Black market for fair skin

BANGKOK - The young women at the dermatologist's look like the victims of some curse for vanity. Their faces are as mottled as rotten fruit and the damage may be irreversible.

In their search for a fair complexion they have used whitening creams, causing a nasty reaction.

Fair skin is widely promoted across Asia as the ideal, but black market products are having a devastating impact.

High-end cosmetics are marketed by film stars but few can afford them and instead opt for cheap imitations.

"These girls believed the claims then overused shoddy products, ending up with very dark patches that are almost impossible to reverse," said Wichai Hongcharu, a dermatologist at Bangkok's St Louis Hospital. "

The cosmetic use of the mercury-chloride or hydroquinone used is banned in the EU.

- INDEPENDENT