As A Southeast Asian Beauty Editor, I Grew Up Fearing The Sun. Here's How I Finally Learnt To Embrace The Tan.
‘You look SO tanned! Have you been away?’
I have, actually. But this observation took me aback nonetheless; I was extremely careful to apply (and top up) my SPF every day, top to toe. I wasn’t planning to catch a tan. What happened? For one thing, being smack dab in the sunshine, on the beach, felt so delicious after a miserable winter. For another, a closer look at my sunscreen revealed that while it does protect against harmful rays, it’s also a formula that encourages your natural tan. Being complimented for my tan felt new, I felt new (mostly thanks to the holiday), but what surprised me most was how really, I didn’t mind looking bronzed at all.
Up until five years ago, tanning was never in my vocabulary. Growing up, I don’t remember ever longing to appear ‘sunkissed’ or ‘golden’. Holidays were spent inside cafes or under large parasols. My girlfriends and I never discussed the merits of ‘catching some sun’ over a shared bottle of Garnier Summer Body. Bronzers were a rare sight in our make-up bags, even rarer on beauty shelves.
Welcome to growing up in Malaysia. Here, the weather is consistent and the sun is always blazing hot. But instead of languid weekends outdoors, we spent ours staying inside until the sun ‘goes down a little’. I am generalising - I'm sure there are children whose playtime involved frolicking in the sun but mine – and many others I knew – didn’t. Sunscreen is introduced at a very young age, which is a good thing, considering the worrying rates of skin cancer. But back then, I remembered SPF being applied not quite for its protective qualities, but to keep the complexion from developing a tan – in other words, to avoid getting darker.
I can’t speak for the lived experiences of others, but colourism felt prevalent during my formative years in the early 00s - especially within the Malay community. I remember being told to be careful not to ‘go brown’ playing in the sun. My best friend was constantly complimented for being extremely fair. ‘You’re so pretty’ were often followed with ‘I wish I was that pale’. Mixed race (read: half Caucasian) friends quickly became the beauty standard. Girls bonded over whitening creams and SPF80. You’d be hard-pressed to find a bottle of self-tan anywhere in the mall.
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As a country, we took pride in our multicultural nation. We celebrated all the holidays from Diwali to Christmas and Lunar New Year, our speech is often peppered with more than one language. But there’s no denying that modern Western beauty ideals – clear eyes, lighter hair, fair skin, slender limbs – were considered aspirational. Things have improved thanks to body positivity movements and younger generations who are hyper-aware of colour and racial discrimination, but when a specific aesthetic has been drilled into your psyche at a young age, it takes a while to unlearn it.
Since living in England, I’ve come to understand its beauty culture – and tanning plays a significant role in it (Cult Beauty reports a steady growth with 16% increase in searches this year). I’m not so naïve to think that colourism doesn’t exist here, but it is refreshing to see tanning being discussed in a positive light and to see new friends - of every skin tone - embracing a sunkissed pallor, all year round. It makes me rethink the things I once perceived as a beauty flaw - the depth of my skin colour included.
The lack of sun also means that bright days are not taken for granted; I no longer shy away from (safely) basking outside in warm weather. I’ve even found myself reaching for the occasional gradual tanner (I'm a fan of Dove and Isle Of Paradise) to enhance my natural olive colouring.
After years of being conditioned to perceive paleness as the ideal, it's incredibly freeing to finally feel comfortable - and proud - of my complexion. If anyone from back home is reading this, I hope you have your vacation without being anxious of catching a holiday glow. Slather on the SPF and let that colour develop. There's really nothing more golden.
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