Huge celebrities are often paid to promote products and services everywhere, and it has long been one of the oldest trick in the book for plenty of advertisers. The same applies for whitening creams as the ads almost always showcase the efficacy of the product on big names who are deliberately digitally enhanced to look fairer in the ‘after’ shots.
While there may be nothing wrong with that recurrent scenario, advocating the need for fairness in India could be extremely debilitating to the self-esteems of plenty of young women, and men. And this is exactly the reason why actress Priyanka Chopra has decided to say no to all endorsements of whitening creams once and for all.
In a recent interview with Vogue India, she brought up her confidence issues stemming from her naturally darker skin tone, saying, “Before 15, I had a lot of self-esteem issues. I was very conscious of the colour of my skin. I was very conscious of being, like, a super-gawky, skinny teenager.”
And when she endorsed whitening creams sometime back, she finally saw the problem, mentioning, “Around my early twenties, I did a commercial for a skin-lightening cream. I was playing that girl with insecurities. And when I saw it, I was like, ‘Oh shit. What did I do?'”
She then consciously chose to change her perspective. “I started talking about being proud of the way I looked. I actually like my skin tone.” And that’s the most important lesson of it all: Learn to embrace and love who you are, no matter your skin colour.
