06-26-2008, 11:16 PM
A related article from Pioneer, 26 June 2008
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->White-washed faces
Shailaja Chandra
The fairness cult is not new and extends to Asian, Mexican, West Asian and Japanese cultures but Indians have recently become hyperactive on this front. The culmination of this fairness mania is the marriage market. Where will this madness stop?
<b>The frenzied application of skin whitening creams has become a race against time, heaping huge profits on a handful of companies. The fairness cult is nothing new and extends to Asian, Mexican, West Asian and Japanese cultures, but Indians have recently become hyperactive on this front.</b> While there is no overt discrimination against duskiness (an occasional Rekha, Smita Patil or Nandita Das proves the point), a penchant for fair skin is reflected right from birth. Through teacher and peer preferences at school, it extends to several professions where 'white as marble' skin is synonymous with charisma. The culmination of this fairness mania is of course the marriage market.
<b>South India tops the user's market using 36 per cent of the fairness creams with the north and west contributing almost 25 per cent each. The eastern region contributes only 18 per cent of the usage of skin whiteners. According to market research, the fairness cream bazaar is exploding at a phenomenal 20 per cent per year of which men's fairness products constitute a whopping 35per cent share.</b>
hock:
First a word about ingredients. Hydroquinone has been the gold standard agent of skin lightening creams for years. But now regulatory agencies in Japan and Europe have banned its use and the United States has questioned the safety of products using this ingredient. Dermatologists in India say that they do not know whether hydroquinone is being used in skin lightening creams because there is no requirement to display contents, which is essential only for medicine. According to the Dermatologic Therapy journal, Hydroquinone has become controversial because it could be toxic.
<b>As a country that loves to ban, prohibit and embargo things, it is surprising that cosmetics have remained outside the pale of regulators.</b> The US FDA's threat to withdraw all OTC two per cent hydroquinone preparations and their removal from European and Japanese markets has stimulated a huge interest in developing botanical alternatives.
In the past, skin whiteners have created huge problems in different parts of the world. In China, blood tests on patients with symptoms ranging from enormous weight gain to mild hair growth on the face, revealed use of skin lightening creams that contained potent steroids used to treat psoriasis and eczema. A professor at Harvard Medical school, Mr Allen Counter, reported in 2003 that Mexico, Nigeria and the border States of California, Texas and Arizona all showed extremely high rates of mercury poisoning followed by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Africa. Mercury poisoning causes kidney damage and may also lead to psychiatric disorders. Mercury based formulations have been banned the world over, including India. But what about other hazards?
While the consumer has to ultimately decide whether it is worth taking the risk, cosmetic regulations must demand the supply of much more information on ingredients and their properties. <b>The Drugs and Cosmetic Act, 1940, makes it incumbent on the manufacturer to warn the public about hazardous substances -- a meaningless requirement judging from the elasticity of commercial conscience. </b>Enforcement of cosmetic quality has never been taken seriously till now and it is high time it was done, considering the proliferation of products cascading from the shelves promoted by aggressive advertising. <b>Unlike the FDA in the US, we have no system of directing industry to perform self-funded collaborative studies on the safety and efficacy of ingredients and to produce a written report thereon. We need that authority because crores are being spent on ensnaring a gullible public to spend more and more on dubious outcomes.</b>
A well-known private sector dermatologist, however, felt that banning is typical of the hype that periodically emerges from the US, which is not applicable or relevant here. Government dermatologists were less sanguine about the safety of such products. They apprehend that all kinds of useless but potentially toxic substances are penetrating the skin and the problem is not restricted to skin creams alone. <b>Ms Nina Khanna, professor of dermatology at AIIMS, observed wryly, "God has given us the pigment to protect us from abundance of sunlight we have in India -- the use these creams -- if at all they work- might cause more harm than good."</b>
Side-by-side the widespread use of temple vermilion and sindoor is exposing women to toxicity from lead oxide, which is extremely dangerous. Stick-on bindis cause leucoderma in sensitive skin-types. Knowing all this, there is every need to find ways to forewarn an unsuspecting public who can then decide whether the risk is worth it.
<b>First, it should be incumbent on manufacturers to declare all ingredients and to produce monographs on the safety and efficacy of the products. Second, the people need to be educated about the possible harmful effects of specific chemical ingredients. Third, a huge opportunity should not be missed to revive the goodness of Ayurveda even as countries hunt for safer, greater alternatives. </b>
<b>Instead of being self-righteous about Ayurveda, toxicology studies must be facilitated, undertaken and got completed on fast track to offer Indian botanical alternatives that really 'fair' well.</b> A potion made of chandan, dahi, besan, multani mitti or the Maharashtrian Uttana may well be the answer to the quest for radiance in southern latitudes.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->White-washed faces
Shailaja Chandra
The fairness cult is not new and extends to Asian, Mexican, West Asian and Japanese cultures but Indians have recently become hyperactive on this front. The culmination of this fairness mania is the marriage market. Where will this madness stop?
