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The Complexion Complex
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Granted, there is some opportunity for the less fair skinned in the Indian film and fashion industry. Top supermodel Ujjwala Raut and Bollywood actress Bipasha Basu are both hugely successful but they carry the baggage of a label that will often accompany their name, dark, or dusky - as though this is their claim to fame.
Miracle Skin Care
With the relentless value attached to fair skin comes an overwhelming demand for miracle fairness treatments. Dating back to the ancient turmeric concoctions to today's flourishing industry of fairness creams.
The Indian domestic skin-whitening cream industry, according to the BBC, is said to be valued at over $190m. Being such a great money spinner with a consistently hungry market, international brands such as Yves Saint-Laurent, Revlon, Estee Lauder and Lancome, have also brought out their own 'whitening' creams and lotions, probably stocked ironically right alongside their tanning products.
The problem arises where people strive, as it is tragically too often the case in Asian communities, for a completely lighter shade of skin and an overall fairer appearance.
Until it was banned in 2000 the highly potent and toxic carcinogen Hydroquinone was commonly contained in the most powerful skin lightening creams. Since the ban however, it continues to be available and traded on the black market.
The Science Bit
In theory, skin lightening is possible, but as dermatologist and research scientist Sujata Jolly explains, there is a price.
Skin bleaching agents such as Hydroquinone work by removing melanin in the skin and/or preventing new melanin from being produced. Melanin is what gives the skin its colour or depth of pigmentation and is the key component in protecting the skin from harmful ultraviolet radiation. Hence darker skinned individuals are much more rarely known to develop skin cancer and also exhibit a much lower degree of 'photo-ageing' (wrinkles).
The initial lightening effect disappears when use of the product is stopped so users are lured into using such preparations as a part of their daily routine. As the body overcompensates by producing more melanin, dark patches appear so the user applies the product more frequently, eventually falling into a vicious circle, leading to irreversible damage.
The Culprits - The Chicken or the Egg?
But the black market traders are not the root of the problem. These manipulative merchants are merely sharks sniffing out the blood in the water, shed by belief in a time - honoured myth. Such is the desperation of so many Asian women, and even men, that they will often do anything to meet or attempt to reach accepted beauty ideals.
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