Colour code: Skin-lightening creams could have potential side effects

The Indian obsession with fairness is well known. From the urban affluent to the rural poor, girls across India reach out for anything which will make them fair — (read “beautiful”). Result: the rise and rise of fairness creams that promise to deliver a lighter complexion in a matter of weeks. And these days it is not just the girls — men too are looking to fairness creams to cut a fair and handsome figure.

However, most of these magic emulsions are not without some side effects, say dermatologists. Fairness creams usually contain skin-bleaching agents such as hydroquinone, mercury salts, hydrogen peroxide, magnesium peroxide or zinc peroxide. “All fairness creams have two to four per cent of hydroquinone. Continued exposure to this can make the skin more sensitive to the sun,” says Chennai-based skin specialist Dr Anand Krishna. “I often have patients coming to me with skin problems arising out of the regular use of fairness creams. Long-term use of such creams can even lead to leucoderma,” he warns.

Needless to say, manufacturers of fairness creams insist that their products are perfectly safe. Says a spokesperson for Hindustan Unilever Limited, manufacturers of the popular Fair & Lovely cream. “At the heart of Unilever’s skin lightening technology is a synergistic combination of niacinamide (Vitamin B3) and sunscreens along with other skin benefiting ingredients. None of the Unilever skin-lightening creams uses any harmful ingredients such as hydroquinone or steroids. All our products have also been analysed by several international laboratories that certify the absence of such ingredients.”

Skin-lightening ingredients work in two ways — by absorbing ultraviolet rays, thus preventing the sun from darkening your skin, and by reducing the production of melanin, the pigment responsible for the darkening of the skin. So if you do use a fairness cream, over time you could notice a slight difference in your skin tone. However, this has a downside, say skin experts. “A fairness cream inhibits the generation of melanin. But as soon as one stops applying the cream, the skin goes back to its original colour and sometimes even becomes a shade darker,” says Dr Sachin Verma, consultant dermatologist, Apollo Gleneagles, Calcutta.

There are other pitfalls too. “Hydroquinone can induce a pigmentation of its own where there is a deposit in the lower layer of the skin. This is known as ochronosis and the skin becomes bluish black in colour,” says dermatologist Dr Madnani Nina of Hinduja Hospital, Mumbai. “Moreover, as the creams are not evenly applied on the face, they can lead to uneven pigmentation and a blotchy complexion,” adds Dr Verma.

Dermatologists also point out that in many cases cosmetics companies do not declare all the ingredients on the label of their products. Some of these ingredients could well be actively harmful, they add. “There should be a law that makes it compulsory for companies to indicate all the ingredients on the product label,” says Dr M. Ramam, additional professor at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.

Apart from the potential physical side effects, the use of fairness creams could also trigger a psychological fallout. “Manufacturers of fairness creams advertise their products so aggressively that people really expect a radical change in their complexion. When that doesn’t happen, it’s a huge disappointment. The emotional turmoil is at times greater than the adverse physical effects of using fairness creams,” says Dr Ramam.

Sohini Sanyal, who works at a public relations agency in Calcutta, says, “I used a leading brand of fairness cream for three years, but nothing much happened. The only change I noticed was that my face sweated a lot whenever I used the cream. So now I have switched to a fairness cream that uses botanical extracts.” It doesn’t lighten your skin tone in four weeks as it claims, admits Sanyal, “but at least it causes no harm.”

So should the keen-to-be-fair consumer switch to a herbal concoction? Beauty expert and herbal cosmetics queen Shahnaz Husain certainly seems to think so. “The advantage of herbal products is that they also benefit the skin and hence can be used for a long time,” says Husain. “The focus of our research was not only on lightening skin colour but also on enhancing the beauty and health of the skin. There are many plant products that help lighten skin colour, such as bearberry, saffron, cucumber, lemon and almond,” adds Husain who has a range of fairness products under her label.

But skin specialists sound a note of scepticism here as well. “There is no such thing as 100 per cent herbal. Herbal creams should be freshly made and should not have any preservatives or colourants for them to be truly herbal,”says Dr Nina. “But yes, skin-lightening creams with botanical extracts are milder on the skin.”

Dr Verma disagrees. “Herbal creams have the same effect as other fairness creams since the fundamental process is the same — hindering the generation of melanin,” he says. “This can lead to burning, itching and skin irritation.”

Clearly, (with apologies to Shakespeare) the course of true fairness never does run smooth!