Women must be wary of darker side of skin whitening products

By Maria Endah Hulupi

JAKARTA (JP): Lydia was a successful executive at a local advertising firm. With a beautiful face, slim body, smooth skin and a fulfilling career, she was almost a perfect girl.

But that was not enough. Her dark-colored skin annoyed her no end. Two years ago, a friend advised her to undergo skin- whitening treatment at a beauty parlor in Central Jakarta. Lydia decided to take the plunge.

She spent more than Rp 600,000 for three months of beauty sessions which included several God-knows-what facial liquid drops and a facial scrubbing process, using what the beautician said was an exfoliating device.

Upon completing the treatment, she noticed that there was no noticeable improvement to her skin. Instead of making her skin tone lighter, she felt a very painful irritation on her face, especially on her cheeks and chin. She tried to assure herself that it was part of the process but her colleagues thought differently.

When Lydia asked her beautician about her problem, the beautician blamed her for allowing her face to be exposed to the sun (which was true but only in the morning and at lunch time).

The beautician offered her another treatment session. She was doubtful and decided to go to a dermatologist, instead.

Like Lydia, Indonesian women, most of whom have brown skin, are now being bombarded by a concept of beauty that says having white and smooth skin is beautiful.

Cosmetic companies exploit this concept of beauty in their ad campaigns to promote their whitening products.

Local beauty parlors also profit hugely by offering skin- whitening treatments to their clients desperately eager to whiten their dark-colored skin.

Dermatologist Lily Soepardiman revealed that producing and selling whitening products is currently a lucrative business. In Asia alone some US$1.7 billion is spent annually on such products.

However, she advised people to be very cautious of the various whitening treatments offered by beauty parlors as some of them formulate their own products using ingredients that may not have been registered with the Food and Drug Control Agency.

"There is no guarantee that the ingredients they use are safe and the effectiveness of services like whitening injections is still questionable," she said.

She said high doses of vitamin C and placenta have been used as melanin-inhibiting factors by various beauty parlors. Vitamin C is proven to help reduce melanin production and to produce fairer skin by inhibiting the pigment oxidation process. Meanwhile, placenta, a popular element in skin lightening ingredients, is believed to help hamper the formation of melanin. Beauticians think that placenta can be used safely based on the assumption that what is good for the living creature at the early stage must be nutritious and healthy for the skin.

Lily also warned that the lack of control poses another concern, especially as regards the use of harmful elements such as mercury and bismuth, which give the skin an immediate whiter look but in the long term create health problems due to the accumulation of minerals that may affect renal and neural functions.

Other physical indications of the use of unsuitable cosmetics may include irritations, itchy facial skin and, in some cases, the treatment may even lead to the darkening of the skin.

"These kind of home industry-based services are currently beyond the control of the Food and Drugs Control Agency, because they concoct their own products and use them for their own services," she said.

However, with more and more people having fallen victim, a monitoring process is now being put in place and will be started by making dermatologists record skin problems related to harmful ingredients, what kind of active ingredients were used in the products concerned and their effects on the patient.

Lily explained that whitening products are mainly used for darker spots on the skin and that they will certainly not make your skin whiter than your own natural tone.

"The skin tone will become lighter but you can't get whiter than your own natural tone, which can be seen in unexposed areas such as the chest," she said.

She identified certain active elements that have been clinically proven to make skin look lighter, such as hydroquinone, kojic acid, tretinoin, azeleic acid, arbutin, licorice, niacinamide, alpha-hydroxy acid and beta-hydroxy acid. All of these are ingredients widely used in the skin-lightening products available on the market.

Whitening products mainly work by inhibiting the formation of the melanin pigment, degrading the melanin and removing the older and darker skin to unveil lighter toned and younger looking skin underneath it.

"Just like an onion's skin. When its external layer is peeled away, the younger and lighter skin beneath is revealed," she added.

There are other cosmetic products that will make skin look whiter, such as facial powders containing zinc oxide and titanium dioxide. These elements reflect the sun's rays and make facial skin look brighter.

Lily emphasized that the whitening process is a long and continuous process. "Usually the results can only be seen after six months of treatment."

However, she warned that direct exposure to the sun without skin protection would ruin the whole program.

That's why, she said, an effective skin-whitening process should be combined with sun block lotion or the use of products that have a sun-protection factor.

The reason is the sun's Ultra Violet A rays will promote immediate skin tanning, while Ultra Violet B rays will cause delayed tanning that will only become apparent after the exposure.

"Sun block will shield the skin and hamper the penetration of harmful solar rays," she said.

Sun block lotions work in two way, physically and chemically. The first kind protects the skin by reflecting the sun's harmful rays, while the second absorbs the rays and hampers their penetration into the skin.