25

Fair And Handsome

Posted April 1st, 2008 in Reflections by M

Prousette found something interesting in this weekend’s paper

Few are unfamiliar with the Fair and Lovely brand. Fewer still would be unfamiliar with their ad.

This features an unfortunate maiden, handicapped not by education, brains, wit, binocular vision or bipedal motion, but by the curse of skin that is a rich ebony. This chocolatey skin serves her during job interviews the same way a dangling rat’s tail from the side of her mouth would. She is dismissed with nary a cursory glance by the interviewers upon ascertaining she is not the complexion of the average foolscap.

On the dating scene matters are just as grim. Tall dark and handsome strangers pass her in the street as if she was simultaneously suffering from leprosy and gangrene.

Until of course an ever helpful friend gushingly tells her of a new product … Fair and Lovely.

Within weeks (says the ad, accompanied by time delay photos) our maiden’s face and hands become lighter and lighter. I assume the rest of her becomes lighter as well. We can’t have the mask and glove effect, can we?

It is only with her light skin that she is able to wow interviewers with her charm, intelligence and natural wit. A leering doofus in the next cubicle leers some more. On her way out suitors at attention line up.

Ah, what magic a little cream can do!

It would seem that men are laboring under similar yokes. They fail to get jobs, attention, dates because of their unnaturally rich chocolatey skin. This is a theorem I welcome with open arms as I find it fully consistent with my self esteem issues.

Good news my fellow brethren! Fair and Handsome is here.

Apparently men’s skin  needs to be fair because it is

  • 3 times more exposed to the sun
  • 5 times more exposed to pollution
  • 2 times more exposed to stress factories

Let me start you off with the opening lines

Emami, in collaboration with Activor Corp, USA, herbalists and dermatologists from India has created a unique fairness cream for Men with a breakthrough Five Power Fairness System to make skin fair and handsome in 4 weeks. It also helps in relieving stress and fatigue signs – gives men’s tough skin a firmer look. Emami Fair And Handsome World’s No.1 fairness cream protects men’s face from sun’s UV Rays.

Right on!

For more fun get there and enjoy.

 

 

  • http://www.jadekitten.blogspot.com/ ‘Your 1.7′ :-))

    He he he he…leprosy and gangrene? Gulp.

    Y’all have changed tack I see…wasn’t your instant make up of choice the SLK McLaren not too long ago? hehehehe….

  • http://www.thedisplacedafrican.com Mwangi – the Displaced African

    I actually went through the whole Fair and Handsome phase…..silly me, funny in hindsight…..but silly.
    You know you would think the woman would blame it on a lack of qualification, a general propensity towards mind-numbing conversation but no, it’s time to pull an artificial Vitiligo

  • njege

    that ad has bothered me for a long time. kudos for wittily and sarcastically poking fun at it…at least i hope thats what you were doin….

  • VituVingiSana

    M and many others here who have posted & will post are right… beauty is not skin deep…

    BUT… how many of us will go for a Alek Wek look-alike vs (younger) Iman or Halle Berry or Thandie Newton…

    Even Oprah has ‘changed’ quite a bit from her days as a trash talk show host…

  • http://toiyoi.wordpress.com toiyoi

    Hear ye, hear ye! It shall come to pass that on the first day of the month of Tammuz, the sons of adam shall not take heed unto the wordings of the ninth commandment.

  • http://mywordsonly.blogspot.com acolyte

    Light is right, seems to be the creed of the day. You know what, let me enjoy my dark skin no glove and masks for me!
    If only all of my life’s problems could be solved by becoming lighter, oh what a happy day it would be!

  • http://toiyoi.wordpress.com toiyoi

    Correction:
    The month is really not Tammuz but Nissan.

    Just remembered, there was “Dark and Lovely”, wasn’t there? Now that there is “Fair and Lovely”, 10 years from now it will be “White and Lovely”, and no one will blink.

  • http://seasonsandreasons.wordpress.com seasonsandreasons

    I saw the ad on Sunday…I think we maybe pushing this metrosexual angle too much.

  • donworry

    M, you put together a great piece. I have to say though that it is quite Unfair that so many make Light of something that is seriously no laughing matter.

    Oh people, stop protesting. What’s wrong with the ad? People are always soooo negative when it comes to others bettering themselves. There is nothing wrong with wanting to look your best. Nature is not perfect and I write as someone who has worn spectacles from even before I could read.

    Why do we attack our fellow humans striving to improve nature’s flaws when the have this item lightened, brightened, darkened, pierced, enlarged, reduced, removed? What’s the problem?

    Do you work-out? Would you prefer a well-toned rugged, manly torso or that natural beer belly that currently rests against your keypad?

