Why Is My Dark Skin Inferior To Your Light Skin?
On how colorism shaped my girlhood in Japan and Nepal.
“Do you use Fair & Lovely?” My cousin asked, narrowing her eyes.
“No,” I responded, although I was tempted to try it out.
“Then why is your skin so light?” She asked as she inched closer to inspect my face.
I was 13, she was 11. I had light skin, hers was dark.
Because my skin tone made people deem me more attractive than her, she was obsessed with using Fair & Lovely, a popular skincare brand from India that lightens your skin.
My cousin grew up in Nepal. I grew up in Japan.
Almost every day when my sister and I passed a Japanese school, the children would yell, “Gaijin! gaijin! (Foreigner), should I rub some mud on your ugly, brown face?”
But in Nepal, I was light-skinned and thus a source of adoration.
I learned that skin color mattered — especially if you were a woman. And that white was the superior color, and that being fair bought me a ticket to acceptance.
One day, I finally succumbed to the temptation. I bought enough Fair & Lovely lotions to fit half a suitcase. My life in Tokyo was going to get better now. I had Fair & Lovely on my side.
Whitewashing
My mom’s side of the family is split between the light-skinned and the dark-skinned members.
Rumor has it that when Britain colonized neighboring India, one of our Nepali ancestors copulated with a British soldier. Case in point: My cousin’s father is as pale as a half-moon. My cousin’s brother looks like him.
If you were fair, you won the gene lottery.
Our Ama (grandma) played a crucial role in categorizing her children and grandchildren into these boxes, forming our perception of beauty.
When our family visited Nepal, my sisters and I would stay overnight with Ama. She would wake up, splash her face with cold water, put on Fair & Lovely, then powder her face with a large powder puff, dust forming like clouds.
She would cough and we’d giggle because it made her look like a coughing Geisha. She’d widen her eyes and say, “The powder will settle, you’ll see.” She was right, of course.
My cousin lived with Ama.
In the morning, Ama would yell across the hallway, “Kalli (black one), come here. It’s time for Fair & Lovely.” The term Kalli may seem callous to a Westerner, but it was a term of endearment and helped them bond like sisters over a high school crush.
The problem was Fair & Lovely didn’t make my cousin fair enough.
In contrast, my skin was a source of pride for my Ama. She said I inherited it from my mom (her daughter). I didn’t know it then but she was priming us to look our best for our future husbands.
My fair mom married the boss of an engineering company (my dad). When Dad talked about how he met Mom, he’d start with, “She was so fair and pretty with a button nose…”
Being fair mattered, especially if you were a woman.
During family gatherings, Mom and my aunts would talk about their skin tone as they chopped vegetables— all while their dark-skinned maids sat on the floor peeling potatoes.
I wore Fair & Lovely every night before bedtime. But it made me look like I was wearing a white mask-like coating on my skin while the rest of my body was a shade darker.
And the boys were still not interested in me. I had Southeast Asian skin no matter how hard I tried to hide it.
Bollywood
At the time, most of the shows in Kathmandu came from India, and Bollywood was and is still huge in Nepal.
In Indian soap operas (seen below), the actors and actresses — except the maids and the helpers — look like they glued a thick paste of Fair & Lovely on their faces (and bodies).
Actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas, who transitioned from Bollywood to Hollywood, said one of the reasons she left Bollywood is because of its obsession with fair skin.
In 2008, at the start of her career, she appeared in a series of skin-whitening ads (seen below). She’s a “dark-skinned” girl who has a crush on a man who ignores her. But after she applies the fairness cream, he shows an interest in her.
She says they used “blast lighting” to lighten her skin on screen when revealing her transformation and regrets being a part of it.
Priyanka is not that dark. But this is the kind of commercials my cousin and I were bombarded with every time we watched TV.
I was glad when I heard that amid pressure, Fair & Lovely changed its name to Glow & Lovely and changed the men’s whitening lotion from Fair & Handsome to Glow & Handsome in 2020.
They removed the words “white,” “light, and “fair” from product packaging.
But they’ve done enough damage to my cousin and me and thousands of girls worldwide. And no matter the deletion or the name change, it’s still a whitening cream.
Dark is beautiful
These companies target places like Africa, Malaysia, and Southeast Asia — you know where people have darker skin — so they can whitewash the population.
And products like Fair & Lovely feed on women’s insecurities and reinforce their obsession with fair skin by promising success and male attention.
In Ama’s time, it was — get married or bring shame to your family. It was the same in my mom’s time and my cousin’s, too.
The Nepali family system is set up in a way that it’s taboo for women to live alone. So, you have no choice but to get married. When you do, you typically leave your home and move in with your husband’s family.
And these companies know that. For decades, they played a huge role in Southeast Asians hating their inherited skin and aspiring to be white so they could attract a husband.
I’ve heard about village women drinking a lot of milk during their pregnancy because they believed it would bless them with a fair baby.
My grandma claimed that wearing a face mask with honey, milk, and ghee (clarified butter) made her fair. Mom used to rub her face with an ultrasound device to ensure smooth, fair skin.
The good news is that women can now go to social media to rebel against colorism and whitewashing.
Campaigns such as Dark is Beautiful and #unfairandlovely podcast have influenced the way girls perceive themselves. Bollywood stars who promote products that harm the self-esteem of Indian girls have been called out.
Southeast Asian girls are fighting back against these companies that told them for decades their skin was the wrong shade.
As for me, I threw all the Fair & Lovely products I brought to Japan. I’d love to say I did so because I felt confident in my skin, but I threw it away because it didn’t work.
But I can say I feel empowered reading the accounts of girls fighting against companies like Unilever.
Like these two Southeast Asian women whose online petition — which received 15,000 signatures from 97 countries — forced Unilever to change the name of the product to Glow & Lovely.
And below, a journalist asking dark girls to try on Fair & Lovely as one girl after another rejects the product. “It’s like I’m covering my original skin,” one girl says. “It’s so fake,” another responds.
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As for me, I love the color of my skin. Now, my attitude is if you don’t like my skin, it’s on you, not me.
And my cousin married a guy who loves her dark, imperfect skin. They have a little girl, also dark like her mom.
I’m sure she’ll grow up loving her skin.
June Kirri used to be a journalist and editor in Southeast Asia and the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the founding editor of Bitchy. She writes about feminism, women, and motherhood.