The skin of life

First, the following from a year ago:

Think about it.  We humans are animals.  How often do you see other mammals taking leisurely baths?  Most would rather not go anywhere near water other than to drink it.
I don't mean to suggest that we stop showering.  Hell no.  But, if we start from that point of departure that the largest organ--the skin--needs to be treated with care, then we will think about showers also very differently.

I referred to Uncle RM--remember him?--who was known for his "காக்கா குளியல்" (to mean that he had very, very quick baths.)  During one of his visits with us, when I would hang around him for his witty and insightful remarks, he said that the less we bathe the better it is.

But then in a hot and humid place, what about the stinky sweat?  I suppose that's also why women wore jasmine and other fragrant flowers on their hair, and men splashed their torsos with rose-water and sandalwood paste!

Modern science is catching up with the late Uncle RM about water and skin care.

Before I get into that discussion, let me draw a parallel.  I don't always floss my teeth.  About once a week or ten days, I work a lengthy piece of floss in between the teeth.  Initially, the dental hygienist was concerned about my "bad" habit.  I explained to her that it was all about moderation.  A healthy diet and daily brushing of the teeth should work well, I explained.  Over the years, the hygienist has stopped asking me about my flossing habit.  Hygiene is never about the flossing--starting with a balanced and healthy diet is way high on the list for dental hygiene.  If one thinks that they can floss and forget eating healthy foods, well, good luck!

I suppose the parallel has already become clear.

Skin care is not merely about the superficial showering and soap and lotion and whatever else.  Soaps, lotions, and almost everything is a whole bunch of evil advertising about stuff that you don't ever need.  Though, I did like the pomegranate face wash ;)



Even the original idea of what shampoo meant is far removed from how we now understand its supposed importance. 

So, "What is all the scrubbing, soaping, moisturizing, and deodorizing really doing for the body’s largest organ?"

In one word?  Nothing!

In fact, the scrubbing, soaping, moisturizing, and deodorizing might be doing plenty harm.

experts want us to think of hygiene more expansively—as a matter of health and balance, rather than one of sterility and purity. With all our soaps and sanitizers and antibiotics, in addition to so much time spent inside, away from dirt and animals and fresh air, we’ve created new problems for our immune systems, which miss out on the chance to encounter benign triggers and instead learn to overreact to perceived threats. Excess hygiene can also be a problem for the skin’s microbiome, which has an ecology that we’re just beginning to understand.

Though Uncle RM didn't know about the biology of the skin's microbiome, he had an intuitive understanding about taking care of the skin.

So, take a minute first to appreciate and respect your skin:

Skin is a strange little miracle. Were it removed, you would quickly lose the water in your body and die of dehydration. It protects you from deadly radiation and pathogens and helps you stay within the narrow temperature spectrum your body can tolerate, yet it is, at its thinnest, half the width of a penny.

You take good care of it, and it will take good care of you.

[The] science of skin health, as described by Hamblin and Lyman, suggests that we err when we think of skin as static or as separate, to be ministered to by surface applications of various cleansers and moisturizers, goops and goos. (Hamblin scoffs at the idea of trying to promote skin’s internal collagen production by rubbing on, or ingesting, collagen: “It’s like if you needed new tires and you put rubber in your gas tank.”) Skin is, literally, an ecosystem, in constant connection with the health of the rest of our body, as well as with the world beyond.

Beauty is skin deep?

Remember this one?

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President Cheetos is perhaps the most well known example of one being unhappy with their skin color.  Why this orange monster prefers that strange color is, well, his madness!

We humans are obsessed with skin color.  This president is not an exception, though his obsession is just off the charts!

We live in a crazy world in which the pale-skinned want to get tanned, the dark-skinned want to bleach themselves, ... Weren't we all dark-skinned naked humans not too long ago?

Our species, Homo sapiens, originated around 200,000 years ago and underwent tremendous diversification—culturally, technologically, linguistically, artistically—for 130,000 years before a few small populations left Africa to populate the rest of the world. These early ancestors of modern Eurasians dispersed into parts of the world that had more seasonal sunshine and much lower UV levels. It’s in these populations that we begin to see real changes in the genetic makeup of pigmentation. As people move into areas with much lower and more seasonal UV, they run into problems if they have too much natural sunscreen. Some UV is essential for making vitamin D in the skin.

