Cultural Beauty Trends || Skin Whitening: Racism, Class Warfare, WHAT? || Rivet Licker

I have been putting off this post for a while because of its sensitive nature, and I respectfully want to open the discussion. We've come to see different world views on the beauty industry because of the mainstream boom in Asian beauty trends. We were once pretty much sold an ideal created in Europe, but now we are finding ourselves immersed in different standards of beauty from around the world, but unfortunately, they're still very limited (as standards usually are). Black and brown skin still needs pride movements and representation; tanned skin is accepted and desired; but light skin is still the winner in some parts of the world.

Where does skin whitening stem from?

It's skinCARE, not skinSHAMING! || Rivet Licker

Why is shaming natural processes the default form for getting people to buy cosmetics? Sure, even I thought that if I didn't wear makeup or care for my skin, I would never be beautiful. In fact, I feel more beautiful now because I can make the choice to wear makeup and make sure my skin is healthy.

Skincare is probably one of the major culprits, with tag-lines such as "anti-ageing", "anti-wrinkle", and "pore minimizing" etc, being the reason we are being conned into buying products to stay "youthful". On top of this, I go into depth about how I feel about the appearance of my own skin.