It’s the trend that’s making waves across Southeast Asia, India and Western countries – and now Lady Friday tackles it for being dangerous…
A new beauty craze in Thailand and Southeast Asia has caused ripples in the media – and it’s all about re-colouring your intimate areas.
The idea of a ‘perfect’ vagina exists in many cultures. The surgical shortening of lips or labia, for example, has risen massively in popularity since the 1990s.
However, women in Southeast Asia face an increasing trend for ‘whitening’ the skin of their intimate areas.
The reason? Lighter skin is the beauty ideal in general, associated with wealth and good health – and now cosmetic companies have found a way to bleach or ‘brighten’ the sensitive skin of the genitals.
It’s captured massive media attention in Thailand, but a TV ad in India in June also made waves by implying that men aren’t attracted to darker skin, and that ‘fair’ genitalia are far more attractive.
Lest we start feeling superior, the trend of ‘re-colouring’ your intimate areas isn’t confined to overseas.
‘Paints’ and dyes exist to make the areas flush rosily, and give them the Western ideal of pinkness.
For Western women, however, much of the trend originated in X-rated films, where the starlets are permanently shaved and a particular type of genitalia is popular.
The prominent intimate-film starlet Stoya went on the record a few months ago about her anger that a production company had ‘air-brushed’ half of her intimate areas away on a poster. No lips, no colouring – it made her white, smooth and childlike.
If you’re feeling insecure about the colour of your downstairs, first things first: stay away from whitening or colouring creams or products.
The Thai products often contain mercury, which isn’t renowned for its health benefits, and the skin of your intimate areas is so sensitive that any application of foreign agents beyond lubricant is risky.
It may unbalance your yeast or pH levels, discolour your skin permanently or make you ill.
Some products have also been noted to make the skin so thin it will bruise at a touch.
Also don’t fall into the trap of ‘home remedies’. Everything from potato to lime juice to milk powder to orange juice has been touted as a natural intimate bleaching agent.
Keep them in the cupboard; they’re bad ideas.
Here are some facts about ‘dark’ vaginal skin to reassure you: there is a huge range of colours, from pink to purple to brown to black.
It’s also very common for skin to be darker than the rest of the body, and exceedingly dangerous to fiddle with it.
Ultimately, the whitening craze is a cosmetics ruse: make women worry about an invented problem, then create a product to ‘fix’ it.
If, however, the skin of your intimate areas has darkened or lightened quite suddenly, that may signal a medical problem, from an allergy to a yeast infection (which tends to produce a purple colour on the labia).
Menopause also causes darkening as your estrogen levels lower.
If you experience this, see a doctor or a gynaecologist, armed with any other symptoms you may have encountered.
Otherwise, leave it be – no reasonable partner will ever be bothered.
Lady Friday xx
Taking the pillow talk out of the bedroom, every Friday…