The paler skin is an adaptation to life in the latitudes far away from the equator.  A darker-skinned person like me now has a much tougher time making vitamin D.

A few years ago, after the routine lab tests during the physicals, the doctor said I was deficient in vitamin D and he prescribed a dose of pills.  He wanted me to check in with him after three months.  I never did.  Because, as much as I believe in the importance of the hormone like vitamin D, I am equally convinced that too much of a good thing can be harmful--especially when it is an artificial intake via pills.  It is one thing to increase vitamin D intake through walking on sunny days, or through milk and yogurt consumption.  But, pills?

I grew up in a culture, in a country, where the skin complexion was categorized in so many ways, like:
Coal black
Dark
Dark brown
Brown
Light brown
Wheatish
Fair
Very fair
And, yes, even white!

A graduate school friend, who was from Nigeria, used to joke that there isn't any black skin--it is all only various shades of brown.  A white American grad school colleague noted that there is no white skin and once held a blank sheet of white paper against his skin to prove his point.

Madness!  It has taken me decades to re-wire my brain on this after all the brainwashing during my formative years!

So, if our skin coloring, with all the shades of brown that people in the old country are so attentive to, is a product of our evolution, then does it mean that the colors are still evolving?

Skin color is evolving insofar as we see all sorts of exciting new mixtures of people coming together and having children with new mixtures of skin color genes. If you go into any major city of the world, you see how children are being produced through such felicitous interactions. Not only the pigmentation genes but lots of other genes are getting mixed up. We don’t see much natural selection of pigmentation as we did earlier in our history because we mostly protect ourselves from the harshest parts of the environment—from excess sun or cold or dryness

We are mixing things up.  Soon, the world will be beige ;)

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Do monkeys take long showers?

Here at home, I usually take long showers. Because I can. We live in an area of abundance of water.  So rich in water that we know that it is only a matter of time before we get climate-change refugees 'streaming' into our state from the east and south.

But, when traveling, especially in India, it is always a quick "bath," as they say in the old country.  My father is always surprised at my quick turnaround.  This past trip too it happened.  "You are already done?," he asked me. I told him that Uncle RM, who was known for his "காக்கா குளியல்" (to mean that he had very, very quick baths) remarked that the less we bathe the better it is.

Bathing less is better.  Sounds contrarian, right?  But then he was a contrarian.

Anyway, I continued with my father my explanation of some ways in which RM was right.  Bathing, with or without soaping ourselves, dries up the skin.  I then quoted my doctor's advice, that most of the water and soap should be only for a few specific parts of the body.  You know well what they are, correct?

As it always happens, I didn't get no respect ;)

Think about it.  We humans are animals.  How often do you see other mammals taking leisurely baths?  Most would rather not go anywhere near water other than to drink it.

I don't mean to suggest that we stop showering.  Hell no.  But, if we start from that point of departure that the largest organ--the skin--needs to be treated with care, then we will think about showers also very differently.

There’s no hard and fast rule for this although dermatologists agree that as a society, we shower too often.
Many of us douche daily, however, if you’re not doing anything too strenuous, you can shower every other day, not smell offensive and ensure your skin retains those vital oils that too much washing depletes.

Perhaps I now have your attention.  How about washing clothes then?  Changing the linen?  How frequent should these activities be?

Aha, got you thinking, eh!

I tell ya, even the underwear you can rethink:

While the thought of reusing your undergarments for days on end might make some people shudder, an underwear line from Danish company, Organic Basics, has certainly grabbed our attention. The company claims that you don’t have to wash a pair for weeks as its products kill bacteria and odours, leaving you feeling fresh and clean.

For once, an ad that doesn't use female models but only objectifies men, eh ;)  What is with the tattoos though?

Yes, there is a reason for this post--it is getting hot here.

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We are under a heat advisory!