<b>The frenzied application of skin whitening creams has become a race against time, heaping huge profits on a handful of companies. The fairness cult is nothing new and extends to Asian, Mexican, West Asian and Japanese cultures, but Indians have recently become hyperactive on this front.</b> While there is no overt discrimination against duskiness (an occasional Rekha, Smita Patil or Nandita Das proves the point), a penchant for fair skin is reflected right from birth. Through teacher and peer preferences at school, it extends to several professions where 'white as marble' skin is synonymous with charisma. The culmination of this fairness mania is of course the marriage market.
<b>South India tops the user's market using 36 per cent of the fairness creams with the north and west contributing almost 25 per cent each. The eastern region contributes only 18 per cent of the usage of skin whiteners. According to market research, the fairness cream bazaar is exploding at a phenomenal 20 per cent per year of which men's fairness products constitute a whopping 35per cent share.</b>
hock:First a word about ingredients. Hydroquinone has been the gold standard agent of skin lightening creams for years. But now regulatory agencies in Japan and Europe have banned its use and the United States has questioned the safety of products using this ingredient. Dermatologists in India say that they do not know whether hydroquinone is being used in skin lightening creams because there is no requirement to display contents, which is essential only for medicine. According to the Dermatologic Therapy journal, Hydroquinone has become controversial because it could be toxic.
<b>As a country that loves to ban, prohibit and embargo things, it is surprising that cosmetics have remained outside the pale of regulators.</b> The US FDA's threat to withdraw all OTC two per cent hydroquinone preparations and their removal from European and Japanese markets has stimulated a huge interest in developing botanical alternatives.
In the past, skin whiteners have created huge problems in different parts of the world. In China, blood tests on patients with symptoms ranging from enormous weight gain to mild hair growth on the face, revealed use of skin lightening creams that contained potent steroids used to treat psoriasis and eczema. A professor at Harvard Medical school, Mr Allen Counter, reported in 2003 that Mexico, Nigeria and the border States of California, Texas and Arizona all showed extremely high rates of mercury poisoning followed by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Africa. Mercury poisoning causes kidney damage and may also lead to psychiatric disorders. Mercury based formulations have been banned the world over, including India. But what about other hazards?
While the consumer has to ultimately decide whether it is worth taking the risk, cosmetic regulations must demand the supply of much more information on ingredients and their properties. <b>The Drugs and Cosmetic Act, 1940, makes it incumbent on the manufacturer to warn the public about hazardous substances -- a meaningless requirement judging from the elasticity of commercial conscience. </b>Enforcement of cosmetic quality has never been taken seriously till now and it is high time it was done, considering the proliferation of products cascading from the shelves promoted by aggressive advertising. <b>Unlike the FDA in the US, we have no system of directing industry to perform self-funded collaborative studies on the safety and efficacy of ingredients and to produce a written report thereon. We need that authority because crores are being spent on ensnaring a gullible public to spend more and more on dubious outcomes.</b>
A well-known private sector dermatologist, however, felt that banning is typical of the hype that periodically emerges from the US, which is not applicable or relevant here. Government dermatologists were less sanguine about the safety of such products. They apprehend that all kinds of useless but potentially toxic substances are penetrating the skin and the problem is not restricted to skin creams alone. <b>Ms Nina Khanna, professor of dermatology at AIIMS, observed wryly, "God has given us the pigment to protect us from abundance of sunlight we have in India -- the use these creams -- if at all they work- might cause more harm than good."</b>
Side-by-side the widespread use of temple vermilion and sindoor is exposing women to toxicity from lead oxide, which is extremely dangerous. Stick-on bindis cause leucoderma in sensitive skin-types. Knowing all this, there is every need to find ways to forewarn an unsuspecting public who can then decide whether the risk is worth it.
<b>First, it should be incumbent on manufacturers to declare all ingredients and to produce monographs on the safety and efficacy of the products. Second, the people need to be educated about the possible harmful effects of specific chemical ingredients. Third, a huge opportunity should not be missed to revive the goodness of Ayurveda even as countries hunt for safer, greater alternatives. </b>
<b>Instead of being self-righteous about Ayurveda, toxicology studies must be facilitated, undertaken and got completed on fast track to offer Indian botanical alternatives that really 'fair' well.</b> A potion made of chandan, dahi, besan, multani mitti or the Maharashtrian Uttana may well be the answer to the quest for radiance in southern latitudes.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->