Abstract:
The pursuit of appearance, and beauty became a dominant attribute of human
society at the turn of the century. Skin lightening soaps and creams, high-heeled shoes
and tight clothing, have become the central point of twenty-first-century fashion. The
purpose of the study was to investigate the usage of lightening products by the college
students, focusing on Kushinga Phikelela Polytechnic students. The research design
used was the descriptive research with a population of six hundred students. The
sample of the study was made up of three hundred students. A close ended
questionnaire which consisted of forty-eight questions was used as the instrument in
data collection. The questionnaire was given to the Solusi University experts for face
validity. The pilot study was carried out on 50 students from Harare Polytechnic. The
reliability of the questionnaire was determined using the Cronbach’s Alpha reliability
method and the coefficient was 0.793 which meant that the instrument was reliable
and the researcher went on to the final study. The data for the final study, however,
was collected from three hundred students from Kushinga Phikelela Polytechnic. This
data was coded and analysed using the Software Package for Social Sciences (SPSS)
version twenty-one. The study revealed that the lightening creams were being
moderately used by the college students, the health problems caused by using
lightening products were being moderately faced, the students were mostly consulting
their friends and keeping to themselves whenever they faced health problems from the
use of lightening products and that the usage of lightening products was moderately
beneficial to the respondents. Based on these findings, recommendations were made.
