Although street vendor Than Than Aye is a half-century old, few, if any, wrinkles mar her complexion. Her secret? A yellowish paste made from ground tree bark that she applies to her cheeks, nose and neck after her morning shower and again before bed.
Known as thanakha and prized for its sunblocking and aesthetic qualities, the paste is as ubiquitous on Burmese faces as the colorful sarongs around their waists.
“I’ve worn thanakha my whole life and will until the day I die,” Than Than Aye said as she huddled over a small cart overflowing with nail polish and combs at a market in Mandalay.
Both aesthetic ritual and remedy, thanakha cools the skin, prevents sun damage, clears acne and can reduce fevers and headaches when ingested, many Burmese say.
Yet even as the use of thanakha has outlasted countless Burmese dynasties, British colonialism and military dictatorships, the ancient practice is being challenged by a new power that has recently invaded Myanmar: multinational cosmetic corporations with seductive advertising campaigns that seek to moisturize, powder and slather the long closed-off nation.
Than Than Aye admits that the neon-colored beauty accessories she sells are part of the problem.
“Young women now wear makeup when they go out,” she said. “All these cosmetic brands have changed their way of thinking.”
In the three years since Myanmar began experimenting with democracy after decades of isolation at the hands of a military junta since 1988, new ideas and consumer trends are altering age-old facets of daily life.
Once absent from a skyline of golden pagodas and moldering colonial-era edifices, billboards have begun sprouting up alongside a frenzy of recent construction projects. Many feature fair-skinned models hawking lotions promising a pale, aristocratic hue and the corporate messaging seems to be making headway.
“A lot of girls think wearing thanakha makes you look like a villager,” Sandi Oo, 24, said from behind a glass cosmetics counter in the Ocean department store.
Wearing foundation, pink lipstick and sparkly mascara, Sandi Oo was a walking ad for the cosmetics displayed on the shelves around her. She said cosmetic sales clerks are fined if they wear thanakha, but once she gets home she applies the paste, as does the rest of the sales team.
“Honestly, it’s a lot better than the stuff we sell,” Sandi Oo said.
While thanakha is common across Myanmar, it is particularly beloved in and around Mandalay. Despite recent riots between the local Buddhist and Muslim communities, thanakha is worn by people of all faiths and serves as a visible mark of cultural pride.
Demand for thanakha has spurred something of an industry, especially around the city of Sagaing, about 19km from Mandalay. Sagaing is also a destination for those seeking the bark used to make thanakha.
Outside the city’s Kaungmudaw Pagoda, dozens of stalls are stacked with chopped thanakha wood. Thin Thin New, 35, whose face, neck, arms and ears were painted with the paste, said she earns about US$100 a month from the trade.
Generations of Burmese have passed down the regimen to their children. Holding his baby son in his arms, nut vendor Pyoe Pyoe, 22, said his mother introduced the child to thanakha at seven days old. The devotion is institutional. Some elementary schools require that students wear the paste as part of their uniforms, to show that they have bathed.
A short drive away, Myat Thu, 33, and his extended family tend to more than 100 thanakha trees near their simple teak houses. Although the trunks barely measure 15cm in circumference, they are more than 20 years old. Thanakha is a long-term investment, with each tree selling for just US$50 at maturity.
In the meantime, his family earns a living by buying the wood wholesale from big farms, which they resell at the pagoda.
Perhaps to compete with the latest trends in skin care, some manufacturers have packaged thanakha as a ready-made powder, but many Burmese worry about adverse side effects.
Last year, two children in Missouri were diagnosed with lead poisoning health officials traced to contaminated thanakha. In 2012, officials in Sydney advised the Burmese community to avoid using thanakha products after finding that they contained dangerously high levels of heavy metals. Medical researchers have yet to find any scientific proof that thanakha is as beneficial as Burmese claim.
Despite such worries, thanakha appears to be here to stay. Many young Burmese women are blending it with Western notions of personal style.
At work, travel agent Khin Mi Mi Kyaw, 25, favors a dusting of thanakha on her cheeks and forehead. The paste looks thoroughly modern juxtaposed with her eyebrow piercing, blonde highlights and the tattoo on her left wrist.
“For us Burmese women, it’s a tradition that lets us protect our skin and look gorgeous at the same time,” she said. “So why give it up?”
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