"I would be nothing without you...Did you ever know that you're my hero? You're everything I wish I could be. I could fly higher than an eagle, for you are the wind beneath my wings."
"As we go on, we remember, all the times we've had together. And as our lives change, come whatever, we would still be friends forever."
"I'll be at your side, there's no need to worry. Together we'll survive through the haste and hurry...If you feel like you're alone, and you've nowhere to turn I'll be at your side."
Take a closer look at skin care lines on health and beauty sections in malls and beauty salons. Take note of TV commercials and printed ads on personal care and "beauty" products (soaps, shower gels, body wash, lotions, body moisturizers, astringents, facial wash, creams and other various concoctions). You may be surprised to see that almost all skin care brands now include skin whiteners. Or you may just shrug this little discovery off, realizing it's as common as Metro Manila traffic on a Friday afternoon. Or you may have long been delighted with yet the most brilliant advancement in health and beauty industry. That is if you're a part of the large chunk of the population who's obsessed with having a fairer, clearer complexion.
The wide range of choices of products that promise to whiten, lighten and purify the skin now caters to all walks of Filipino life - from your yaya, to Manang Elisa the labandera, to your mom who's the most serious lawyer in town, to your ultimate sosyalera of a bestfriend, to your male professor who has a knack for orderliness and perfection, or your orgmate's mom who's been a housewife all her life.
The continuously advancing skin whitening industry is mainly concentrated in Asian countries, especially here in the Philippines. A 2004 study conducted by Synovate, a leading global market research company, revealed that Philippines had the most numerous skin whitener users across the Asian region. Fifty percent of the 493 respondents were currently using whitening products at the time of the study.
As of 2002, a whopping 12.5 billion pesos spent on skin care comprised the 70 billion-peso worth of the beauty and hygiene industry nationwide. This big chunk has been the fastest growing segment of the beauty and hygiene industry for the last five years. Furthermore, it is expected to progress at an average of 12% each year, which would make it a 22-billion peso enterprise by 2007. The single main factor for this is the increasing popularity of skin whiteners that comprise half the bulk of skin care products. Almost every skin care company now are adapting their products to tap the demand for white skin, adding new skin-whitening line to their traditional ones.
Even local skin care brands who had already established a certain identity (other than as skin whiteners) in today's market are now venturing into this highly profiting business. An example would be Vaseline lotions, which were originally packaged and marketed as the premium anti-bacterial skin care.
"In a universe of ambiguity, this kind of certainty comes only once,and never agin,no matter how many lifetimes youlive."
(Robert Kinkaid on Francesca Johnson; The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller)
"It hurts me more than it hurts you."
(Ma'am San Joaquin; CommRes120 class)
"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way than this: where I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep."
(Pablo Neruda)
"I am nothing special, of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts, and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough."
(from The Notebook by Nicolas Sparks)
"When a person really wants something,all the Universe in the world conspires to help that person realize his dream."
(from The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho)