Armpit whitening ad by Nivea, Vietnam
Whitening creams are medically and socially toxic. And they’re spreading. The new body part women should be insecure about is their armpits. Seriously. On Indian TV and Colombo billboards the latest thing is whitening deodorant. Armpit is the new face.
The video above is from Vietnam, here we get the one from Singapore.
I’ve also noticed that all of these hygiene products have the same formula
Ad Formula
- Everyday situation: in the future this will surely be sourced from your friends Facebook videos
- Prostitution of fruit: there’s no discernable fruit in these products. Ants would eat your face. You know what it is? A bunch of chemical with basically the same effect as soap
- Prostitution of science: they all show some completely bullshit infographic of pores opening and dirt coming out, or lemon as a molecule
- Street prostitution: the payoff is usually every public masturbators dream, that a girl would be into random attention on the bus/metro/street
What makes whitening products even worse is that the competitive pay-off is winning out over darker girls, or a darker you, as per this Filipino ad.
Manufactured Demand
Google Trends search traffic for ‘face whitening’ (blue) and underarm whitening (red)
Desis have long had an inordinate desire for fairness. Just watch any Bollywood film or even read the matrimonial classifieds. As you can see from these Google search volumes, however, the demand for products to force fairness is new. And it’s not Michael Jackson. It’s marketing.
The search traffic comes out of nowhere, and it’s coming from the same places that the advertising comes from. I think it is the advertising, notably by companies like Nivea.
Why This Is Evil
Indians and Asians should definitely use deodorant. Market away. Selling whitening creams and expanding that market from face to underarms to whatever is, however, socially and medically noxious. On the social level the whole condemnation of dark people is, well, racism. It definitely happens, but companies shouldn’t encourage and profit from it. Medically, these chemicals are actually terribly deleterious to health. As per a New York Times story:
After months of twice-a-day applications, her skin was not only fairer, it had become so thin that a touch would bruise her face. Her capillaries became visible, and she developed stubborn acne (NYTimes)
This stuff basically either melts your skin or doesn’t work. Seeing it on TV everyday makes dark girls think that there’s A) something wrong with them B) that this judgement is normal C) that these toxic chemicals will help. But they don’t. And it’s just getting absurd. You need to keep your underarms white to keep men from running away? Please.
Actually, I think they’re inventing new things for people to be insecure about. If these products didn’t exist people wouldn’t feel half as bad as they do about the colour of their skin or some imperfection.
To be fair, fairness does make a difference in marriage and even jobs. People are internally racist.
NYTimes
This is a super awesome piece of research.. when people see flawless skin and silky hair on TV they want to be the same and that earn profits for the companies. Yes, as you say,it is racism to promote fair skin. and sometimes, it hurts :(
Yes, the typical ad shown here is increasingly annoying and mostly imported from India, I notice.
Isn’t there some law that requires these products to be registered as drugs, and not cosmetics, if there is any effect on the body other than a cosmetic one? If classified under drugs, they could be dispensed on prescription only.
Great post. Maybe its a question of worldview and breath of perception. I many be wrong, but most women who use these creams hail from the less privileged classes, where the obsession with white skin influenced by mainstream media and imported pop culture could be the strongest. And where beauty is seen as an essential boost towards what success they can get. Its also a reflection of what men want, and consider beautiful, also influenced by the media and conventional norms.
*breadth, rather
Good post.
I think deodorants are all right, but antiperspirants are thought to be harmful.
As for the whiteness: yes, I’ve noticed the emphasis on this as well. Should this be covered by an advertising code of ethics?
It’s like mouthwash and deodorant. Both are cosmetic. They are not drugs to be prescribed. Same goes for hair gel.
Anything that didn’t penetrate further than the dead cell layers of the epidermis could be called a cosmetic, I guess. Still, along with the dead cells, they strip away the natural disinfectant coating on the skin. Maybe we should insist on a warning, then. “Excessive or long term use may lead to damage-prone skin.’
As for the content of fruit extracts in the preparations, I believe you advertising people have sneaky little ways of wording them to avoid being challenged in court, if it came to that. Like, if you said it was made ‘with’ some exotic ingredient, even carrying a millionth part of it in the formula would be sufficient, as opposed to saying made ‘from’ or ‘of’.
Ought to confess, a bleaching deodorant sounded like a neat idea when I first heard of it, not to become fairer but to have uniform colour. I wouldn’t actually buy it, because I’m skeptical about claims and wary of chemicals. But we do feel the pressure, sad but true. Then there is this chemical, Sodium laureathe sulphate, which I’ve heard is abrasive and harmful but appears on the list of ingredients in every shampoo I come across, but I cant stop using the shampoos because they make hair feel clean and look and smell good.
I make my own boiled lime and dill preparation and used to select the raw limes from this old woman at the ‘pola’. She wanted to know if I dabbled in ‘kodiwina’
We advertising people rarely get involved in the wording of the product content or ingredients. That usually comes out of the manufacturer’s marketing and R&D teams. Though we will use something in the communication as a hook to hang it on.
Nice video. This product is acllauty not all that bad, but she’s totally right. If you have a small Abe problem then this will be a perfect product for you. For those who suffer with acne, the Zeno really does not do much for your problems. Invest your money into another product that will really help you reduce your amount of blemishes.
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