University of Puget SoundSound Ideas

Pac Rim Posters Asian Studies Program

Spring 2018

In Search of “Healthy White:” How WhiteningProducts are Packaged and what that means forGlobal, National, and Gender IdentitiesIndigo DaCostamdacosta@pugetsound.edu

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Recommended CitationDaCosta, Indigo, "In Search of “Healthy White:” How Whitening Products are Packaged and what that means for Global, National,and Gender Identities" (2018). Pac Rim Posters. 1.https://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/pacrim_posters/1

Globalization is not a uni-directional force by which Asian countries mimic the West; skincare better portrays globalization as a set of “global flows” that impact places variably and that do not ignore local conditions (Fadzillah 87).

Advertising for whitening transcends gender boundaries, but only to an extent.

As a 2014 online article points out, “Despite flare-ups of controversy about the way lightening products are advertised, the products themselves are generally not controversial in Asia” (Doland).

Achieving whiteness in visual culture supersedes other concerns, including product safety. Since whitening products are not likely to become unpopular in the near future, it is essential to pay more attention to product safety and ensure that chemicals such as hydroquinone are eliminated from market products.

•  Ashikari, Mikiko. “Cultivating Japanese Whiteness.” Journal of Material Culture. 10.1 (2016): 73-91. Sage Journals. Web. 23 April 2017.

•  Chaipraditkul, Napat. “Thailand: beauty and globalized self-identity through cosmetic therapy and skin lightening.” Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics. 13 (2013): 27-37. Web. 14 April 2017.

•  Doland, Angela. “Forget ‘Real Beauty’: Ads for Skin-Whitening Beauty Products Just Won’t Die.” Advertising Age. AdAge, 2 September 2014. Web. 16 April 2017.

•  Fadzillah, Ida. “The Amway Connection: How Transnational Ideas of Beauty and Money Affect Northern Thai Girls’ Perceptions of Their Future Options.” Maira, Sunaina, Elisabeth Soep, and George Lipsitz. Youthscapes, ed. Sunaina Maira, et al., University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc., 2005. ProQuest Ebook Central. Web. 30 May 2017.

•  Hong, Euny. “I Grew Up Around Korean Beauty Products. Americans, You’ve Been Had.” The New York Times Sunday Review: Opinion. 9 December 2017. Web. 10 December 2017.

•  Karnani, Aneel. “Doing Well by Doing Good: Case Study: ‘Fair & Lovely’ Whitening Cream.” Strategic Management Journal 28.13 (2007): 1351–1357. JSTOR. Web. 27 May 2017.

•  Peiss, Kathy. “Educating the Eye of the Beholder: American Cosmetics Abroad.” Daedalus. 131.4 (2002): 101–109. JSTOR. Web. 29 July 2017.

Advertising for Whitening Products: Transcending Gender?

In Search of “Healthy White:” How Whitening Products are Packaged And what that Means for Global, National, and Gender Identities

Indigo DaCosta University of Puget Sound

Overview

Background

Skincare and Globalization Conclusions

Selected References

Korean Products

Korean Products “Whitening” Euphemisms

This interdisciplinary study in South Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, and India compares the origin of products—international and local—and the ways in which product labeling targets gender. I examine (1) the extents to which whitening products result from globalization and from local culture and (2) the ways in which whitening products and skincare at large reinforce traditional roles. This study concludes that whitening products (1) reflect neither globalization nor local culture and instead reflect complex and variable interactions between the two, and contemporary framing of national identity, and (2) enforce similar beauty standards on both men and women, but more heavily on women.

As some journalistic articles identify, “whitening” products are quite striking to Americans—they seem racist, and honestly surprising. There is a lot of literature from approximately 1997-2007 concerned with whitening products and their implications. These sources generally argue that these products are problematic because they:

1.  represent westernization (one-sided globalization)

2.  or represent a culture’s traditional (pre-colonial era) preference toward white skin

3.  disproportionately pressure women, as compared to men, to mirror certain beauty ideals

Globalization is uneven and represents overlapping and sometimes contradictory patterns: “As global flows (of goods, people, images, and ideas) pass through local environments, they are at times discarded, and at other times taken up deliberately” (Fadzillah 87).

The use of English, Chinese, and Korean language on product packaging suggest products are “international.” In some places, these products are high-end, and in some places, they are not.

A given company “maintains corporate identity by addressing supposedly universal consumer needs even while it responds to local conditions” (Peiss 106).

Korean products are trendy, international products, especially in Japan, China, and Thailand. This popularity subverts the idea that trendy, international products are necessarily “western.”

Some products advertise whitening with alternative words. Such products seem to:

•  Reflect hope that these products will reach international markets

•  Reach people who already see selves as white

•  Whitening products target men and women. “At present, Thailand and India are bombarded with advertisements for skin-whitening products among men.” (Chaipraditkul 32-33)

•  Two limits:

1.  Distinction between skincare and cosmetics

2.  Gendered Advertising

National Identity

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In East Asian countries in this study, labels often say “brightening” or “milky.” Photo from Seoul, 30 September 2017.

This product has labeling in three languages: English, Korean, and Chinese. The product was found in Thailand, but there is no Thai language labeling on it. Photo from Chiang Mai, 2 February 2018.

Here these whitening products have labeling in English and Chinese. These Unilever and Nivea products seem to appeal to their value as local but also international. Photo from Tainan, 2 December 2017.

Right: “Nivea Men Extra White” product in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Photo from 19 February 2018.

Whitening products have been a part of many Asian countries’ cultures since before globalization: “In the midst of globalization, Japanese aesthetic values and standards of beauty cannot escape the influence of ‘universal’ standards of beauty. Yet Japanese women, through the practice of whitening their faces, are aiming at being beautiful Japanese women, rather than merely beautiful women.” (Ashikari 85)

Whitening reflects not an internationally based identity but instead an identity of home. The practice of whitening in skincare products is perhaps a current-day re-instantiation of “traditional” beauty standards (and the prejudices that come with them).

Korean products are trendy, international products, especially in Japan, China, and Thailand. This popularity subverts the idea that trendy, international products are necessarily “western.” This phenomenon also challenges the idea that whitening is an expression of westernization.

International companies take advantage of “local conditions” by advertising “whitening,” which fits in with the beauty ideals of Asian countries. For example, Unilever (which owns Vaseline) would not sell “healthy white” in the United States, where it sold Dove’s Real Beauty campaign.