Must-Stay-White: Of being fair and the whitening trend in Asia

"How to 45°", an angle on skin-whitening. Photo taken by me in a game arcade in Tokyo.

Western women - ones very conscious of their physical image at least (even if it seems logical that this is what I'll be addressing, given the overall topic of this blog) - go to great lengths to look sun-kissed all year long. Having a healthy glow is associated to being on the tanner side. Looking like you've just come from a vacation is all the rage since the 1930s in France. And the more natural it looks, the better. Tanning, bikinis, rays, solarium, bronzer dust, bronzers, terracotta. The young, the old, looking tan all year equates to healthfulness and is synonymous to an active lifestyle.

This is where Asia struck me. I had evolved in an environment where my grandma, my mother, aunt, sister, friends, and most casually encountered people, all tanned as soon as they could get under the sun. Come summer, we would sit by the pool, facing the sun, reading beauty magazines where all women had golden toned bodies rolling in the sand and displayed the latest trend for tanning oils and bronzing powders. Then came 2008. That year, I moved to Japan, and discovered an entirely new vision of skin color. As I became acquainted with an entirely new and exciting culture, I also came across new products at the drug store and cosmetic shops.

I soon realized that white was beautiful, and the fairer you were, the better. I was first intrigued by ladies wearing long sleeves and strange hats whenever they were out in the sun, rarely showing any skin. And when spring brought warm sun back into my everyday equation, my dear Thai and Japanese friends took out their sunblock and sat in the shade when I lay in the sun. "Let's go to the beach!" I asked, come summer. Staying extremely courteous, they refused every time, and we never went to the beach - I later found out that it was because sitting in the sun was one of those out-of-the-question activities. Had we gone to the beach, I would imagine my Spanish friend and I would have sat like burning toasts on the white sand, and my Asian friends would have enjoyed the cool shade of umbrellas or cover all skin with fabric or UV300 protection sunscreen.

In such an environment, the most important products weren't tanning oil or bronzer, but rather whitening creams and serums and concentrates and sunblock. When all sunblock-ing failed, spots and a too-tan-skin called for tougher measures, commercialized by local and worldwide cosmetic companies: whitening. I remember working for a luxury cosmetic brand and helping my colleagues thinking of the right vocabulary around a whitening product concept development. I quickly became fascinated about the phenomenon. Imagine, when one's beauty criteria is at the extreme of another's.

For those of you out there who do not know about whitening, it's half revolutionary half insane for the skin. Whitening products contain ingredients that, in contact with the skin on a daily basis, not only protect the skin from sun exposure, but also visibly lighten one's skin tone. In fact, some women end up looking extremely unnatural looking after a few months of such a regimen, because whitening products influences natural pigmentation (including spots, freckles, and the lot). Whitening products include face-targeted products but also eye products to reduce dark pigmentation around the eyes. To those wanting to become fairer than fair, whitening is golden.

This inclination for white skin is deeply rooted in Asian culture. In fact, fair skin is traditionally associated with wealth and higher social status. Indeed, historically, higher class women did not have to work in fields and get exposed to harsh sun rays daily, and dark skin was linked to peasants' skin. Today, Asian women received intense social pressure to "get white". It actually makes it insanely difficult to find whitening-free products in Asia. Nearly all products contain some kind of lightening chemicals, even regular facial moisturizers and body lotions. All of the cosmetics industry targeted at Asian women usually enables then to achieve a socially constructed notion of beauty: the must-be-white, must-stay-white notion of beauty. This makes for an incredibly evolved skin-whitening science and industry. Beyond creams, there are even more intruding skin-whitening procedures, such as ingestible pills and injections, even intravenous treatments.

Encouraging color-conscious generations of women is a point widely criticized by those who stand against or nuance skin-lightening cosmetics industry. Indeed, this multi-billion industry is the target of multiple critics. The success of such products sheds light on a wider phenomenon: the racialized body modification trend, in which individuals undergo surgeries such as double eyelid procedures, alongside eyelid tape, as well as face reshaping. Farther than just becoming whiter, fairer, it seems that some Asian women (and they're not the only ones, may I add) are ready to go through great lengths to change the way they look and appeal to demanding social notions of beauty. Beauty, for these women, does not seem to be all about "looking white".