ENS

Chennai, Jun 3: One of the first features that people notice about others is their skin color, which has always created rifts in social and economic opportunities throughout history.

Here, having a lighter skin tone has been historically tied having more power and influence, and now, movies, television, fashion magazines and many advertisements typically feature fair-skinned women.

It is common for young women and also some men to buy skin-lightening creams, lotions, or soaps to be more attractive in the eyes of their future husbands and potential employers. However, these products could be dangerous to one’s mental and physical health.

People pay steep price to look lighter, but falling into the ‘white skin equals the most enviable beauty’ is an unhealthy mentality. It’s hard to escape since most of the media we’re exposed to define that unreasonable standard of beauty. There are complications with the over-use of cosmetics,which in turn are chemicals.

They could leave spots on skin or seriously impair organ functions. Some products contain hydroquine,which some users have reported to cause bodily abnormalities and it could cause cancer too. Radical treatments such as injections are not proven to work and may lead to infections, if improperly administered.

Oddly enough women with paler skin in the US and in Western Europe go to great lengths to darken their skin with the use of sprays, lotions, or even going to tanning salons. Becoming addicted to tanning has become recognised as a disorder. It is unavoidable that the standard of beauty will change and remain unattainable for most.

To think of why the Westerners go to extremes to get darker is stepping into a different way of thinking and for a Westerner to wonder why some put chemicals on their skin to get lighter is unimaginable. This disparity in what is accepted as more culturally preferred, just goes to show how fickle our perspectives may be, and that there is no obvious answer.

Once a person believes that he or she is beautiful regardless of what she or he is, then we can have a more stable society. No one should subjugate himself or herself to the point of physical harm to follow the trend.