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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you From House top

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Speaker 1: works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. This

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Speaker 1: is Molly and I'm Kristen Kristen. Last week we talked

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Speaker 1: about some tanning and how popular it's become despite health risk.

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Speaker 1: And I'm just happy to report everyone that Kristen went

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Speaker 1: to the beach and did not get burned, because I

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Speaker 1: remember she was going to have that little Molly on

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Speaker 1: her shoulder, and the Molly did follow me down to

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Speaker 1: the beach, and even my friends commented on why I

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Speaker 1: was not spending much time in the sun at all,

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Speaker 1: and I just kept saying, I don't want to be summer.

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Speaker 1: New guys, the co worker has freaked me out about Sundays.

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Speaker 1: It's a little Molly on your shoulder. Did her work.

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Speaker 1: I hope she's done some work for everyone out there

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Speaker 1: when they head to the beach. Um. We alluded to

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Speaker 1: the fact in that podcast that while we tend to

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Speaker 1: have this ideal that a tan is a healthy, you know,

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Speaker 1: glowing thing that can make you more attractive, that is

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Speaker 1: not true around the world. And you know, we talked

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Speaker 1: about how historically pale skin was always seen as the

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Speaker 1: sign of class because you didn't have to go out

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Speaker 1: and be in the fields all day. And it turns

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Speaker 1: out that, you know, people with white skin are not

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Speaker 1: the only one who have had this history of of

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Speaker 1: pale skin being better, and in fact extends two people

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Speaker 1: in Asian cultures, African cultures all around the world. And

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Speaker 1: so that's what we're gonna talk about today, is how

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Speaker 1: this ideal of pale skin has led to this huge

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Speaker 1: business of skin lightning and skin whitening. Yeah, a friend

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Speaker 1: of mine um whose Vietnamese, actually just got back from

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Speaker 1: visiting relatives in Vietnam and they all commented to her

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Speaker 1: on how dark her skin was, and they were all

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Speaker 1: trying to push these skin lightning creams on her, and

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Speaker 1: she was saying how it was really hot and humid

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Speaker 1: when she was there, but whenever she'd go out, of

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Speaker 1: other girls her age, we're always wearing long sleeves and hoodies,

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Speaker 1: and it was to protect themselves from the sun, because

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Speaker 1: is the last thing they wanted to do was to

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Speaker 1: get a tan and become even darker. So we want

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Speaker 1: to talk about the industry of skin lightning, the culture

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Speaker 1: behind it, and why in similar ways that women in

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Speaker 1: the United States take health risks to get a tan.

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Speaker 1: Women in other countries and other parts of the world

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Speaker 1: also take health risks in order to lighten their skin.

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Speaker 1: But first, I think that we should start out with

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Speaker 1: a little bit of science to talk about why we

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Speaker 1: even have different shades of skin tone, because there are

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Speaker 1: a lot of interesting theories about why white skin even evolved. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So what they think is that when humans started migrating

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Speaker 1: out of Africa, they're going to higher latitudes where there

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Speaker 1: are lower levels of vitamin D, which means the sun

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Speaker 1: is less intense. So this caused sort of just the

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Speaker 1: gradual light lightning effect of skin, this migration north, and

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Speaker 1: that's sort have been like the main theory for a

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Speaker 1: long time. But there was a Live Science article in

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Speaker 1: two thousand nine that talked about maybe some other possible

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Speaker 1: reasons that this could have happened. UM. One idea was

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Speaker 1: that because dark skin is more prone to frostbite, when

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Speaker 1: people went north into colder latitudes, it became sort of

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Speaker 1: something to negatively select against, because you would want to

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Speaker 1: have skin that was less prone to frostbite in colder temperatures. UM.

