In 2014, Lupita Nyong’o was named People Magazine’s most beautiful person of the year. In the picture, her chocolate skin was glowing and her hair was virgin and short.
Let us be honest with ourselves. What defines beauty? Have you noticed how dark-skinned women are described as black beauties yet light-skinned people are just called cute? Or that if you wear your hair natural people stumble on their words as they complement it?
Desperate times
The search for beauty has driven women to great lengths. Agnes Kigozi, a teacher, recalls a time when she was in secondary school in the early 80s. “There was no facial powder so before going for walks, I smeared my face with ash.”
Working the ash into her skin with her fingers, she complimented it with a dab of cooking oil on her lips. “When my mother was using the charcoal iron, I would put Shanti in my hair and iron it,” she adds. “Of course, I burnt myself a few times.”
Times have changed and as the English say, cometh the hour, cometh the man. Just when many were despairing, Chinese products crept onto the market and took care of everything, from our kinky hair to stained toenails.
In October 2014, the BBC online magazine carried an article about Ugandan women being deceived into buying goat hair in China. This goat hair is imported into the country and sold as Brazilian hair extensions.
Back in the day
There was a time when beauty was natural and unashamedly appreciated for what it was. Annette Nandujja, an entertainer, says, “even though we used creams and lotions, it was more about being natural. We did not have the choice of wearing weaves or lightening our skins.”
Her age group was not obsessed with perfection. If only one part of your body was beautiful, you thanked God that at least, there was something to attract a man. “No one is perfect. Some have beautiful legs while others have beautiful eyes, or lips or behinds.”
In the 1960s, just after the exhilarating experience of independence, the micro mini made its debut in Kampala and if you did not have long legs, you were not beautiful.
Sarah Agilong, a retired banker of 69, smiles naughtily as she looks at a picture of herself, in which her skirt is so short you are given the impression she is wearing nothing below her polo neck blouse. Her brown thighs and long legs are all you see.
“We had fun with clothes,” she says. “Because of my legs, people would turn and look whenever I passed. My husband first admired my legs before he got to know me.”
Products used
In every culture, youthfulness means beauty, but cleanliness is also important.
“Whether one was dark or light skinned, the natural state of their skin mattered,” says Jane Nakubulwa, a 65-year-old teacher. “Of course, older women bleached their skins with creams from Zaire (DRC) that really aged them. It was a common habit in Kampala’s slums.”
Nakubulwa adds that while she used bar soap on her body, RICO soap was preserved for her face. “It was a good soap but I have looked for it in shops and cannot find it nowadays. I also used Lanolin lotion because it had a good scent.”
On the other hand, Nandujja used Clear Smooth, which cleared pimples without bleaching the skin.
Enter cosmetic surgery
So what defines beauty? Uganda is not Brazil, but cosmetic surgery is now being done in Kampala. The prices are high, but only just. At shs500,000 you can get those ugly scars that have been a sore point removed by laser treatments.
Quest continues
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