Here is the thing, every day we turn on our televisions and during the commercial break 6 out of 10 TVCs are of fairness creams, making you believe that the fairer you are the more you will achieve in your life, be it your marriage, your career or your Education, you will only be able to fulfill all your dreams only if you have a fair complexion. With this daily drill of listening to these ads ,somehow this complex has been engraved in our minds slowly and silently , that even if we deny it we have subconsciously accepted it as a merit to measure everything especially Beauty in our everyday life.  
What saddens me more that we have such beautiful features and have those warm complexions that are rightly envied by the West, yet we are always in the lookout for ways to get rid of that warmth. In this pursuit we have gone so blind that we have turned to all those formula creams that are advertised openly and have never thought of the adverse effects these creams are causing us silently
Being said that, I feel very pleased that the well-known Philanthropist and Beauty Guru of Pakistan Beauty industry MASARRAT MISBAH ,finally took a stand for the people and spoke against the widespread use of Mercury based creams that are circulating in our markets unchecked and unsupervised ,slowly poisoning people’s lives in so many ways that are unknown to them  .

On 16th February, 2017, Makeup Maestro Masarrat Misbah invited the Bloggers and Social Media influencers of Lahore to a scrumptious hi-tea in The Lahore Social to talk about the adverse effects of Mercury Based formula creams and our role as social media influencers in spreading awareness against them. I feel privileged that I was among those who got a chance to be a part of the discussion on the topic that is so close to my heart. During the session we were shown a documentary that was run on BBC earlier and created a stir in the local community on how these creams were affecting us .Here I am attaching the video for you guys to see . 

Now, while discussing these formula creams the main concern was the lack of check and balance of these creams that was leading to a humongous increase in the mercury content that was to achieve rapid desired results but leading to an alarming rise in the rate of Skin diseases especially skin cancer in our general population. According to the PSCQR guideline, all these creams need to be approved by them before putting them up on shelves, which unfortunately isn’t the case here in Pakistan due to lack of check and balance by the law enforcing departments . It saddens me to the core that people’s lives are at risk due to such ignorance at the part of the concerned people. Moreover, our media is playing no part in spreading awareness against such poisonous creams rather every day we see a new formula cream popping on our screens.

You might ask at this point that I have been continuously saying that these creams are harmful but haven’t said how .Here is the answer: These formula base creams that show such rapid over fortnight results are infused with harmful chemicals such as steroids and Mercury in particular in such great quantities that over the period of time lead to skin diseases and in the long run may lead to Skin Carcinomas in many cases. Moreover, in long term usage, the Mercury slowly absorbs into our system and leads to complications by passing on to the infants when a mother with mercury in her system carries them. This has led to an increased rate of still births and babies with congenital abnormalities in our society. While this may never be thought of as a cause, we need to spread awareness that these Mercury enriched creams are a silent cause of the booming rate of abnormalities in our future generation.
It deeply saddens me that the people affiliated with the Media, who are looked up by our general public as heroes and models, are openly endorsing these creams via the advertisements they come in and also during their public appearances. Being people with an influence over the society , it makes them ethically bound to not promote such kind of harmful products which they themselves are reluctant to use .But since there is no check and balance and no one to question any one here , Everyone goes by their own way and does whatever them deem right for themselves . 

While keeping all this in mind, the question arises that what to do in those genuine cases when there is actual pressure on girls regarding their complexion, when it actually affects their lives in ways that we cannot imagine, because of course this mentality is in our society and raises many problems for the girls and now boys even, leading them to resort to such creams that claim to give them the fair skin they find Oh-so-desirable. No one is against the usage of creams that would make you feel better about yourself and give your confidence a boost. The point is that the manufacturers should have a strict check over them so that they do not exceed the safe limits of the amount of Mercury in their products. Our law enforcement personnel should be vigilant enough to make sure that every product that comes out has been thoroughly checked and is PSCQR certified. Even though we have a law against this practice, yet it’s not implemented as it should be, leading to a rapid increase in such sort of poisonous in the market.

I really hope that even if one of your who is reading this gets the point and just gives up the practice and spreads awareness to their near and dear ones, all the effort that I have put in writing this has been rewarded . Please think the color you are born with is your own, own it and feel confident about it. We are the people of color, our color makes the world envy us and yet we ourselves don’t own it. We need to shun the idea that is all over our society that the standard f beauty is the color of the skin. We need to spread the awareness so that we are safe and our future generations stay safe as well! 

HAVE YOU EVER USED A WHITENING FORMULA CREAM? DO YOU KNOW ANYONE WHO USES THEM? WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT THESE WHITENING FORMULA CREAMS THAT ARE PLAGUING OUR SOCIETY? DO LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!