That's right, it's deodorant that claims to lighten your skin, or at least "reduce skin darkening." I never knew it was desirable to have pale armpits.... I thought it was enough to keep them shaved, dry, and odor-free.This is just the weirdest of the many beauty products designed to profit from the Asian fetish for pale, white skin. Is this fetish a holdover from ancient class distinctions, when aristocratic women could stay indoors all day while slaves and peasants worked outside in the sun? Or does it arise from a more sinister reason, in that European features are held in higher esteem than Asian ones? We could have a long discussion about the reasons behind it (and I'd love to). My point in this post, however, is not the politics of the thing, but to merely report that everywhere you go in Hong Kong, it's clear that one standard of female beauty is pale, white skin.
Virtually every shop devoted to cosmetics makes whiteness a selling point. For example, here are a couple of shop windows at Kiehl's, one advertising "clinically proven whitening":
The other window promises "the essence of ultimate whitening":
At the drugstore, L'Oreal markets a line called "White Perfect":
Body lotions often have the word "white" in their names somewhere. Here's "Healthy White" from Vaseline. Next to it is Nivea's "Extra Whitening," which is the same name as the deodorant, plus the words "milk repair" and "white bioactive." There's no doubt that this product will give you much more whitening power than all the other lotions.
If the product is French, it's got "blanc" in the name:
Then I saw this, Dr. Wu's Intensive Whitening Serum, featured in a magazine. It's a whitening product "specially designed for Asian complexions." Sounds very scientific, doesn't it?
While I was in the U.S., I used this sunscreen for years. It's imported from Japan and is also available in shops here in Hong Kong. I wonder, is it called "White Sunscreen" because the name sounds good, or because it uses titanium dioxide and zinc oxide as its active ingredients?
There are even more products to add to this list. Anyway, while I was in the drugstore, the sales staff stopped me from taking more photos. I'm guessing they thought I was an agent from another store checking out the competition.This study of whitening products really illustrates for me how the beauty industry's entire reason for being is to make women want to be something they are not. In America, you can buy sunless tanning lotion and get package deals at tanning salons, while in Asia you can make your brown or yellow skin white if you just buy this cream... or lotion... or other magic potion.
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