Thai Women And Skin Whitening

One of the strangest things about Thai women is the obsession many of them seem to have with aligning themselves to western culture. I was aware of this before I moved to Bangkok, but it only really dawns on you once you’re walking the streets and seeing the influence of the west with your own eyes.

Thai women have an obsession with whitening their skin. In contrast to my girlfriend who likes to lay out in the sun like a lounge kitten and soak up any rays she can grab, the Thai women attach no such beauty to being tanned or dark skinned. Nearly all of the billboards are plastered with whiter than white models, but the real insanity is evident when you walk in to Boots.

Nearly every skin product in the pharmacy is loaded with whitening serum to the point where my girlfriend has trouble raiding her stash without compromising her tan. And believe me, she kicks up a fuss about it. We’re not talking about a small niche in the skincare aisle. Literally, EVERYTHING comes with whitening serum.

It’s like walking in to Superdrug and finding every skin lotion bursting at the brim with the ingredients to give you that You’ve Been Tango’d shine. So much social rank is placed on skin colour over here. The women will go to crazy extremes to give themselves lighter tones of skin. It’s bordering on the absurd. Especially considering the natural beauty of many Thai girls.

But I guess it’s no different to our own skin tone fantasies. How many British tourists do you find laying on the beach for hours on end, slowly grilling under the sun, all in the name of a bronzed tan? Practically all of them if my beach trip to Rayong is anything to go by. While we like to appear olive skinned, the Thais adore milky white faces and limbs. Unfortunately for us, our best efforts to get tanned are usually dented by the world’s least sexy look – the dreaded tanlines from hell.

In Rayong, I saw British women limping around the pool with tanlines scrawled across their backs that I could have played noughts and crosses on. Seriously, why wear straps in 35 degree heat!

Another freaky beauty craze in Thailand is to wear giant contact lenses to make your eyes look bigger. I guess this is result of copying yet more western beauty ideals, but it can actually look pretty freaky.

I have an eye condition where my pupils look dilated most of the time. I get a ton of comments about it from people who assume I’m drugged up or cakebaked off my face. I can’t imagine why any girl would choose to give herself that complex, but many of them do.

It’s definitely interesting to see the values that Thai women place in beauty and what they believe to be attractive traits, presumably with the help of our fucked up western stereotypes. I just wish I could get some sun tan lotion that didn’t harm my efforts to get rid of the London tan!

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