From creating freckles on your face with henna cones to brow laminations and derma-planing as a way of smooth application of makeup, the UK beauty industry is rapidly changing.
As of 2020, the UK’s beauty industry is worth a staggering £27 billion, which makes it the seventh-largest global cosmetics market in the world and the third spot for the largest markets operating in the UK.
Within the South Asian culture beauty trends, treatments, and transitions, range from ayurvedic to mainstream methods of taking care of your hair, skin, and body.
In recent years the rise of South Asian influencers, like Farah Dukhai, Nabela Noor and Kaushal Beauty, have challenged the beauty norms that are deeply embedded within desi culture.
YouTube has seen tenfold the titles of life hacks of “how-to” at-home remedies, whether that be how to naturally remove facial hair, brighten your skin tone with turmeric, yoghurt, and honey, or grow your hair with fenugreek seeds.
The South Asian beauty trends tend to incorporate at-home ingredients, around the social stigmas, to create a community of women battling to fit into the social constructions of societies’ beauty standards.
Living in London, Pakistani model, and social media influencer, Eiman Babar Khan, who recently finished studying at the University of Hertfordshire, talks to Asian Sunday about how she struggled with the societal expectations of beauty standards growing up.
“Being a brown girl wasn’t easy for me as a child, as I was into outdoor sports that involved going out in the sun, like swimming, horse-riding in the beaming light and sitting outside and getting toasted, which is when I was the happiest.
“But I was told to not go out in the sun, use these home remedies and creams to be fairer, I was bullied at school, told I was not beautiful and was called names for years and sadly, I believed them then made myself a prisoner to that toxicity”.
The 21-year-old, who was born in New York and grew up in Islamabad, says she would constantly question who set these beauty standards as she remembers being told to “Not look dark on my wedding, apparently brides aren’t supposed to look dark”.
Despite the comments, she wore a foundation that was two shades darker than her own skin tone, on her wedding day.
She says “I am still insecure about so many things about me, most of us are, but we were created by the Almighty, the Creator of this majestic universe so how can we say that what He created is flawed. We are all perfectly imperfect in our own way”.
Opening her first salon in 1991, Prity Farooq, the owner and founder of Prity, an award-winning beauty salon and service in Bradford, shared her views on keeping up with beauty trends.
“With age, our body loses volume, like our lips start sinking inwards, so beauty treatments like botox fillers are very popular, but my clients like the natural look and I work around that, with small doses in the injections”.
The 52-year-old salon owner says, “South Asian women can get blemishes very quickly with the sun, because of their skin type, that’s why we started a skin whitening IV treatment as well, as just as English women get tans on sunbeds, Asian women want to get lighter skin”.
The treatment Prity describes, is very popular and is undergone every week for a few months to change the colour of your whole body.
Within desi culture, body hair is another insecurity that prevails in many South Asian women.
There is a lot of pressure on women to undergo painful and time-consuming rituals of waxing, tweezing, and threading every inch of their body which may be covered in hair.
A common myth, in desi culture, is that removing your hair with the method of shaving, will make your hair grow back thicker and that women should not shave, as it is seen as manly.
Asian Sunday spoke to a London-based aesthetician, from Novo Clinic, for skin and laser, which was formed through a synergy of medical experts and aesthetic practitioners, to see if there is no longer this taboo around shaving.
“It’s interesting because a lot of South Asian Clients who are above the ages of 30 and are interested in Permanent Hair Reduction tend to worry about shaving in between treatments, so that taboo about shaving is still there, with the older generation,” says aesthetician Saleha Mahmood.
Despite this Saleha says “Overall, there has been an increase in South Asian Practitioners offering new beauty treatments other than waxing, threading, and other popular treatments amongst the South Asian community”.
The medical aesthetician also commented on the impact that the rise of South Asian influencers has had on influencing current beauty trends and treatments.
“The rise of South Asian influencers has resulted in a lot of positive change; the beauty market is now a lot more inclusive, and a lot of make-up and skincare brands specifically cater to people of colour. There is a lot of influx of products, technologies and services marketed specifically for South Asian Women.
“If we were to analyse the trends going back a few years, there were a lot of influencers who portrayed lives and routines for health and skincare that were rather unrealistic or not very relatable to South Asian Women”.
She implies that times have changed as “Now you see influencers talk about their struggles, taboo topics, and share their journeys offering solutions that are realistic”.
