Today I took a rather interesting poll. It read, who/what drives people to get fairness treatments??
It is an area that needs to be addressed especially with everything that is happening in today’s world.
In a social media-driven era, where there are so many ways to “correct” your image before you post, it is almost impossible to just be yourself and to believe that you are enough and that beauty lies from within!
I did spend all my childhood, seeing popular ads which marketed Fair as Lovely. It was so engraved into us that being fair is being beautiful. Being interested in skin and training in dermatology myself, I remember using the millions of skin whitening products and for me taking care of my skin was keeping the tan away. My grandmother will almost have a heart attack after my sports days when I have probably gained a few shades of a beautiful tan, which people are paying so much money to get done these days!! She will come up with so many tan removing techniques and remedies. She reminded me every time that if you get tanned you are never going to find a handsome bloke. Looking back at all this, I feel shallow. It breaks my heart sometimes to think about what I believed growing up as a young woman.
I must say, I did a pretty good job taking care of my complexion until I moved to live in Sydney and had a reality check. I remember the day when a lovely old woman stopped by to say, what a beautiful tan you have! It was a shock and in fact, that broke my heart. What!! I thought I am doing a good job of managing my fairness!! Disappointing it was! Then as time went by, I started getting more compliments… “Love your dark colour!”, ” Is that a natural Tan?” Then I realised, what I was doing. I was born Indian, with a beautiful tan and skin and yet I was trying to be someone else. I could never be the fair one here and I didn’t have to either! We are all born with our own beauty, so why still believe that ‘Fair is Lovely”? Why still talk about colour and discriminate?
As life happened, I also realised that beauty is not skin deep. It is what lies within. A mentor once told me”Niveditha, anyone can look pretty by dressing up, but not everyone can look beautiful. It is important to be beautiful and not pretty” This made so much sense later. I have grown up into a woman who lives in a diverse community where I am brown and beautiful.
There are two things I have learnt from this, one is that Good skincare is not taking care of its colour, there is so much more to it. It is essential and amazing self-care factor. Second, is that colour is the most irrelevant element of beauty. Beauty is what lies within and this is what we need, to make this world a better place.
Acceptance, Acknowledgement and embrace YOU. Be YOU and YOU are enough. Post your pictures as is, no filter needed, no freckles removed, for what is beautiful lies within.
Inspiration by @drsasikumar story.
