Addled by ads
Saturday, 7 May 2011
Ameer Hamza
A colleague's four-year old, whose complexion happened to be a trifle darker than her sibling's, asked her father one day to buy her a 'Fair and Lovely' cream! Everyone found that amusing. Is there anyone who doesn't know what that is? The famous 'fairness cream' (there's one for males too which the Bollywood actor, Shahrukh Khan endorses) that supposedly makes skin colour 'attractive'! Huge billboards and TV ads keep focussing on this fiction, impressing countless girls and boys into using the product. One wonders why the dark beauties of this golden land are never heard protesting. On the contrary, there are too many takers. Ask even a humble home helper about her preference in face creams and it is almost always the above. This goes to show how deeply ads can impact on the perceptions of susceptible groups, no matter how young they happen to be - such is the power of images and suggestions. The particular ad often tells the story of morose dark-skinned girls gaining confidence, jobs and the attention of men, simply by using the brand! And 'Fair and Handsome' males catch damsels eyeing them. But, what does all this mean for the health of consumers? Say discerning health activists, creams like these come with the most harmful ingredients in them, like sodium hydroxide, to whiten the skin, which are likely to have long-term adverse effects on regular users. But who cares? The cosmetics industry goes on selling not only many such harmful products but also propagates questionable messages about what 'beauty' should be! Unreal models stare out of magazines, and TVs keep implying that one is physically inadequate if one does not use certain creams, soaps or body sprays! It is not known how much the cosmetics industry in Bangladesh is worth or how much it spends on advertisement. But it is quite likely the amount is substantial and the products pass the country's quality control outfits without anyone bothering to find out whether anything is amiss. There are as many brands as there are consumers at all socio-economic levels but not many people here know that even so-called good foreign brands have been found to market leaded lipsticks, hormone-disrupting shampoos, kidney-impairing hair dyes and what not. In the US, the cosmetic industry is worth no less than a $50 billion, and activists there have recently unearthed many scandalous information regarding so-called up-market brands. They have incorporated the facts in a video by Anne Leonard, called 'Petro Essences, Pinkwashing and the Cult of the Body.' Leonard and fellow activists have been agitating for a Safe Cosmetics Act, 'so that toxic ingredients are extracted from the many products we slather on our bodies'. They were hoping the video could mobilise concerned people to lobby the US Congress for essential amendments to the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. The US cosmetics industry was quite alarmed, calling the video a biased 'shockomentary'. This reaction delighted the anti-toxin advocates. It was an indication that they had 'hit too close' - that the industry was clearly worried about losing business. The purpose of the documentary was dead serious. It meant not only to persuade viewers to desist from smearing their bodies with all kinds of toxic products, but also to stop the industry from telling lies, such as using absurd marketing rhetoric like 'herbal essences' while actually using 'petro essences'! There are toxic ingredients in baby shampoo too! It has been found that women in the US use as many as twelve products to look and smell good and men use about half that number. According to Leonard, all these chemicals interact and make a toxic soup of women's bodies, eventually bearing the next generation of humans filled with toxic contaminants! The consumer movement in Bangladesh ought to learn from our foreign friends and look into the cosmetic industry, both home-grown and foreign. This is necessary, not to hound it out of business but to help them make hundred per cent safe products that are good for domestic consumption as well as export. We must have honest and transparent regulation on cosmetics, based on the latest safety standards that are globally accepted. Let beauty be built from within with healthy food, regular exercise and safer cosmetics, if you will!
A colleague's four-year old, whose complexion happened to be a trifle darker than her sibling's, asked her father one day to buy her a 'Fair and Lovely' cream! Everyone found that amusing. Is there anyone who doesn't know what that is? The famous 'fairness cream' (there's one for males too which the Bollywood actor, Shahrukh Khan endorses) that supposedly makes skin colour 'attractive'! Huge billboards and TV ads keep focussing on this fiction, impressing countless girls and boys into using the product. One wonders why the dark beauties of this golden land are never heard protesting. On the contrary, there are too many takers. Ask even a humble home helper about her preference in face creams and it is almost always the above. This goes to show how deeply ads can impact on the perceptions of susceptible groups, no matter how young they happen to be - such is the power of images and suggestions. The particular ad often tells the story of morose dark-skinned girls gaining confidence, jobs and the attention of men, simply by using the brand! And 'Fair and Handsome' males catch damsels eyeing them. But, what does all this mean for the health of consumers? Say discerning health activists, creams like these come with the most harmful ingredients in them, like sodium hydroxide, to whiten the skin, which are likely to have long-term adverse effects on regular users. But who cares? The cosmetics industry goes on selling not only many such harmful products but also propagates questionable messages about what 'beauty' should be! Unreal models stare out of magazines, and TVs keep implying that one is physically inadequate if one does not use certain creams, soaps or body sprays! It is not known how much the cosmetics industry in Bangladesh is worth or how much it spends on advertisement. But it is quite likely the amount is substantial and the products pass the country's quality control outfits without anyone bothering to find out whether anything is amiss. There are as many brands as there are consumers at all socio-economic levels but not many people here know that even so-called good foreign brands have been found to market leaded lipsticks, hormone-disrupting shampoos, kidney-impairing hair dyes and what not. In the US, the cosmetic industry is worth no less than a $50 billion, and activists there have recently unearthed many scandalous information regarding so-called up-market brands. They have incorporated the facts in a video by Anne Leonard, called 'Petro Essences, Pinkwashing and the Cult of the Body.' Leonard and fellow activists have been agitating for a Safe Cosmetics Act, 'so that toxic ingredients are extracted from the many products we slather on our bodies'. They were hoping the video could mobilise concerned people to lobby the US Congress for essential amendments to the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. The US cosmetics industry was quite alarmed, calling the video a biased 'shockomentary'. This reaction delighted the anti-toxin advocates. It was an indication that they had 'hit too close' - that the industry was clearly worried about losing business. The purpose of the documentary was dead serious. It meant not only to persuade viewers to desist from smearing their bodies with all kinds of toxic products, but also to stop the industry from telling lies, such as using absurd marketing rhetoric like 'herbal essences' while actually using 'petro essences'! There are toxic ingredients in baby shampoo too! It has been found that women in the US use as many as twelve products to look and smell good and men use about half that number. According to Leonard, all these chemicals interact and make a toxic soup of women's bodies, eventually bearing the next generation of humans filled with toxic contaminants! The consumer movement in Bangladesh ought to learn from our foreign friends and look into the cosmetic industry, both home-grown and foreign. This is necessary, not to hound it out of business but to help them make hundred per cent safe products that are good for domestic consumption as well as export. We must have honest and transparent regulation on cosmetics, based on the latest safety standards that are globally accepted. Let beauty be built from within with healthy food, regular exercise and safer cosmetics, if you will!