April 30, 2008
White or wrong?
In Indonesia, like in any other Asian countries, skin-whitening products are the most sale-able items on supermarket and pharmacy shelves. Media have done their job in selling the women the magic elixir for lighter skin. Many brands come up with extensive formulations and improved ingredients that promise clearer skin is just a jar/tube away. Pond's, Nivea, L’Oréal, Sari Ayu are selling lightening products that has dominated the market for the past few years. The message they try to brainwash is that fair skin equals beauty and youthful appearance. As in the West, it's the celebrities (top models or sinetron actresses) who set the beauty trend, most of whom blessed with fair skin and serve as models for major product lines. Today many women worry about getting too much sun exposure, because they believe it can damage skin and leading to wrinkles. Despite numerous skin-whitening horror stories reported in recent years, this "white obsession" is alarmingly increasing. What sad is that beauty industries are feeding in on these self-destructive problems and making money off of it.
I am not into whitening products since I believe that you were born and will die with your natural complexion. So what do you think came first? The product or the perception that whiter is better???
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Media shaped our view that white skin is consider beautiful and many people buy that. Had I known "skin doctor" earn a lot of money, I would have studied this science in the university. To old to do that now, LOL.
On the other hand, people from Western countries are "brainwashed" that brown is beautiful so girls are crazily buying tan lotion/spray or go to fake-bake tan center, although sometimes they become orange rather than tan/brown. If we see people walking around parading their light skin, others would snigger (like how come she/he walking parading very white legs, they're ugly).
People are never satisfied with what they have...
If you go to any supermarkets in Indonesia and stop over at the body-care aisle, almost all of the products including shower gels, soaps, facial cleansers, body scrubs and moisturisers, contain whitening ingredients.
I'm not a huge fan of whitening products but because they're dominating all the existing products on the shelves I almost feel like I have no choice but to buy it anyway.
Perhaps I should be thankful that I'm blessed with a nice skin tone - which is not too pasty nor dark, but I've seen many dark/olive-skinned girls that are simply striking. Dark skin can look very appealing if we take care of it well - I mean look at Beyonce, she is HOT and I bet no one even thinks about how dark her skin is when they look at her.
Maybe it's because we're still that fair skin equals to better race?
@Toni Wahid:
Forget skin doctor - plastic surgery was the one I was regretting not getting into. It's already catching on in China and Korea and soon Indonesia will follow this crazy trend - and I bet it'll be HUGE.
and the tv commercials aggresively promote the white beauty, depicting men attracted to women because of their white skin, selling misleading dreams to many.
waduh aku paling ga pernah pake krim pemutih begini.. aku lebih suka natural aja.. maksudnya ya kalo keluarnya ga hitem2 amat atau ga putih2 amat ya terima aja lah apa adanya..
we have all the brown people trying to lighten their skin, and we have all the white people trying to tan their skin. people are never satisfied of what they have. on the other hand, am completely satisfied of my brown complexion and i don't have any intention to alter the color of my skin. because, for me, brown is beautiful and sexy and that is how i feel about myself.
wah dulu seneng bgt sama iklan ini El..mainly bukan krn whitening products-nya..tp emosi dr iklan ini..bagus sih penggarapannya...
Aku sendiri anak plg item di keluarga..dulu pernah sih pengin jd putih, tp lama2 nrima aja tuh..Skrg tinggal d luar malah dah cuek bebek dah...
Beauty is relative. We should be able to see our own beauty despite what the media dictate us to believe.
Salam kenal El dari pelopor.nl :)
Never seen the ad before. Perhaps I leave Indonesia bit too soon. But definitely not that new to the thought being white is better than dark brown color. We always want what we don't have, right ? Here in the NL the trend is reversed. Those Caucasians want the darker tone. Some of them actually spent hundreds of Euro every month to get the dark tone using solarium or those of darkening magic elixir.
Guess we never satisfied and the people at advertising/marketing plays our shortcoming really well.
About my own skin hem...coming from a blend of west meet east Indonesia, I don't bother to even try :) It is given hehehe
Hello Bonnie, thank you for peeking my site. Hope you will visit it again :) You're right we always want what we don't have. I have a two toned complexion. Lighter on the face and darker on my body!
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