The heat makes me sweat. Don't worry--I will shower!

Have "white" skin, will travel ... to the land of "brown" people :(

Take a look at this image:

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Unless you are from India, or are into all things Bollywood, you would not know this is an Indian actor, right?  I didn't know.  I had no clue.  I stopped following the Indian movie scene even before I left India ;)  Well, ok, not really. the Indian movies that I liked usually didn't make it big.  (Like this one, or this other one, which are some of my all-time favorites.)  With most of the rest, it was the songs that I cared about.

Back to that young woman striking a pose.  Turns out that she is not from India.  But, yes, she is an actor there.  Her name is Amy Jackson.

Amy is Caucasian, but her long dark hair has allowed her to pass for a local

So, where is Jackson from?  From Liverpool. As in the UK. Yes, that Liverpool.

She had already been crowned Teen Miss World at the age of 16 - but playing Indian characters in Indian films, requiring her to speak Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, is still not what this all-English beauty queen expected to happen next.
The opportunity arose when director AL Vijay saw her photo and asked Jackson to play an English governor's daughter in his Tamil film Madrasapattinam, set against the backdrop of Indian independence in 1947.

She came to play the role of an Englishman's daughter.  And then ...

Diving head first into Indian life, Amy has moved to Mumbai, the home of Bollywood.
The Indian industry is split along regional and linguistic lines. As well as making her Bollywood debut, Jackson has also made or is making pictures in Kollywood (Tamil language, based in Chennai in the south-east) and Tollywood (Telugu language, based in the central city of Hyderabad).

So, does it mean that Jackson plays an Englishwoman character in every movie?  Not so.  For instance:

Thaandavam, a Tamil action film in which she plays an Indian woman living in London, comes out in India on Friday and she is currently filming lead roles in two more movies.

You think this would have ever worked out if Jackson were a Teen Miss World of dark-skinned African heritage?

India is one crazy place where the "fair skin" mania seems to gain more and more momentum with every passing day.

And then there are other reasons as well; like this:

While nationalist parties are outraged over white actresses and junior artists being cast in films over local ones, Jag Mundra (who incidentally made the critically acclaimed Provoked! Yikes!) was quoted saying, “The  reason producers pick white girls is because a lot of them have better figures and are willing to expose them...If you need a bikini shot, not many Indian girls are willing to turn up in a string bikini. But most white girls will not have an issue with that. Titillation has been an important part of Bollywood."

Re-read that.

"Oh well" is all I can say anymore about the old country.  Because, "disgusting" would be offensive to the people there.  Oops, I wrote "disgusting." Twice. ;)

We were all black. That is fair and lovely!

My only trip to Africa was when I spent three weeks in Tanzania, in December 2009. The English language newspapers at Dar es Salaam reported on the front pages about the anti-gay fervor in neighboring Uganda and the role of US-based missionaries in that brouhaha. I was so convinced that it was all a fleeting political issue that I threw away those pages; little did I know!  Instead, I brought with me a couple of pages that were news items on how beauty products were marketed targeting the women--because, among others, the products included "skin whiteners."

The anti-gay nastiness has become a law of the land in Uganda, and it seems like it might even spread to a few more countries in Africa. That will be a post for another day, I am sure.  The skin whiteners continue to fascinate me because I grew up in a culture, in a country, where the skin complexion was categorized in so many ways, like.

Coal black
Dark
Dark brown
Brown
Light brown
Wheatish
Fair
Very fair
And, yes, even white!

A graduate school friend, who was from Nigeria, used to joke that there isn't any black skin--it is all only various shades of brown.  A white American grad school colleague noted that there is no white skin and once held a blank sheet of white paper against his skin to prove his point.

In the old country, "Fair & Lovely" was a product that was sold as a skin whitener.  It still is. In a "liberalized" economy that India now is, there are, I bet, quite a few competing products as well.

"White," as I used to joke in graduate school, is nothing but a serious medical condition of pigment deficiency.  Lack of melanin.  My version of "brown pride," I suppose.

