Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest one of all? Snow White? Really?
Ok, here is a confession, I love to look at fashion magazines. It is a guilty pleasure. And, what with all of the travel coming to Singapore and planning the move, I have had more than the usual opportunity to indulge in the last year. Since western magazines are ridiculously expensive here ($18 for Vogue!), I have recently taken the opportunity to check out some local magazines. While the overall themes are pretty similar, there are some striking differences in the local flavor of unattainable beauty and style.
In the U.S. in the last decade or so, the fashion and beauty industries have been patting themselves on the back for the emergence of a more diverse beauty ideal, evidenced by some of the beautiful women of color who are now shilling for big cosmetic companies and appearing on the covers of magazines.
I had imagined that moving to Southeast Asia, to a country that has existed as a multi-cultural society since at least the 19th Century -- it is hard to argue that Sir Stamford Raffles and his colleagues could have made much headway without the Malay, Chinese, Arab and Indian merchants and business men who settled here -- these folks would at least have the whole multicultural ideal of beauty thing down cold.
I may have been naive.
I won’t get into the underlying social issues relating to skin color in this country, because frankly, I don’t completely understand them myself yet. What I can say, though, is that white skin is big business here, and the message is: the whiter the better. Magazines, billboards, cosmetic counters, and drugstore shelves are filled with products promising “ultimate whitening,” “extra whitening,” “sparkling white,” “increased fairness,” and, these aren’t just Asian brands. Almost all of the major western skincare lines, whether sold in drugstores or department stores, have a “whitening” product line for sale here. I am trying to imagine the response in the U.S. to a media blitz promoting a product promising “white perfect, transparent rosy whitening.” It isn’t pretty. And, while the local fashion magazines do feature Asian women predominantly, these women are generally those with remarkably pale complexions.
However, I suppose that in a “best of two evils” analysis, there is a positive side to this “fairness” frenzy. People of all shades take care of their skin here. Women wear hats and carry metallic lined umbrellas to keep the sun off their skin. Sidewalks are shaded by large awnings and umbrellas are plentiful at pools and beaches. I have even seen road workers setting up large umbrellas to protect them from the sun. And sunscreen is a given, with SPFs of 50 plus being the norm. It appears that anything less than an SPF of 20 or so isn’t even always marked on the label of some lotion bottles, they are just labelled as “whitening” or containing “UVA/UVB protective filters.” I don’t know what the country’s skin cancer rates are, but there are a lot of beautiful women (and men) walking around this town with remarkably beautiful skin. Even the elderly ladies doing Tai Chi in the mornings at the Botanic Gardens have smooth, firm skin.
Let’s face it, Coco Chanel didn’t do western women any favors back in the 1920s when she came back from her holiday in the South of France with a tan. We pale, freckled types might all have been better off health-wise if the Victorian preference for pale skin had prevailed.
So, all deeper issues aside (and as a woman who admittedly hit the baby oil bottle too hard and too often as a teen in Colorado), I was game to see if I could purchase a little redemption in a bottle.
A few weeks into our stay here, I went to our local Watson’s Pharmacy to see what I could find. Stumped by the sheer number of whitening products (I was also hoping for a “reduction of dark spots,” the remnants of old sun damage), I asked the advice of one of the sales women. She helped me to select a “whitening essence” to use under my sunscreen / moisturizer, and a “whitening mask” to use a couple of times a week. We’ll see how it goes.
“So what else do you need?” she asked, giving me the once over as we moved toward the register. “How about slimming?”
Slimming??!!?!? I looked toward the row of shelves she was indicating and saw an array of supplements and products that rivaled the skin whiteners in sheer numbers. I assured her that my somewhat curvy Western frame suited me just fine, paid for my products and fled.
