In a long post on Twitter, she opened up about how a lot many white girls — including herself — grew up wishing they had a dusky complexion, for which they went to any length.

Shaniera urged the brown-skinned women to embrace their natural skin shade and called them the “envy of half the women” of the planet.

“What I’m trying to say is Don’t try and change who you are, be happy underneath your skin, your beauty is interpreted by you, you are beautiful no matter what your skin colour is!!

“And just remember, to all the girls with brown skin who want white, you are the envy of half the women on this planet, women and girls all over the world that go to

any extremes to have your colour skin, so that’s got to be something worth enjoying,” she said in her message.

“We would go to any length to change the colour of white to brown because that what what was instilled in our minds, that brown was more beautiful,” she wrote.

Shaniera said the girls went to great lengths to acquire a darker shade by rubbing “harmful oil” on face, laying all day out in the harsh sun and even in a solarium with fake sunlight machine.

“We would also spend hours lying in a solarium which is fake sunlight machine risking skin cancers, skin disease, spots and adding years to our faces causing wrinkles and irreversible damage.

“And when the sun wasn’t available we would also rub toxic stains and dyes in to our skin everyday to give our skin a 3-5 shades darker sun kissed brown look,” she continued, adding that it would leave their skin “patchy, streaky and scaley”.