A Whiter Shade of Pale
Burqa for beauty?
In summer, East-Asian women wear t-shirts, only to then cover their arms with nylon sleeves to keep the sun off. For us pale Europeans or Australians applying sun blocker when hiking or going to the beach is essential to avoid sunburn. Here it is a mania. Sun blocker is liberally applied to every centimeter of skin. But not to avoid skin cancer or because of a thinning ozone layer.
Even from far you can see the Asians on any beach. The ones with facekinis and full body swimming suits like in a science fiction movie. Tender ladies hiding below sunshades. Most wear long clothing even on the beach. Any UVA is feared to cause visible aging of the skin. So, to look young, they chose to cover themselves. Whereas Westerners rip off as much cloth as possible to gobble up any ray of sunlight. Vitamin D for life!
What seems only somewhat quirky at this point, gets much more extreme and like most extreme things, dangerous. Let´s assume all your efforts to stay as pale as possible didn´t work because you have a naturally darker complexion. What do you do?
The metaphorical snake oil
Fear not! There is a host of creams and concoctions that will get that damn dark color out of your skin. Over the years I realized that a frustratingly large number of moisturizers and creams is enhanced by adding some whitening agents.
Allegedly, up to 50% of the younger to middle aged Chinese have used them at least once. That makes it big business. A whole industry caters to this mania. Malls and pharmacies are filled with all kinds of whitening products.
Remember Cleopatra?
Ever heard the legend that Queen Cleopatra bathed in Donkey milk and drank dissolved pearls? Maybe not just a legend after all. And while drinking pearls could be a show of wealth, it might well have been a skin treatment.
Like in Ancient Egypt, Chinese are convinced that pulverized pearls will help whitening one´s skin. Examples of this skin care regimen go back as far as the Three Kingdom period 2000 years ago.
Yang Di, the Emperor of the Sui dynasty, had a problem. Too many women in his harem, that were not pale enough for his taste. Therefore, powdered pearl skin care was used as a whitening treatment on them. Did it work?
Well, women throughout Chinese history thought so. There are many sources telling us how different noble women used it with success. And today´s Chinese seem to think it works well enough to spend their hard-earned money on it.