The Economist reports a study that confirms why we have melanin:

One suggestion often proferred is that the melanin in black skin, by absorbing ultraviolet light which might otherwise damage DNA and cause mutations, protects against skin cancer.

The confirmation came via:

a study by Mel Greaves, of the Institute of Cancer Research, in Britain, just published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, settles the question in favour of cancer being the driving force. Dr Greaves does so by reviewing the clinical data about those Africans who do not have black skin because they are albino.

As humans wandered into the northern latitudes, there was less of a danger of cancer from the way-less intense sunlight. On the other hand, a lighter skin tone facilitated synthesizing Vitamin D.  The cost-benefit analysis then yielded the "whites."

My favorite Tamil expression for the much adored skin tone is பால் நெரம் (milk color.)  Imagine a Tamil walking around with a skin color that matches the color of milk. If such a person existed, that will be one brief existence on the planet, in those uber-hot conditions!

Of course, this also means that the darker skinned Tamil folks like me living in northern latitudes that aren't our original home, and especially in this part of the Pacific Northwest where the sun rarely ever peeks through the cloud cover, well, we need Vitamin D supplements. But, hey, no worries about any skin cancer though ;)

I wonder if Wendy Doniger will have anything about the "fair" and "dark" skinned Hindu gods.  I will find out when I return to blogging about "The Hindus."

Here is how Obama can win over the racists in the GOP

As I have noted in this blog (like here,) India has a strange fixation on the fifty shades of brown as the skin color.  Naturally, satirists have played on that Indian theme of skin color lighteners.

Those satires can, oddly enough, work as "advice" for President Obama, who faces a great deal of criticism and opposition simply because his skin color isn't milk white: Use "Fair & Lovely" :)

Another takes it to the next logical step of a campaign poster--which can work for the product and the president through the same marketing campaign:

Oh well ... some day, yes, some day, we shall become truly color-blind.  Until then, humor saves the day!

Note: I don't recall the site from where I got the image on top; the second contains the URL too.

A very strange vaginal fixation in ... India?

Growing up in India, I was used to the advertisements for "Fair and Lovely" products that (falsely, of course) promised a lighter skin color when those products are used.  It was simply the market forces responding to the social preference for a "lighter" skin color.  Actually prized more than preferred.  As this BBC news report noted, this genre of skincare products add up to a whole lot of money--more than the sales of Coca Cola in India.

But, it seemed like the skin color issue had reached new lows, and mean "low" in the literal sense as well, when I across a news item about a product to bleach/lighten the pubic hair!  How crazy is that!  This Jezebel post, which is a must-read for its phenomenal satire, noted about the product and the ad:

In this commercial for an Indian product called Clean and Dry Intimate Wash, a (very light-skinned) couple sits down for what would have been a peaceful cup of morning coffee—if the woman's disgusting brown vagina hadn't ruined everything! The dude can't even bring himself look at her. He can't look at his coffee either, because it only reminds him of his wife's dripping, coffee-brown hole! Fortunately, the quick-thinking woman takes a shower, scrubbing her swarthy snatch with Clean and Dry Intimate Wash ("Freshness + Fairness"). And poof! Her vadge comes out blinding white like a downy baby lamb (and NOT THE GROSS BLACK KIND) and her husband—whose penis, I can only assume, is literally a light saber—is all, "Hey, lady! Cancel them divorce papers and LET'S BONE."

Hysterically funny the Jezebel post is, and laugh we should because there is nothing else we can do about this madness :(

If that product was bizarre enough, well, it turns out that there is another one that is being peddled now in India--a cream to tighten the vagina so that women can feel 18 again!  The BBC notes that the ad is:

to market a vaginal "rejuvenation and tightening" product, which was launched this month in India.
The makers of 18 Again, the Mumbai-based pharmaceutical company Ultratech, say it is the first of its kind in India (similar creams are already available in other parts of the world such as the USA), and fills a gap in the market.

That is right--if it can be sold in the US, then why not in India, right?  USA! USA! USA!

The music and the dance in the ad are not at all Indian, however:



The setting and the characters give it a South Indian--Tamil--feel.  I wonder if there are variations that play at different regions?

Oh Madonna!