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  • One of the fastest growing sectors of the beauty industry, is also one of its most controversial:

  • Skin Bleaching.

  • She will do the buying.

  • When the color of your skin can determine your future, how far would you go to be lighter?

  • Having light skin, I think it is important here.

  • Skin tone matters, nowadays.

  • And they prefer the white ones.

  • When I was younger, they would always call me, "pretty, but...

  • Pretty but dark."

  • Whatever that fair girl embodies in my head is just someone that is just a little better than me.

  • Skin bleaching, also known as skin lightening or whitening, is a global market expected

  • to grow to over 24 billion dollars in the next decade.

  • Advertisements pedaling products can be seen across the globe.

  • Asia holds the lion's share of the market, and at the heart of it lies the Philippines,

  • with one of the highest rates of use in the world.

  • The Philippines is a country on the economic rise, and its new money fuels the possibility

  • of rapid social mobility.

  • One of the most popular strategies to get a leg up is skin bleaching.

  • But at what cost?

  • It's estimated that 1-in-2 Filipinos have tried skin whitening products.

  • I wanted to understand why, so I went to meet someone who's shaping the face of beauty,

  • not only in the Philippines, but across the world.

  • Dr Vicki Belo.

  • It's almost a status symbol, like having a Hermes bag.

  • It just sounds so politically incorrect that I'm having a hard time.

  • She's a celebrity dermatologist who's built a skin lightening empire.

  • What kind of treatments do you do here for whitening?

  • We do scrubs, lasers, wet and dry dermabrasion, capsules, intravenous.

  • So we treat it from the inside, we treat it from the outside.

  • My motto is to make the Philippines the most beautiful country in the world.

  • And for many, that means skin whitening.

  • Today what do you want to do?

  • Your usual drip?

  • Your Cinderella drip?

  • One of the most popular procedures here is an IV drip.

  • Lean back.

  • Are you okay?

  • Are you comfortable?

  • So we are about to see the Cinderella drip, which is a mix of glutathione and Vitamin C.

  • The star ingredient, glutathione, is a controversial antioxidant to lighten the skin

  • from the inside out.

  • It hasn't been approved for cosmetic use by the FDA.

  • Still, Dr. Belo's clients are willing to drop hundreds of dollars per session, taking

  • on the risk, in hopes of getting whiter.

  • I've done some Hollywood celebrities.

  • People coming in from London!

  • While off label glutathione requires more research, Dr. Belo argues that it's at least

  • being done under medical supervision.

  • I think you really get what you pay for.

  • Cause some people, they just go for price.

  • People actually risk their lives, just to get whiter.

  • Things that are coming contain mercury in the creams.

  • That's really destructive.

  • That's really poisonous, actually.

  • Videos online and in the news have emerged showing harmful side effects for some of these products.

  • Across the Philippines, women have reported signs of mercury poisoning.

  • The culprit: cheap whitening creams that often sell for a little over a dollar.

  • I wanted to know what these products were, and why people would risk using them for paler skin.

  • It's a serious concern.

  • These kind of cheap skin whitening creams, you can buy it everywhere.

  • There's one man fighting this issue on the front lines: Thony Dizon,

  • an activist at Ecowaste Coalition.

  • We discover that skin lightening is a product that has a mercury concentration and that

  • there is a risk.

  • A variety of ingredients can be used for skin whitening.

  • The basic idea is to slow melanin production.

  • The less melanin, the lighter your skin.

  • Vitamin C, hydroquinone and kojic acid are some of the most common ones.

  • But one of the cheapest and deadliest is mercury, a heavy metal that can be toxic for humans,

  • even in tiny doses.

  • Repeated exposure, like smearing it on your face every day, can lead to tremors, kidney

  • failure and even birth defects.

  • So mercury isn't just an incidental contaminant, it's actually what's bleaching your skin?

  • It's a serious concern.

  • A public health concern.

  • I couldn't believe these products were on the market.

  • It turns out, they aren't.

  • Because they're so toxic, these mercury laced creams are banned by the government.

  • But they're still flooding into the country at an alarming rate.

  • And the reason behind it is shocking.

  • Some customs people would hate me for this.

  • Customs employees are in collusion with the smuggling.

  • What do you mean in collusion with the smugglers?

  • They know that these containers contain beauty products and they just let them slip through

  • and they receive some bribes.

  • It's a culture in the bureau that it is immoral to let drugs and fire arms slip through customs.

  • But beauty products don't seem to fall under that?

  • No.

  • In fact some have this perception that they are helping Filipinos improve their appearance.

  • It's almost like the culture around skin bleaching allows for this proliferation of

  • illegal bleaching creams.

  • Yes, definitely.

  • It's baffling.

  • But customs agents actually think that they're doing people a favor by allowing cheap creams

  • with mass appeal to hit the market, since few can afford high end treatments.

  • It makes for an uphill battle for Thony, but he's determined to crack down on this illegal activity.

  • I'm riding along on an undercover buy, on the condition that I stay in the car, and

  • protect his colleague's identity.

  • What we're gonna do is we're gonna put a hidden camera on her.