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Speaker 1: One theory that I think is kind of interesting given

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Speaker 1: some of the other things we'll talk about is that

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Speaker 1: men started preferring mates with lighter skin, so they would

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Speaker 1: select sexually for lighter skin mates, and that would just

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Speaker 1: continue on and on. And I said that they would

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Speaker 1: do that because lighter skin was supposedly a sign of

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Speaker 1: youth and fertility. And how many times have we talked

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Speaker 1: about the ways in which we unconsciously are selecting for

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Speaker 1: the most fertile mates. So that makes sense that you

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Speaker 1: know they would see this as you know people, you know,

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Speaker 1: babies have lighter skin than adults do, so yeah, you

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Speaker 1: would look for someone who was young because it's a

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Speaker 1: sign of fertility. And you can continue the line um.

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Speaker 1: One theory is that when we moved away from subsistence

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Speaker 1: based uh feeding ourselves, you know, the hunting, the gathering,

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Speaker 1: and went more to agriculture, we eliminated a lot of

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Speaker 1: vitamin D from our diets and that that affected our

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Speaker 1: skin colors. So lots of theories out there. So when

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Speaker 1: we talk about the history behind this, the preference for

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Speaker 1: lighter skin, a lot of times we might assume that

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Speaker 1: it has a lot to do with Westerns coming in

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Speaker 1: and imposing our cultural values onto these Eastern cultures, basically

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Speaker 1: making whiteness the new sign of wealth and class, but

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Speaker 1: it predates any kind of Western infiltration. Yeah, that was

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Speaker 1: the most interesting thing to me, is because that's what

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Speaker 1: I assumed, is that people were subjected to these Western

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Speaker 1: standards of beauty, and they have been. That's probably a

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Speaker 1: big reason as to why these ideals have continued and

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Speaker 1: carried on. But according to a lot of research, this

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Speaker 1: idea that white skin is better skin has been around,

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Speaker 1: you know, since the beginning of time. And there there's

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Speaker 1: talking about how and these really ancient Japanese cultures applying

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Speaker 1: white powder of the face was considered a woman's moral duty. Um.

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Speaker 1: In ancient China, women would swallow powdered pills because they

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Speaker 1: thought it would make them wider. Powdered pearls, powdered pearls,

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Speaker 1: powdered pills. Um. But yeah, I mean all through history,

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Speaker 1: they are these examples of how people, especially in Asia,

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Speaker 1: thought that you know, you've got to have really white skin,

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Speaker 1: and it would eventually affect your marital status, how much

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Speaker 1: money you made. It just it goes on and on,

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Speaker 1: all these reasons why you'd want to have beautiful skin,

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Speaker 1: and it's built into the language like fair and beautiful

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Speaker 1: in India are synonyms. Yeah, And there's a Chinese saying

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Speaker 1: that's persisted throughout the ages to that whitening is everything.

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Speaker 1: Basically you can cover up all of your defective parts

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Speaker 1: if you're white. This also extends into Arab cultures, where

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Speaker 1: wider looking children tend to be more preferential, and even

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Speaker 1: in uh Latino cultures, wider looking Spanish women are sometimes

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Speaker 1: considered more attractive. Right, So, I mean, even though it's

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Speaker 1: it's sort of as a tale as oldest time, according

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Speaker 1: to this research, you know, then they do, they do

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Speaker 1: become subject to these same sort of beauty ideals that

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Speaker 1: people in this country are also subject, right, And I

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Speaker 1: don't think that we should discount the fact that Western

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Speaker 1: beauty ideals have probably had a major impact on the

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Speaker 1: persistence of the value of whiteness. Um, which sounds weird

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Speaker 1: to say, as like two Caucasian girls sitting here talking,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, but but these are the facts. So it's

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Speaker 1: kind of interesting how it's maybe um compounded. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: you're seeing white movie stars, white models. When they're picking

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Speaker 1: models for advertisements, they picked the ones with the really

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Speaker 1: pale skin, so you do get that reinforcement that white skin,

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Speaker 1: light skin is better and it's just that association that

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Speaker 1: we saw even in Western cultures with wealth and higher

