Nikki Blog

Note: This article was inspired by http://streetsmartsukhumvit.multiply.com/.  Nikki would like to express her deepest apology for not citing the source sooner. 

Thailand is still awash with cosmetic companies offering whitening products. The lastest racism- in-disguise is the launch of POND’s flawless white, which claims to give consumer a whitening skin within 7 days after first try. The adverstising series called “7 Days to Love” were shown on the BTS and TV, staring a “low-so” woman winning back her ex whom were about to tie the knot to a “hi-so” lady, after using POND’s whitening product. Does POND really thinks that consumers are that naive to believe whitening the skin could bring back their ex? 

I picked up a few fashion magazine this morning and saw the first few pages plastered with whitening creams ads or pictures of models with fair skin. And yes, a few of them were displaying “POND’s visible Lightening Daily Lotion, POND’s  Deep whitening Facial Foam, POND’s visible lightening day cream, POND’s Anti-Spot Intensifies Whitening Serum, POND’s Precision Lighening Spot Eraser, and last, wait for it, POND’s Light infusing Under-Eye Cream.”  Is it me, or has the world suddenly seems rather crowded with whitening offered?

Since when did we become so preoccupied with fair skin, isn’t it unnecessary and demeaning? Is it some form of self-loathing so much that people think they will be deemed more attractive if they have a lighter shade, or different color? It sounds like a clear statement about how we perceive our racial image or class image. Is it racism? Or are we merely a victim of beauty companies cashing in on society’s desire for white skin?

In Thailand, tanned skin has connoted labor, work in the fields and therefore lower-class. Any gorgeous chocolate brown skin ladies walking alongside a western guy often get the “looks”. This is of course wrong, and terribly unfair.

The skin-lightening phenomenon has spread from women to men, adults to youngsters, and Bangkok down to Pattaya, well okay, the outskirts of Pattaya to be precise. Everyone wants more pale skin! In Thailand, where most women are already darn beautiful, it is strange to see a subtlety in variations of brownness overriding whether a woman is good looking. But who is to blame if the local Thai men desire women with whiter complexions or more pathetically of all, women from all socio-economic backgrounds who go to unbelievable lengths to become just a little more white? Having said that we are after white skin as we said it in Thai (pheu kao or white skin), this is not strictly true, since our skin is actually more yellow than white. And we would look rather strange if we are as white as a tofu.

The easiest scapegoat to blame is usually the media and beauty product companies of brainwashing consumers or asserting the idea of beautiful whiter skins on to us. I have talked to executives in big corporations, which sell their products at extortionate prices, who had admitted that their products have as little effect as comparable products that cost 20 times less. In fact, many products actually hasten skin-ageing because they artificially, rather than naturally replenish the skin’s natural resources. Women’s magazines are also financed by the beauty industry and most of the articles are in fact written with the aim of either promoting certain products or brands that keep the profits pouring in.

In fact, the skin-lightening industry has been put under scrutiny in many countries, including India, where people campaigned against an advertisement in which a dark-skinned girl uses whitening cream to make her father happy because she got a well-paid job as a flight attendant. The issue with this sort of advertisement is that it ignorantly equates light skin with social acceptance and sexual attractiveness.

We also see a similar message in Thai advertisements. Watch Thai TV today, and one would think that there are no dark-skinned women in Thailand. Remember how many times you have seen an advert about men not noticing dark skin women, but once she became fair, it was love at first sight. Being fair will make you beautiful, successful and desirable. It is a powerful lure. A beautiful face or a smart girl will not be able to the get the gaze from a man unless her skin was fair! The issue of obtaining fairer skin has also affected men as the cosmetic companies have now targeted metrosexual or image-conscious guys. A man will not look as smart nor as successful as a guy in the next office cubicle unless his skin was fair!

I would not be surprised if the next time I turn on the radio that I hear an advertising jingle such as “truly white skin…la la…true love”. Thai movies are no exception; baddies have dark skin, while heroes tend to be fair.

We are all deeply guilty of skin racism I fear, not a single person I spoke to say they have no preference with skin color or race when it comes to a person they would want to date. I know of many cases where a Thai parent would rather their children marries a white person than a dark person. And so the deep cultural prejudice against different shade of class continues.

Good news is that these days, I started to see a radical change elsewhere in Asia, where bronzed skin means beach vacation, and in big cities, means a session at one of increasingly popular tanning salons. It is a positive change, and I can’t wait until it reaches Thailand. China now has so many tanning salons just as we have seen fitness clubs mushrooming everywhere in Bangkok. Having tan skin can now be seen as glamorous and healthy, as has been openly displayed on Hong Kong actor Louis Koo. I can really see this trend catching on in Thailand, perhaps in the next few years as we become more metropolitan. What will we think then of all the money we spent today on whitening products?

The skin color fashion is certainly rotating globally. The growing trend toward darker complexions in China is happening while consumers in the West are rediscovering what many Asian say is the beauty of whiter skin. Cosmetic companies in the West are now competing to introduce skin “brighteners” - like teeth “whiteners”, creams and serum that have long been popular in Asia. Last year, Shiseido America, a unit of Japan’s Shiseido Co., launched White Lucent, in the U.S., which previously did well in Asia.

So ladies (and gentlemen), throw away your whitening tubes and pots, and just enjoy who you are by spending money on more worthwhile subjects. And you might just be the trendiest person when the tanned wave hit Thailand next year.

Color Fact Box

• Skin tone is determined by the amount and type of the pigment melanin in the skin.
• Dark skin prevents UV-A radiation from destroying the essential B vitamin folate.
• Folate is needed for synthesis of DNA in dividing cells.
• But too dark skin can lead to a vitamin D deficiency.
• Vitamin D is necessary for calcium absorption and bone growth.