  • She will do the buying.

  • So the hidden camera has been positioned in her bag and it's pointing directly outwards

  • and she's going to wear her bag on the front.

  • She's mic'd up and they have a couple different people standing throughout the market

  • who are both safety and to capture different angles.

  • Alright, so they just did the undercover buy and let's look at some of the products that

  • you got.

  • Armed with these creams, the next step is to take them back to test just how dangerous

  • they are.

  • But why do people take these risks at all?

  • Do you think that people who were buying the products, like in that store for example,

  • know how dangerous they are?

  • What do you think about all the whitening products?

  • Skin whitening products that I used were glutathione pills, papaya soaps, whitening soaps and lotions.

  • They're not looking to be white like a white person, they're just looking to be lighter

  • skinned because historically that's what they perceive as not only beautiful, but also

  • powerful.

  • For more than 400 years, the Philippines was ruled by one foreign power or another.

  • Spain, the United States, and even Japan for a brief period of time.

  • The Japanese occupation was celebrated by the invaders with a parade through the center

  • of the city.

  • The island nation finally declared its independence in 1946.

  • But centuries of outside rule have shaped beauty standards to prize pale skin.

  • It's a legacy that's very much alive today.

  • Charlene is one Filipina who attributes much of her success to her skin tone.

  • She's an influencer with over 200,000 followers.

  • Hold that, looking great.

  • My instagram, there are a lot of countries following me.

  • They are like, “Oh you look so great, your skin is so fair.”

  • In the Philippines if you have fair or lighter skin, you're more prettier, you're more

  • beautiful and you have a lot of advantages.

  • Like many Filipinas, Charlene's beauty routine includes a daily whitening regimen.

  • I have morning and I have evening routine.

  • So this is cortisone soap.

  • I'm using this for six years now.

  • And you use it all over your body and your face.

  • Yes, I use it on my body, I use it on my face.

  • So I drink this once a day before I sleep.

  • It looks like this.

  • And in the morning I feel my skin gets glowy.

  • So the day I don't whiten my skin, I gave birth to a dark beautiful baby girl.

  • And I don't want my daughter to feel the same insecurity that I went through.

  • People lighten their skin just to increase their attractiveness to the opposite sex.

  • I was starting to understand.

  • Skin whitening is pervasive in the Philippines because for so many people, it represents

  • the opportunity for something more.

  • Skin tone isn't just about skin.

  • It is about class.

  • Everybody that uses these products are very clear about the economic benefit.

  • That far outweighs any risk.

  • Back at the Ecowaste headquarters, I'm about to find out just how much risk there is.

  • Why are you putting gloves on?

  • Ah, yes.

  • Because this product has chemical so you don't want to expose.

  • Especially because I will be touching the product.

  • And at the same time we open up the windows since we suspected that this product has mercury.

  • This is a point and shoot device.

  • The screen will show the concentration of mercury.

  • So I have sort of an idea of what these numbers mean, what are the legal limits of mercury

  • in these products.

  • For our country, it has a limit of one part per million.

  • One part per million.

  • Okay.

  • Yes.

  • This cream here is this bright yellow, almost custard-y consistency.

  • Trying to hold my breath.

  • Now you will see.

  • Wow, so this is over four times the legal limit.

  • More than, more than.

  • It's 42,000.

  • This isn't in percent, so if you were going to convert it times one hundred or times

  • one thousand, this is 42,000.

  • This is way, way beyond.

  • I thought that it was shocking that it was four times the amount that was allowed, it's

  • 42,000 times the amount.

  • Thony and I tested every cream they bought.

  • Way beyond the limit.

  • Jar after jar contained mercury at illegal and alarming levels.

  • This is a little bit lower, but it still has mercury.

  • So these products here are banned, they're illegal.

  • But we just bought them today.

  • Is that safe to say then that they are still being imported, they are still being smuggled in.

  • Exactly.

  • With results from our testing in hand, Thony's come to Quezon city hall to demand they remove

  • these products from the streets.

  • We don't want this situation to worsen up.

  • We don't want to hear any more victims of this mercury exposure.

  • What is at stake with the work that you're doing?

  • It is very important in the country because nobody does it.

  • Ecowaste is the only one doing this.

  • The reality is, people in the Philippines and across the globe will continue to use

  • skin whitening products and until the culture that privileges lighter skin changes, it's

  • people like Thony, who look out for consumers to make sure products are safe.

  • We've been out here for a few hours waiting for Thony, waiting on the news of whether

  • or not the government's actually going to take action to try to seize all of these really

  • toxic illegal products.

  • Ahh!

  • We got it!

  • The meeting was a success.

  • Wow!

  • So what happened?

  • We got the support of all the agencies who will do the law enforcement action.

  • So because of your investigation, they're now looking into it and you're going to

  • get these products off the street?

  • Yes and we will still continue!

  • Victory.

  • Yes, victory moment!

  • It may seem like a small step, but Thony's tireless work makes the world of beauty a

  • little bit safer.

  • And that progress is something to root for.

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One of the fastest growing sectors of the beauty industry, is also one of its most controversial:

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