The Hindu Business Line : Light headed!

"28 yrs, veg wkg in Gulf as Mgr seeks fair, homely, b'ful girl"; "Wanted fair educated lady for h'some 26/178 engineer"; "Fair professional women with family value for grad. from Berkeley Univ. No dowry"...

If caste is less of a criterion for finding a life partner in contemporary India, fairness of the skin — mostly the woman's — remains a sure value on the marriage market, sometimes even more prized than professional skills or wealth. This explains why women take so much effort to lighten their complexion.

"Earlier, queens and women from the ruling classes applied pastes made of natural products such as almonds, pistachio, saffron and herbs on their faces, whilst others used whatever they got their hands on: domestic cleaning products, vinegar, tooth paste..." says Arun Singh (name changed), doctor and owner of a skin clinic in Kochi, Kerala. "What is new today is that they purchase chemical bleaching creams produced by local skincare companies and, more recently, cosmetic multinationals."

Indeed, MNCs such as L'Oreal, Revlon, Shiseido, Clinique, and Yves Saint-Laurent are applying "skin science" to help women in the developing world suffering from a complex of being "too dark". In India alone the fairness business represents the lion's share of the domestic skincare industry — estimated at around $300 million, and enjoying a growth rate of 15 per cent per year. Skin bleaching is booming in India, and the American and European companies are ferociously fighting each other and the local Indian beauty industry for their share of this market.

Advertisements... really unfair!

This fratricidal war has induced another phenomenon — the flooding of the media by skin bleaching advertisements. Hindustan Lever Ltd's (HLL) Fair & Lovely advertisements are a case in point. The advertisements, which clearly associate dark skin with romantic and professional failure, and fair skin with success, had to be taken off air after protests by activists and social groups. And what about the harm these bleaching products cause to the skin? Over 10 years, his hospital has seen a significant increase in consultations for skin disorders related to use of such products, says Dr Col. I.S. Parmar, dermatologist at Prakash Hospital, Noida.

Anil Gangoo, President of the Indian Association of Dermatologists, Venereologists and Leprologists (IADVL) in Delhi, witnesses the health hazards caused by these products every day. Some of his clients have encountered unwanted secondary effects or didn't obtain the desired results. "These products are dangerous and what is most worrying is that at least half the young urban girls are using them, influenced by ads promoting the idea that a fair complexion is worthier than a dark one."

Pramila Pandhe, Vice-president of the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA), led a one-year campaign against an HLL advertisement. "The ad showed a father whining because he has a daughter instead of a son, and who is jobless too. Next sequence, she applies a skin whitener, becomes fair and beautiful, and is hired as an airhostess," she says. Feminist organisations say the ad is not only sexist but also dishonest. "If these products worked, 90 per cent of the Indian girls would be white," argues Pramila.

Health hazards

A trend that is all the more alarming because the Indian cosmetic market looks like the Wild West, observes Gangoo. "Nothing is controlled; producers are not compelled to indicate the content of their bleachers on the label. And if they do so, neither the quantity nor the proportion needs to be specified." In fact, many of these `cosmetics', harmless in appearance, contain products deriving from such substances as corticoids, mercury or hydroquinone, which if absorbed in big quantities can prove fatal. Neil Persadsingh, a Jamaican dermatologist and author of Acne in Black Women (1999), says that certain whitening products even contain steroids. Besides, the principle of most creams is eliminating the melanin present in the skin, which does not only give the skin its colour but also protects it from ultra-violet rays, responsible for skin cancer.

IADVL says the current situation is unacceptable, and condemns the lack of a law to regulate sale to whoever wants a bleach... even to a five-year-old. "Actually, these are drugs," says Gangoo, "that are sold as cosmetics, to avoid legal control." His association has tried to draw the government's attention to this issue many times, but in vain.

Despite attractive packaging and spicy slogans, bleaching products can lead to many health hazards, sometimes irreversible. Take for example a few potential consequences listed by several dermatology departments in France, Senegal, Togo and Burkina Faso: diabetes, hypertension, acne, bone problems, hyper hairiness, renal insufficiency, skin cancer, disturbance of the menstrual cycle, premature ageing of the skin, eczema, cardio-vascular and respiratory problems, pimples, mycoses and other skin infections. None of which are mentioned on the label. The creams are absorbed by the skin, and then enter the bloodstream, reaching the organs — thus creating hormonal disorders and other problems, as if you were eating poison.

The irony is that some users have complained that when they stopped applying the cream, their skin became darker than it was before starting the treatment. That's what happened to Sima, a beautiful 25-year-old secretary from Delhi who "had always wished to have a lighter complexion to increase my chances of finding a good husband". A year after she began using a whitening cream, her face started to become multicoloured. When she stopped, her face darkened and she began to get pimples.

Of course, with its billion-plus population, India represents a destination of choice for the whitening industry. But she isn't the only one. In most non-white countries — three-quarters of the planet — skincare companies are making their presence felt. Allen Counter can testify. Professor of neurology and neuro-psychology at Harvard University, he is also an expert on mercury effects. His research led him to surprising findings: by studying mercury poisoning, he discovered that women from regions as different and as far from one another as Mexico, Nigeria, Kenya, Saudi Arabia and Tanzania, were showing similar symptoms of mercury poisoning. After further examinations, he found out about the common practice at the root of their health problem— the use of whitening creams.

Women's Feature Service

Picture by V. Sreenivasa Murthy

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