Clothing Aesthetics: Consistent Colour Choices to Match Fair and Tanned Skin Tones

Fashion stylists advise clothing colours according to personal categories that depend on skin, hair and eye colour. These categories are not defined scientifically, and advised colours are inconsistent. Such caveats may explain the lack of formal tests of clothing colour aesthetics. We assessed whether observers preferred clothing colours that are linked to variation in melanin levels among White women. For this, we presented 12 women's faces: six with fair skin (relatively lower in melanin) and six with tanned skin (relatively higher in melanin). Across two experiments, observers ( N = 96 and 75) selected the colour (hue and saturation or hue and value) of simulated clothing that most suited the skin tone of each face. Observers showed strong preferences for red and blue hues, and in addition favoured ‘cool’ blue hues to match fair skin and ‘warm’ orange/red hues to match tanned skin. This finding suggests that skin tone can determine colour preferences for clothes.

The Meanings of Fair Skin in Eight Unilevers Skin-whitening Advertisements in Indonesia

Human skin color ranges from the darkest to the lightest. However, the culture and the power of media, especially advertisements, convince all women to embrace fair skin as the idealized self. This study aims to find how fair skin is represented in the selected eight Unilever’s skin-whitening advertisements and how this representation reflects consumerism. In conducting this study, I used the theory of representation and consumerism to find the symbolic meanings of consumerism. The finding showed that there were two meanings that are represented by the skin-whitening advertisements, such as youthfulness and success. In conclusion, those eight skin-whitening products were sold not just as products, but also as their symbolic meanings that lead women to youthfulness and success.Keywords: fair skin, skin-whitening advertisements, meanings, youthfulness, success, consumerism

Health care practitioners’ confidence assessing lupus-related rashes in patients of color

Background: Patients with skin of color (P-SOC) are disproportionately burdened by lupus and often have worse disease outcomes than white patients. This is partly because educational materials underrepresent P-SOC, thereby promoting unconscious bias and clinical deficiencies among practitioners. Purpose: We sought to measure providers' confidence in diagnosing the cutaneous manifestations of lupus (i.e., lupus-related rashes) in P-SOC and to assess which factors influenced their confidence. Research Design: We created and distributed a survey that gathered information about participants' personal characteristics, clinical specialty, training, and current practice as well as measuring their confidence assessing lupus-related rashes in various skin tones. Study Sample: Practitioners from the fields of rheumatology, dermatology, and internal medicine in the greater St. Louis area (Missouri, USA) participated in the survey. Analysis: We compared practitioners' mean confidence levels assessing lupus-related rashes in patients with fair skin and P-SOC with a linear mixed effects model and used univariate and multivariate linear regression models to determine if the aforementioned factors correlated with confidence. Results: Participants' mean confidence in diagnosing lupus-related rashes in P-SOC was significantly lower than assessing such findings in patients with fair skin ( p = .009). Several factors correlated with confidence level at a univariate level; however, the multivariate model revealed experience as the only factor significantly associated with confidence ( p = .001). Conclusions: Providers report significantly less confidence assessing lupus-related rashes in P-SOC than in patients with fair skin. Our analysis demonstrates that experience positively correlates with confidence and suggests that interventions which enhance practitioners' exposure to and experience with these rashes in P-SOC can improve clinical confidence as well as patient outcomes.

