Ambrosia Services

Beauty business

9 September 2006

WHO denies beauty is not skin deep? Otherwise, the whole business of beauty, including cosmetic products’ manufacturers, would have gone bust long ago. It’s paradoxical that dark complexioned people want to look fair and the lighter skinned a shade darker. Though the weather, genetic factors and the amount of pigmentation under one’s skin are the factors that decide his or her skin colour, people from Asia and Africa to America spend billions on looking fair or dark. Amid these frantic efforts come ‘fairy’ skin creams promising to turn the skin pale.

Often, such creams and lotions fall foul of health authorities over their allergic reactions to some users. In extreme cases, the quest for fair skin has turned some beautiful faces into beasts.

Despite a few ill-effects, millions still use skin-lightening products that can be bought without any prescription. Now, the US Food and Drug Administration is seeking a ban on their over-the-counter sale.

Before the FDA swings into action, the industry, consumers and experts have four months to go skin deep and come up with their fair or otherwise comments. The Administration’s decision is based on studies conducted on rodents, which were reported to have shown some evidence of cancer after those products had been used on them. The suspected carcinogen in them is hydroquinone, the key ingredient that is used in different strengths in almost all the skin-bleaching products.

Beauticians and the multi-billion-dollar industry, up in arms against the FDA decision, argue American women use these products not to become fairer but to erase blemishes and age spots whereas their counterparts in Asia and Africa to enhance their complexion. They also pooh-pooh extrapolating experiments on rats to humans.

Whether these products are good or bad for the skin, as long as fairness rules the roost in job and marriage market, it masks health concerns – at least in Asia and Africa.

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posted by Cheryl Levesque @ 1:24 PM