Skin Matters

It’s only mid-spring but the sun is brightly shining and the temperature is uncontrollably rising! Actually, you’ll never think it's springtime because it actually feels like summertime.

Australian sunrays are skin-penetrating these days so I decided to take a sunscreen lotion at work this morning. After a 5-minute biosecurity shower, I started applying it on the parts of my skin which are exposed to the harmful sunshine. While doing it, my Australian workmate said that he doesn’t need it.

I HAVE ANOTHER STORY about my white Australian workmates in my previous job (a layer farm) in Southeast Queensland. While we [the Asians (Filipinos and Chinese)] were doing everything we could to avoid the sunshine, these white people would love to display themselves, half-naked, under the sun during smoko* break just to achieve their desired skin tan. I don’t know if they had worn their sunscreen protection before doing it; how I wish they did.

Being a foreigner who has just arrived in this land, I was so excited to tell my ‘white’ friends that back in the Philippines the use of a wide range of whitening products has already been part of our lifestyle! I enumerated these—the whitening soap, whitening lotion, whitening cream, whitening facial cleanser, whitening facial scrub, whitening facial wash, etc.

They were, actually, surprised to know about this because Australian shops are, obviously, not selling whitening beauty products! It is, indeed, very ironic that white-skinned people want a brown (copper?) complexion, while those who are naturally brown choose to 'peel their skin off' just to become white! [I also added that in the Philippines, white chicken eggs are much preferred than brown eggs. They were shocked again, because we were producing a million of brown eggs every day in that farm!]

Yes, I am promoting the use of sunscreen products. Whitening products? Well, if my fellow Filipinos back home are looking for some ways to cut their cost of living in order to cope with the high fuel and flour prices during this challenging period of global economic recession, may I suggest forgetting about these whitening products? It’s a big saving, I reckon.