    How about bit of this new cream to hide those wrinkles, madam- “yes please”

    …..and how about a course of tooth whitening to really give you that perfect smile, Bwana Mkubwa, “sawa, I guess”

    “Hey Mista, is there some grey in there amongst the black? Are you fed up of the bald look which everyone else is sporting? Do you have a funny shaped head and would rather keep your hair? Have you tried this Brilliant new “natural dye”

    Speaking personally and with uncharacteristic candour, if there was a surgeon who could add an extra 9 inches….to my height and remove this little hump on my back, I’d give all my life savings and have the procedures done

    Surely you jest! You cannot possibly be saying having dark skin is in the same league as having a hump on your back!!! Say it ain’t so? Is having dark skin a flaw? Is making my skin lighter bettering myself, meaning I am somehow worse off with my dark skin? Personally I think I am jes fine as I am! if I am deluding myself, so be it.
  • donworry

    I enjoyed your article truly but I do not write in jest. I would never consider my own dark skin as flawed but many others would and often do. The people who employ newsreaders, weathergirls and continuity announcers seem to feel the same too.

    On the caucasian side of things I am sure that your readers will have come across someone being described as …”Having a healthy tan” or another poor sod being a “sickly pale”..

    I guess that many people are not satisfied with what Nature has given them but they will not say. Let us drop the stigma once and for all for it is no huge sin for them to try and make ammends

    And isn’t such an attitude contributing directly to the problem? It’s one thing to want to be lighter. It’s another to say you’re substandard because you’re dark
  • http://www.sidaki.wordpress.com sidaki

    I saw the ad. I remember smiling knowing only too well that the week won’t expire before comments on it appear here.

    Having light skin is ok. What isn’t is making me feel that my dark skin is somehow wrong, dirty, uncared-for and so on.

    I thought about getting angry, but I laughed instead.

  • http://mountkirima.wordpress.com Kirima

    Handsome alone is ok with me; whether ‘fair’ or ‘unfair’

  • http://modoathii.wordpress.com modoathii

    i saw it and was like HWAT!

  • rosi

    I was sure this was M’s April Fool prank, now I don’t know what to say,lol :-t :-<. The guy on the website, is he trying to look macho pointing his finger like that and striking a pose while using fair and handsome??

  • http://parlezvousmoo.blogspot.com nuttycow

    Fair and Handsome.

    No.

    Just no.

  • http://www.theintelligensia.com/blog/ 31337

    I shall attempt to watch more television on my television. How did i miss this one?

    My skin could use some lightening, no not the kind being peddled here though, the electric kind, i understand its good for wrinkles.

  • http://prousette.blogspot.com prousette

    Fair and lovely usually has a column on a local magazine where users testify on the changes they have seen in their lives since they started using F& L.
    I would love to see the F&H version.

    M, aren’t you tempted to try for the sake of science :D ;D so you may tell the rest of us about it?

  • http://www.seinlife.com seinlife

    as long as you know your dark and lovely self is just dandy then no worries…
    if you are armed with self esteem and love for yourself then no matter what these money hungry exploiters (preying on your self doubt) put in front of you – should not phase you in the least bit…

  • http://gishungwa.blogspot.com Gish

    For the vain at heart, am with Aco, if my problems could be ended by just becoming a bit lighter then batoto ba congo would have nothing on me come to think of it F&L wouldnt suffice.

  • edge.of.sanity

    Say whaaa? I’m one who didn’t know that F&L or F&H existed until now. Our brethren and sistren who are bent on uncoloring themselves have a still widening range of marinades to choose from that are guaranteed to rid them of their lifelong melanin torment.

    M, That’s just the way it is. As long as race/skin color remains a function of beauty, where whiteness is held and maintained as the ideal, then a countless many within [all] the darker races will continue to strive [with relative success] to come as close as possible to it despite the apparent health risks associated with many of the methods.

    Some things will never change.

  • http://turistaafricana.wordpress.com Rista

    Heh heh. So glad that everybody hurts. Never imagine that something targeted at one group will never be repackaged and sold to another. It’s all about messing with your self-esteem then presenting a (profitable) solution.

  • http://randomgirlnextdoor.blogspot.com Girl Next Door

    I haven’t seen the ad. Didn’t realize even men are under the same pressure to be “fair.”

    It’s tragic that we (black and non-Caucasian people) bought into this myth of beauty and attempt to change one of our best natural features.

  • http://sci-cultura.blogspot.com/ sci-culturist

    words fail me…my heart races, i cup my face and shake my head with my eyes closed. one word comes to mind: tragic.

  • http://gishungwa.blogspot.com Gish

    Actually saw while shopping on Saturday right next top fair and Lovely.Talk of equality something for him too…

  • Bikram

    I used it and now I am suffering from vitiligo. Doctor has advised me to take sun bath for half and hour daily.