Angela Killian

Moving abroad has been a huge problem for my beauty product consumer habits. If you have ever been to Asia, you will understand what I’m talking about.

First – EVERYTHING is formulated for “Asian Skin”. Nobody really knows what that means, but they use those words as a marketing ploy. “Asian” is a broad term – Thai, Japanese, Burmese and Indian skin come in a variety of shades.

Second – Everyone wants to have white skin in Thailand and cosmetic companies rarely carry make-up in darker shades despite most of the population having just that. I have olive skin and tan easily. I’m far from looking like the “tan-orexic” girls in the US and UK and it is impossible to find make-up dark enough for me.

Third – Many products are marketed as “Whitening”. Again, nobody really knows what that means, it’s just another marketing ploy. Whitening can mean “bleaching” or simply “SPF”. I was using a local Thai brand of lotion (because it smelled amazing) and found out years later that it was a whitening product. Needless to say I threw it away immediately, but that’s the risk you take buying something when you can’t read the label.

Here is a link to a 2012 article about vaginal whitening from The Guardian.

Here is a link to a 2010 article about armpit whitening  from Bangkok Post.

Fourth – Another issue is that labels which are not in Thai already, are covered up by a Thai label sticker. This prevents you from reading any ingredients on cosmetics, food and any other consumer goods. They even cover up cooking instructions sometimes, which totally throws me over the edge. By the way the Thai label stickers are impossible to remove without ripping and tearing which makes reading the label still impossible. I understand these labels are required by the food and drug administration, but they shouldn’t cover up the English label.

I typically stock up on all my goods when visiting the US or have things shipped to Thailand. However, one nightmarish experience involving Amazon.com, DHL shipping, Crest Whitening Strips and Thai Immigration has made me lose all faith in shipping anything here ever again. Luckily, the foreigner friendly department store on the island has started to sell more international brands. So I have started to do my cosmetic research online before going to the store so I can look at labels and read reviews just in case.

So, yesterday I bit the bullet and ventured to a department store and hit up the new MAC booth because I was all out of foundation. Nobody ever wants to help me because I’m foreign and they don’t want to speak English, but that’s okay because I have been buying MAC for years and know exactly what I want. I prefer to buy MAC in the US because the prices are so much higher in Thailand, but after the last shipping fiasco, I had to make an exception. The sales girl (possible ladyboy) didn’t understand any of my questions as per usual, so I just grabbed what I thought I might want in order to stop her from applying more pale foundation swatches to my tan arm.

All the labels were in English, thank goodness, but it appeared that the prices were still in USD, instead of Thai Baht so I had to ask the price of everything before agreeing to purchase. Despite being a chain department store, the beauty counters rarely have price labels on anything, which is highly annoying and seems to only serve the purpose of employing extra people who constantly squawk and eat together behind the counter with their shoes off. If you go in the morning they will be flat ironing each other’s hair behind the counter too.

Instead of displaying prices, the sales girls will show you the magic number on their big calculator after calculating the obligatory fake discount, just like they do at the seedy night market and I can’t help but feel I’m getting ripped off every time. I already felt sleazy asking the price of various items and didn’t want to feel worse by trying to bargain so I got “faranged” again.

“Farang” is the name Thai people call ANYONE who is not Thai. Joe and I coined the term “faranged” to describe what happens anytime the Thais take advantage of you for being foreign, e.i. higher prices, skipped in line, pretend they don’t speak English, talk bad about you in Thai, generally ignore you because they don’t want to speak English with you, etc.

I even got tricked into getting the expat frequent buyer membership card, which promises 10% discounts mostly sometimes, with many exceptions which are stated clearly in Thai at the bottom of the agreement, which was not given to me.

These frustrations sound so trivial and unimportant, but they can really get on your nerves after a while. It seems as if the system in Thailand is forever broken and beyond repair. Counter girls can’t even spit out the most basic of descriptions in English. They could start by memorizing the one on the product bottle for goodness sake since it has the Thai label stuck on top. One time the Kiehl’s counter girl’s explanation of how to use one of the serums threw me into hysterical laughter, it was so ridiculous. She rectified it by hooking me up with lots of free samples though.

All of these opinions make me a terribly bad person, I know, and I don’t pretend to be a beauty guru, but that’s exactly why I need competent sales people! Preferably one wearing shoes and not eating behind the counter.