation and internalised inferiority complexes”.
She added: “If white supremacist patriarchal ideologies weren’t so successful we wouldn’t have the constant aspiration to be as closely linked aesthetically to whiteness.”
Credit: Skynews
