ALA PAREDES, 22, host of IslaMusik on ABC5, as well as writer and model, is the proud owner of a crown of curls. She finds the current crop of haircare and skincare commercials "abominable" because they don't promote uniqueness or diversity. "Instead of celebrating physical differences," she says, "they make people think you have to look a certain way to be beautiful."

	UNCONVENTIONAL LOOKS. Model Ala Paredes has curly hair in a country where long, straight hair (right) is considered the epitome of female beauty.

She should know. In an industry that prizes fair skin and straight hair, her morena skin color and loose, voluptuous curls are considered unconventional. This demand for an "ideal" look has cost her jobs, she believes, because casting people who deviate from the norm is risky. To think she already has a perceived edge, being the daughter of Jim Paredes of APO Hiking Society fame.

People who look "different" are usually given character roles, while the lead goes to a fair, straight-haired girl. Curly hair may look gorgeous on Jericho Rosales but put the same mop on some girl's head and there will be people thinking she could be Valentina's longlost sister. Curly hair is often associated with messiness or wildness while straight hair is more malinis or neat to look at. Similarly, when it comes to skin color, white is associated with cleanliness and purity.

Of course one can argue hair and skin color is a matter of preference. But you will almost never hear a person say about an actress or model, "I don't like her because she has straight hair" or "Yuck, look at her, ang puti niya (she's so fair)" — unless we are talking Sadako-white (then again, she was more on the gray shades). Obviously, says Paredes, a norm has been set.

Some companies are not even above using blatantly discriminatory or politically incorrect methods to sell their products. Paredes cites a whitening product ad where a mestiza couple is having their baby baptized. The priest smiles at the couple but when he pulls the baby's blanket back, he looks aghast. The camera then zooms in on the baby who has dark skin, and then zooms out to show the mother's relatives having brown skin. Translation: mommy used the product. Says Paredes: "I felt they were presenting the baby in a ridiculous manner. The majority of Filipinos have dark skin, including me. I felt personally offended."

She's not the only one. From talking to my young cousins and their friends, there seems to be a consensus that the marketing of these skin-whitening products is vaguely disturbing and occasionally offensive on some level. It raises many questions. What is wrong with our skin color? Why are we trying to look different from what we are?

TO ME the culprit is the plethora of advertisers imposing a lanky model with abnormally bouncy hair and porcelain-white skin on us hapless mortals. But Art Ilano disagrees. He says advertising isn't really to blame for our seeming fixation with straight hair and white skin. According to him, "it's ingrained in our culture."

Ilano argues that advertisers only ride trends; they don't create them. "Someone somewhere tried skin whitening and saw there is a market for it," he says. "Papaya soap used to be a niche market with no budget for advertising but people liked it. It had strong sales in the provinces. That's when ads come in." Advertising only does the market research. It does not transform people's opinions but it serves to accelerate trends. "Besides," Ilano adds, "marketers aren't that creative."

Well, neither is the popularity of skin-whitening products caused by colonial mentality alone. Other countries like Korea or Japan which haven't been colonies of Western powers also go ga-ga over whitening products. So if "culture" is to blame, that may really mean our Asian culture.

As for long, straight hair, there used to be a time when this was associated with those who came straight from the provinces, or people who wanted to look "ethnic" or had ambitions of marrying foreigners (hence the phrase "export beauties"; for some reason, most Western men seem to pick women with long hair whenever they go hunting for a partner in Asia). Once upon a time, the mark of a mestiza was a head of wavy locks. It was the indios or natives who had straight hair. Actually, either that or kinky hair. Anyway, all these make it hard to argue that culture led to our present obsession with long, straight hair.

But maybe it's not a matter of culture vs. advertising. For all we know, they could be mutually feeding on each other. Unfortunately, we're stuck with just the obvious: a constant assault of images and products promoting only one type of beauty and leaving little room for diversity. (Where is Benetton when you need it?)

Yet despite the double-digit growth of skin whiteners and the prevalence of shiny, longhaired artistas in the country, many teens are aware, at least in theory, that beauty comes in many shapes, colors, and sizes.

Sometimes, a company comes along believing that, too. In 2003 the local girls' clothing line Bayo launched Kat Alano in its "A Girl Like You" campaign. An EDSA billboard depicted a pretty girl with a mop of curls. The emphasis was on being different. The campaign was a great success and today Kat Alano's career is thriving. Perhaps this means that young Filipinas, as personal care consumers, are open, if not eager, for different types of beauty on our billboards and television screens.

Now if only more advertisers and marketers become a little bit more creative and take note.