Sushmita Bose :
Have you noticed how Bipasha Basu has become decidedly lighter? I mean, her skin tone has become lighter – and she looks so hot! Even my mom – who has very high standards when it comes to tagging anyone good-looking – was raving about her,” my friend commented after watching Race 2 (where Bips had a blink-and-you-miss-her cameo).
“But wasn’t the whole point of her ‘sexiness’ being ‘dusky’… and being unabashed about it?” I asked. “She was one of the rare Bollywood actresses who claimed to be comfortable in her own skin, so to say… I wonder why she’s slapping on so much pancake.”
“Not pancake, methinks she’s had some whitening treatment done,” my friend plodded on determinedly. “Oh, and she was always sexy, only now she’s even better.”
“Because she’s ‘fairer’?”
“Whatever.”
Come to think of it, “dark” is almost like an anathema – the word, in context of skin colour. The in-thing is “dusky” – which is not strictly dark, but a kind of a grey area piggybacking (mostly in popular culture) on ‘exotic’ appeal.
Back home in India, there has been a long-running – but ineffectual – campaign by a sliver of the populace. They have been frowning upon the sexist nature of fairness creams – traditionally, the fastest movers from shop shelves – and harping on the inherent ‘racist’ nature of Indians who, in matrimonial adverts, demand light-skinned brides for their sons (the appeal is cosmetic as well as genetic: the daughter-in-law would look good when she is unveiled in front of extended family, friends and neighbours; and the progenies would be blessed with a fairer skin tone in cases where the sons are lacking in that department). I’ve heard of cases where women haven’t been able to get married (a semi-death sentence in many sections of society) because of complex complexion concerns. This is the underpinning that gets tapped into most frequently in the advertisements that flood the market psyche: the fear of being undesirable – and the attendant lack of confidence.
Weirdly enough, according to a website dedicated to stepped-up fairness (or the attaining of it), whiterskin.info, “Japan dominates the market, while India and China are the fastest growing markets”. Weird, because I’d always thought the Japanese were fair-skinned in any case. But maybe they want to be fairer. The Time magazine website reports on a skin-whitening candy that is being formulated in Spain. Clearly, olive skin – which I think looks truly spectacular, so much better than white skin – is also looking for a way out of the Mediterranean sun and into the wannabe zone of all’s fair. “It promises lighter skin with a daily 300-500 mg swallow of plant extracts claiming to interfere with melanin formation. By sucking on a candy or downing a pill or capsule containing melanin-inhibiting extracts, you’ll get ‘lighter skin from within’,” the report says, quoting the manufacturer’s press release. Ah, well.
Recently, I went to consult a doctor about a Vitamin D deficiency, the main cause of which is lack of sun exposure. It’s a huge problem, he sighed. “None of my patients want to be out in the sun. No, not because of the blaze in this part of the world – the discomfort is a minor issue really. These people are worried that being out in the sun will make them dark… or darker. Whatever the case may be.” He shook his head. Statistically, here’s how fairness fares. The Time.com article points out that the global fairness sector “will be worth nearly $20 billion by 2018, according to an estimate by Global Industry Analysts, fuelled mostly by whitening creams sold in Asia”. Whiterskin.info adds that Western markets have begun to evince a keen interest in the category. As have the not-so-fair sex. The gentlemen. They are not scared of being branded ‘sissies’ as they too jump onto the fairness bandwagon. It’s going to be rather an action-packed arena, the global fairness sector. Looks like it will remain a sunrise one, with slim chances of the sun setting on it.
(Sushmita Bose is Khaleej Times’ features editor and editor of wknd. magazine. [email protected])
