Skin Whitening: The global market, the risks and who makes and sells the products

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Skin whitening is the use of cosmetic products or services to reduce the amount of melanin, or pigment, in the skin to make it appear lighter.

The practice dates back centuries, has many names — skin lightening, whitening, bleaching — and has a range of cultural origins depending on the region. But the trend is ultimately rooted in colorism and the fact that in many cultures, lighter skin is associated with beauty and better prospects in terms of employment, marriage and social standing.

Find out more about the global skin whitening market, the culture of colorism promoting it, the industry behind these products and the effect they can have on your health.

Contents

The culture behind skin whitening

Skin whitening: The culture
- slavery
- discrimination

The culture behind skin whitening

Lighter skin has long been linked to wealth and status, in some regions due to manual laborers working out in the sun while the wealthy stayed indoors. In others, experts blame colonialism, slavery and globalization.

Colorism and light-skin privilege have led to disparities in every region of the world, in everything from social treatment to marriageability, education, employment and even, in the US, prison sentencing.

Skin whitening: The culture

Skin color preferences go back to slavery, when lighter-skinned people who were enslaved were likely to be related to their master and favored to work indoors, while darker-skinned people were sent to the fields.

Source:
National Conference for Community and Justice

slavery

Research shows Hispanic people with darker skin tones are more likely to say they have experienced discrimination because of their race or ethnicity than those with lighter skin tones.

Source:
Pew Research Center