The protective role of MC1R in chromosome stability and centromeric integrity in melanocytes

Variants in the melanocortin-1 receptor (MC1R) gene, encoding a trimeric G-protein-coupled receptor and activated by α-melanocyte-stimulating hormone (α-MSH), are frequently associated with red or blonde hair, fair skin, freckling, and skin sensitivity to ultraviolet (UV) light. Several red hair color variants of MC1R are also associated with increased melanoma risk. MC1R variants affect melanoma risk independent of phenotype. Here, we demonstrated that MC1R is a critical factor in chromosome stability and centromere integrity in melanocytes. α-MSH/MC1R stimulation prevents melanocytes from UV radiation-induced damage of chromosome stability and centromere integrity. Mechanistic studies indicated that α-MSH/MC1R-controlled chromosome stability and centromeric integrity are mediated by microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (Mitf), a transcript factor needed for the α-MSH/MC1R signaling and a regulator in melanocyte development, viability, and pigment production. Mitf directly interacts with centromere proteins A in melanocytes. Given the connection among MC1R variants, red hair/fair skin phenotype, and melanoma development, these studies will help answer a question with clinical relevance “why red-haired individuals are so prone to developing melanoma”, and will lead to the identification of novel preventive and therapeutic strategies for melanomas, especially those with redheads.

Globalizing male attractiveness: Advertising in men’s lifestyle magazines in India

This study examines the construction of new models of masculinity in men’s lifestyle magazine advertising in India. Using textual analysis of advertisements, the study shows how certain kinds of western masculine ideals and body aesthetics are being adopted and reworked into advertising to appeal and facilitate consumption among middle and upper-class Indian men living in the urban centers of India. The contemporary construction of upper and aspirational middle-class masculinity includes size and hypermuscularity, fair skin/whiteness, and a view of self as global ethnic. These types of constructions help to globalize the male body and masculine ideal while also privileging whiteness and class in the local and global arena.

A Call to Action: The Need for a Cultural Psychological Approach to Discrimination on the Basis of Skin Color in Asia

A strong preference for fair skin appears to be the norm across the Asian continent and may pervade many aspects of social life. Yet scholarly work on this ubiquitous phenomenon is rare within psychological science. This article is a call for a psychological investigation into colorism in Asia. I argue that colorism has firm systemic roots as a result of the sociohistorical trajectories of different Asian societies that have attached cultural meanings to skin color. Consequently, similarities and differences in such trajectories may account for variability in the expression of colorism within contemporary Asian societies. Directions for a cultural psychological approach to colorism are suggested.

Laser Treatment in Hirsutism: An Update

Unwanted hair growth, which is a common aesthetic problem, has traditionally been treated using various techniques such as shaving, waxing, and epilation, but most of these provide only a temporary solution. Laser and light-based technology for hair removal has become one of the fastest growing procedures in modern cosmetic dermatology in the last decade. Clinical experience suggests that in the ideal subject with fair skin and dark hair, laser treatment can reduce hair growth significantly. This article reviews the various laser and light-based devices used for hair removal along with the various laser and patient parameters that affect the outcome of laser treatment for hair removal. Photoepilation, when properly used, offers clear advantages when compared with older, traditional techniques.

Discourse on the shifting of local beauty: Concepts in an Easternization era

The desire to be beautiful among Indonesian women today is influenced by the construction of beauty from outside of the culture. The popular culture of parts of East Asia has entered Indonesia and the Eastern concept of beauty has brought in a different paradigm compared to the local beauty of the Indonesian people. This study is a descriptive qualitative study involving discourse analysis that examines the shift in the construction of beauty held by Indonesian women in the decades 1990-2000 and 2001-2010 through the cosmetic advertisements that appeared on television. Through this research, the shift in the concept of beauty and the discourse hidden behind the present construction of beauty will be revealed. The results found that in the early 1990s, Indonesian women were still oriented towards the reality of the condition that Indonesian women’s skin is tanned. This shifted to the concept of fair skin being preferred using traditional ethnic materials in Indonesia. From the 2000s up until the present, the increasingly popular culture of Japan and Korea has made Indonesian women want white skin like Japanese and Korean women. The change is driven by the desire to be beautiful by those who have experienced the shift in the discourse and beauty concept. Capitalists, as the owners of capital, always want to reap the benefits of every phenomenon that occurs in society. The use of different taglines on the beauty products is a beauty discourse construction strategy in itself and it is a form of symbolic violence against women.