If I told you I had a BBL, would you say “you go girl” or would you think I was insecure?
What would you do if you saw a baby picture of me where my skin was 5 times darker? Would you ask how I got lighter? Or would you tell me I was silly to have bleached?
Would I have the same appeal if I wore my hair natural or must my edges be laid to get those Instagram likes?
These are the questions!
There are so many things we deal with and the pressures we face as individuals. One of the many that have stood out to me is keeping up appearances and by this, I really just mean looking the part.
Getting cosmetic surgery done because I no longer like the way my arms look or feeling the need to brighten up my skin to look better. Maybe even buying expensive Brazilian hair purely to keep up with the trends.
These are some of the thoughts that filled my mind when I decided last year to combine my passion and interest in beauty with my content creation skills and put together a mini-documentary titled “LAGOS BEAUTY: HOW FAR WILL YOU GO(#LAGOSBEAUTYHOWFAR)”
#LAGOSBEAUTYHOWFAR is a three-part documentary set to be released on my youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/lolaojtv [1] on the 16h January, 23rd of January and 30th of January, 2020. The documentary explores different aspects of the development of the beauty industry in Nigeria.
Being a topic that I’m very interested in, there were many areas I’d have loved to explore, but I focused this documentary on three main areas; cosmetic surgery, skin bleaching, and the black hair experience.
I felt like it was important for these topics to be explored in this social media age, so, rather than wait for a big media house to pick up my idea, my small team and I decided to shoot it ourselves. Luckily, we were able to reach out to many people from different works of life in an attempt to get various perspectives on these issues.
As we all know there’s been a steady increase in cosmetic surgery all around the world and as I mentioned in a part of the documentary, I was genuinely surprised and maybe even a bit impressed that people are having their surgeries here in Lagos.
While speaking to people, I explored the various reasons why people decide to have cosmetic surgery. I got the perspectives of medical practitioners, people who have had cosmetic surgery and even that of people looking in from the outside.
This documentary also touches on issues of skin bleaching and hairstyling for black women. Talking to some people in the skincare industry, I got various interesting insights alluding to the fact that skin lightening is a primitive act which is still very much indulged in
by many.
My main goal for #LAGOSBEAUTYHOWFAR is to continue the conversation, further sensitize people and get them freely discussing body image and other related issues. It also probes the matter of the impact and influence that social media truly has on our lifestyles.
I’d really like to hear your thoughts on #LAGOSBEAUTYHOWFAR. Please drop your comments and let’s keep the conversation going. You can always find out more from my social media pages; @LolaOJ on Instagram, @Lola_OJ on Twitter, as well as my youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/lolaojtv
See also Mike Ezuronye Undergoes Eye Surgery