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Speaker 1: education levels. Um, So let's talk about skin lightning today

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Speaker 1: because it is very prevalent. For out of every ten

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Speaker 1: women use a whitening cream in honk Long, Malaysia, the Philippines,

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Speaker 1: South Korea, and Taiwan, and skin lightning has ballooned into

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Speaker 1: a sixteen billion dollar market and people are not only

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Speaker 1: trying to whiten the skin that you might see um

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Speaker 1: outside of their clothes, but also their armpits and some

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Speaker 1: women might even try to lighten their nipples. So how

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Speaker 1: do these skin lightning creams work? I mean, they're just

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Speaker 1: so prevalent in a lot of these countries. Some of

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Speaker 1: them contain acids and that will remove the old skin

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Speaker 1: to reveal lighter skin underneath, and others will inhibit melanin

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Speaker 1: h so that that will you know, if you remove melon,

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Speaker 1: that's the thing that gives your skin color. But that

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Speaker 1: can also, as we'll talk about later, damage your skin.

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Speaker 1: And as you might imagine, a lot of these creams,

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Speaker 1: particularly in developing countries, aren't subject to any side, any

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Speaker 1: kind of oversight, and they turn out to be quite

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Speaker 1: damaging and dangerous. Right. Mercury poisoning is one of the

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Speaker 1: main health concerns with these skin lightning creams because a

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Speaker 1: lot of the unregulated UH skin lightning cream might contain

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Speaker 1: mercury um. And then there are other um ingredients such

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Speaker 1: as mulberry extract, liquorice extract, coachic acid. Um. There's also

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Speaker 1: I think it's hydro quine on, which is the mercury

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Speaker 1: base acid, which is one of the most dangerous ones. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean if we were a movie star who eats

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Speaker 1: sushi and gets mercury poison, you can only imagine how

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Speaker 1: bad would be to have it. It's seeping into your

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Speaker 1: skin regularly, and like you mentioned, Molly, there can be

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Speaker 1: some negative side effects to it. For instance, some of

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Speaker 1: these might actually they might start bleaching your skin but

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Speaker 1: leave you with darker patches of skin after you've used

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Speaker 1: it for a long time and will um, it'll just

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Speaker 1: give you a really patchy appearance um. And that's called

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Speaker 1: okrah gnosis, which is the appearance of very dark patches

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Speaker 1: of skin that are difficult to remove. You might also

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Speaker 1: develop something called luca derma, or the skin lucis the

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Speaker 1: ability to produce pigment so that actually turns areas of

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Speaker 1: your skin pink, and then just removing the melan and

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Speaker 1: in general puts your skin at risk for more damage,

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Speaker 1: kind of like how we put our skin at risk

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Speaker 1: for skin damage when we're laying under the sun baking

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Speaker 1: and tanning beds. Yeah, it reminded me so much of

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Speaker 1: that conversation Kristen, because you know, people seem to know

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Speaker 1: the risks and do it anyway, just the way we

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Speaker 1: know the risk of getting a tan and tend to

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Speaker 1: do it anyway. But you know, sometimes it just seems

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Speaker 1: like there's so much at stake. Uh. A lot of

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Speaker 1: reporters go in and look at the marital ads in

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Speaker 1: India where a lot of you know, marriages are arranged

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Speaker 1: through advertising, as we've discussed before, and all the ads

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Speaker 1: by and large say it's a fair skinned woman. You know,

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Speaker 1: I am a fair skinned woman, marry me, or I'm

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Speaker 1: a man looking for a fair skinned woman. It's it's

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Speaker 1: very much how you can gain status and gain any

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Speaker 1: sort of currency within a system is to have this

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Speaker 1: light skin and despite any risks associated with it. And

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Speaker 1: we're not saying that that all um, you know, skin

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Speaker 1: lightning creams are implicated in this, but there are very

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Speaker 1: real risks with mercury po especially for more of these

