Malaysia
In April 2011 I visited an old friend in Perth, Australia and on my way back home to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, I made a 24 hours stopover in Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia, simply because the long flight was too wearisome. Malaysia has been colonized by subsequently the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British. It is now an independent nation since 1957. As one of the “Asian tigers”, it is trying to earn itself at high pace a position in the frontline of the world economy, in the wake of China, the new economic giant. The population of 28 million is multiethnic, with 50% Malay, 24% Chinese and 7% Indian people. About 60% of the population are practicing Islam, 19% Buddhism, 9% Christianity and 6% Hinduism.
On arriving at the airport of KL, late in the evening, my eyes immediately caught the glittering billboards, promoting the use of skin whitening agents, many produced by famous Western manufacturers of cosmetic and skin care products. My amazement grew the next morning during a walk through the center of KL, the vibrant capital of a successful country. In the city you see people with skin tones, from light Chinese type to brown Indian type. At the cosmetic and skincare departments of supermarkets, in beauty centers, in drugstores, and sometimes outside these selling points, I came across skin whitening advertisements, showing gorgeous light skinned Asian women, with a charming smile, persuading the people to apply skin whiteners. A salesgirl at the cosmetic corner in a supermarket told me that selling of skin whiteners indeed is booming business in KL: “It is the most normal thing in the world to walk in and buy skin whiteners”, and she added: “a light skin is more attractive than a dark skin”. This in fact was an affirmation of what I already knew for many years: skin whitening is very common in South East Asia and India . But nevertheless I was surprised by the wide range of the phenomenon, the openness, as well as the way Western multinationals are pushing their products. In addition I was worried, because although skin whitening can spring from the innocent striving for more beauty, it might on the other hand be driven by racism and at the same time also encourage and preserve this abject phenomenon.
A glance at the list of ingredients of some of the skin whiteners learned that they do not contain the strong bleaching products like hydroquinone and potent steroids I have seen using by African and Caribbean immigrants in Europe. No, the whitening products hold a variety of low potency products of botanical origin, allegedly inhibiting melanogenesis (e.g. glycine, soya and licorice), and furthermore sun blocking agents preventing UV induced tanning.
Regional patterns
During my flight from KL to Amsterdam, musing on skin whitening, I realized that the features of this phenomenon in Asia were different from those in Western Europe and that probably each region in the world had its own character. Thus, in addition to the South East Asian situation that I have just outlined, the following picture emerges for some other regions in the world.
In demographically and cultural fast changing Western European countries (take the Netherlands, a former colonial power as example) skin bleaching is a phenomenon that is imported and practiced by dark skinned immigrants. Strong and potentially harmful products are used and the people who bleach act secretive about it. One of the potent bleaching agents, hydroquinone (HQ ), has been legally banned as an over the counter product in the European common market.
In Sub Sahara Africa (take as an example South Africa, a country still in the process of recovering from apartheid), potent products like HQ, corticosteroids and mercury are regularly used to get a lighter skin, with subsequently sometimes the occurrence of serious dermatological and systemic side effects. South Africa had the doubtful reputation of being a forerunner in the field of side effects of skin bleaching, with exogenous ochronosis (a serious and irreversible dermatological side effect of HQ) reaching epidemic proportions in the last quarter of the 20th century. In the Caribbean, the situation to certain extent looks like that in Africa, with “swinging reggae” Jamaica being in the lead in the region regarding skin bleaching (they name it “browning” over there).
The situation in South America is a different story, taking the emerging economic giant Brazil and its tiny Northern neighbor Suriname as examples. The existence of skin bleaching practice is formally denied: “ this is impossible in our ideal rainbow society” is the flow of the comment from medical doctors and other authorities in both countries. But this statement is an attempt to keep up appearances of living in a society without inter-ethnic tensions, because we have the simple proof that skin whitening/bleaching is practiced in both countries.1 From the foregoing we may conclude that skin whitening/bleaching is a worldwide phenomenon, but with its own characteristics in each and every region, probably related to specific historical, demographical, cultural and socio-economical factors. So, diverse regional patterns seem to emerge, but the reality is of course much more complicated than I have outlined, with features assigned to one region also occurring in other areas.
Skin whitening versus skin bleaching
Is there any difference between skin whitening and skin bleaching? During the past years I have generally used these words as synonyms, assuming that they mean the same. However gradually it became clear that the connotation is different. Skin whitening nowadays generally refers to the use of weaker, less potent products with subsequently less side effects. The cosmetic industry consequently refers to skin whiteners. The pharmaceutical industry and physicians speak of skin bleaching agents, generally indicating more potent products with potentially serious side effects.
Manipulating one’s skin-color is no doubt a complex psycho-social/biological phenomenon, which through its elusive character is hard to control. Several ideas, not being mutual exclusive, have been proposed to explain it, including a relation with the cast system, a relation with colonialism and post colonial systems, the view that it is part of the ubiquitous system of racial discrimination and finally the suggestion that it is a form of cultural assimilation in order to overcome domination. For further reading on the motives of skin whitening and bleaching I suggest the papers by Hall and by Gomes and Westerhof. 2, 3 Unfortunately there is a paucity of high quality profound studies regarding this subject. More attention is needed from researchers and governments and it is time now, at the wake of the 21st century, with probably an increase of the phenomenon, that also the World health organization (WHO) takes a position.
Henk E. Menke
1.See the paper in this weblog by Jack Menke and Rachida Norden entitled: the whitening syndrome in rainbow Suriname” (February 23, 2011)
2. Ronald Hall (1995) Bleaching syndrome. African American’s response to cultural domination vis-à-vis skin color. Journal of Black Studies 26 (2): 172-184.