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Speaker 1: off brand um skin lightning and bleaching creams. But these

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Speaker 1: products are the most popular in India's skincare market. In

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Speaker 1: the skincare market there has grown forty seven since two

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Speaker 1: thousand one. So this is something also kind of like danning.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting you keep seeing the parallels that has really

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Speaker 1: picked up in the past decade or so, right, And

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Speaker 1: it's really interesting to see how advertisers market skin lightning

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Speaker 1: because you know, there's a lot of people who think

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Speaker 1: that when we tan or when we put on makeup,

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Speaker 1: we're buying into some sort of ideal that the makeup

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Speaker 1: companies are selling us. And they've been able to use

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Speaker 1: that same sort of mess message of empowerment that you

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Speaker 1: can fix all your flaws with these skin lightning creams.

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Speaker 1: And you know, um, there was one headline about in

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Speaker 1: the New York Times telling India's modern women that they

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Speaker 1: have power even over their skin tone. And this idea

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Speaker 1: that you know, you take this you know, quote unquote

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Speaker 1: Western sense of empowerment of being uh an enlightened woman,

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Speaker 1: no pun intended. But being sort of an independent person

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Speaker 1: who can make your own money and control your own

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Speaker 1: destiny and applying that to skin lightning, it's a very

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Speaker 1: powerful message, the same way that some people would argue

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Speaker 1: that lipstick is sold to us, or you know, the

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Speaker 1: idea that you know, by taking control of your appearance,

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Speaker 1: you can take control of your life and get a

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Speaker 1: better job and get you know, land that perfect partner.

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Speaker 1: And the same cosmetics companies that are marketing bronzers and

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Speaker 1: similar products in the West are marketing skin lightning creams

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Speaker 1: in the East under the same types of advertising. Because

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Speaker 1: it's all about like the tagline for fair and lovely,

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Speaker 1: one of the most popular skin liners out there is

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Speaker 1: the power of beauty. And I mean that sounds like

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Speaker 1: something we hear about in the American cosmetics industry as well.

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Speaker 1: It's just different types of beauty ideas being pedaled to

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Speaker 1: us by the same companies that are making so much

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Speaker 1: money off of this. And you know it's um I

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Speaker 1: think that you know, we're we're given this message that

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Speaker 1: every skin color is beautiful. Truly it is, but uh,

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Speaker 1: you know we are we would be hypocritical if we said,

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Speaker 1: you know, skin lightning should stop because uh that would

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Speaker 1: you know, someone who could make the argument that then

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Speaker 1: you know, every American when should give up her skin

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Speaker 1: wrinkle cream, that if we are applying things to our

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Speaker 1: skin to change it, that you know, we can't judge

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Speaker 1: people who are giving themselves mercury poisoning trying to look wider.

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Speaker 1: So it sort of goes to the heart of what

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Speaker 1: we try and do in a lot of these episodes, Christie,

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Speaker 1: where we unpack why we do certain things we do,

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Speaker 1: like wearing high heels, wearing makeup, etcetera. You know, it's

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Speaker 1: just it's a there's a really long history and a

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Speaker 1: really effective marketing system in place, and we should point

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Speaker 1: out too that this isn't just marketing aimed at women. UM,

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Speaker 1: Fair and Lovely has spun off into fair and Handsome

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Speaker 1: for men and it has become incredibly popular as well.

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Speaker 1: Kind of like how you know, plenty of men go

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Speaker 1: out and tan themselves in Western culture. So I think

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Speaker 1: that you know, whenever we try and do take away

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Speaker 1: from this, it's you know your risk and know why

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Speaker 1: you do it, and uh, you know, we may not

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Speaker 1: have the biggest audience, and you know, India and China

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Speaker 1: and all that, but you know it still affects women

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Speaker 1: in the United States. We don't want to to imply

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Speaker 1: that this is something that only happens other places. This

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Speaker 1: beauty ideal can affect you no matter where you are,

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Speaker 1: so be aware of why you think certain things are beautiful.

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Speaker 1: I think it is good advice for any woman or

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Speaker 1: man or men. And on that note, why don't we

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Speaker 1: head over to some listener mail from mom stuff at

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. So I've got an email

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Speaker 1: here from Angela about our podcasts on cat calls, and

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Speaker 1: she writes, I don't have much of an opinion on

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Speaker 1: cat calls, other than to say that I think our

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Speaker 1: society in general is often far too sensitive. I do, however,

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Speaker 1: have a funny cat calls story. A friend of mine

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Speaker 1: was worth walking her grandmother's very large and dope labrador

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Speaker 1: one day and passed by a group of construction workers

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Speaker 1: who were pouring a sidewalk. The whole group of them

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Speaker 1: begin whistling and shouting, and she lost control of the

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Speaker 1: lab as he took off, trumping through their partially set

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Speaker 1: up concrete, leaving a permanent set of big lab paw prints.

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Speaker 1: Perhaps they learned a lesson that day. Almost twenty years later,

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Speaker 1: I still giggle when I hear a cat call while

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Speaker 1: walking my own dogs. Get it dog paws, cat calls

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Speaker 1: like it nice? Thanks Angela. I have one here from Caroline,

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Speaker 1: who lives in New York City, and she writes, one

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Speaker 1: of the things you didn't mention in this cat calling

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Speaker 1: podcast is how young a lot of the women who

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Speaker 1: get cat called are. I started being comments from strangers

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Speaker 1: in six or seventh grade, mostly from adult men. One

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Speaker 1: of the initiation of the anti street harassment organizations are

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Speaker 1: working on in New York is not making street harassment

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Speaker 1: entirely illegal, but creating harassment free zones around schools where

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Speaker 1: it's particularly rampant. Being cat called really upset me. When

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Speaker 1: I was younger, it made me feel very unsafe, but

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Speaker 1: now it just gets on my nerves. It's important to

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Speaker 1: remember that a lot of the comments are not just

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Speaker 1: nice stems, but things that are pretty vulgar and obscene.

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Speaker 1: The good news is that confronting street raptors really does work.

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Speaker 1: Even asking a guy to repeat what he just said

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Speaker 1: usually shames him enough to apologize and skulk away. I

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Speaker 1: don't think a lot of men realize how threatening it

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Speaker 1: can be when they approach women on the street or

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Speaker 1: in the subway. If you point out to them that

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Speaker 1: what they're doing is scary and intimidating, they usually feel

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Speaker 1: pretty bad. I would encourage women to speak up if

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Speaker 1: they if they're somewhere they feel safe doing so. And

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Speaker 1: that's the point that we've gotten um from a few

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Speaker 1: listeners Christen, is just that when it happens, it seems

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Speaker 1: to happen to really young girls, and that's that's pretty scary.

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Speaker 1: That is scary. So if you have any stories to

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Speaker 1: share with us Mom Stuff at how Stuff Works dot com.

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Speaker 1: We'd also love for you to like us over on

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Speaker 1: Facebook and interact with us there, and you can also

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Speaker 1: follow us on Twitter at Mom's Stuff podcast. And finally,

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Speaker 1: you can read our blog and check out a whole

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Speaker 1: library of skincare articles. I wish I had specific ones

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Speaker 1: to call out, but there is literally a vast library

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Speaker 1: of skincare articles millions, millions, not really millions, but hundreds,

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Speaker 1: hundreds of least undreds at least of skincare articles on

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Speaker 1: mine and Molly's home Monday through Friday. It's how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Be sure to check out our new

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Speaker 1: video podcast, Stuff from the Future join How Stuff Work

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Speaker 1: staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities

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Speaker 1: of tomorrow. The How Stuff Works I Fine app has

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Speaker 1: a ride. Download it today on iTunes