Fairness at home-How?Why?

Such a loaded topic,especially in India! FAIRNESS! To be fair,there are fairness products available all over the world (yes,even in USA,UK,Europe) but India is obsessed with fairness and this kind of craze is rare to see anywhere. In India,even normal products are labelled as fairness products in order to sell them. But I must say clearly, no product can make you FAIR,what can be done is our skin can be brightened up for sure using certain ingredients. When we go out in the sun and roam around in pollution,it all tans our skin and slowly,our skin goes down a few shades and a good 'fairness' product is actually one that will remove this tan,this pollution and reveal the shade of our skin that we were born with,instead of bleaching our skin. DON'T BLEACH your skin ever! It has dangerous side effects and is not worth it. Aim for being healthy,not fair alone!

Having said that, keeping in mind this new definition of 'fairness' the way I see it, there indeed are some natural ingredients given by nature to us that deep clean our skin and brighten it up to give us naturally glowing and 'fair' skin!

1. Lemon (nimbu) is a potent bleaching agent. BUT it also makes skin more prone to sun damage so make sure to use very strong sunscreen if you use lemon. Also,my advice,never put lemon directly on your skin,and definitely not on face,always dilute it with water or mix a few drops with curd. Then apply this on skin for 15 minutes everyday. This is one of the easiest ways to get fair! I have NEVER used this but my mother used to do this in her college days (she is naturally fair but she always wanted to look fairer! *eyeroll*) so she vouches for the effectiveness of this method.
2. Besan + Turmeric + curd is my favorite method to take care of tanning. My skin gets tanned VERY EASILY! Funnily enough,traveling around the world everywhere I go in Europe or USA they all love my tanned skin but I find it very disturbing myself. So every summer,I use this method to get rid of all tanning-mix Besan + Haldi + Dahi and apply a thick layer all over my body and let it dry in next 25 minutes. Then I wash it off while massaging vigorously. It makes a natural ubtan, and I always see visible results within a week. I also mix sandalwood powder to make it a bit moisturizing for my face and use it. 
3. Tomato and Papaya are 2 other natural products to get glowing, fairer skin. Simply cut a tomato, squeeze out its juice (eat the pulp haha!) and apply it on face. It works like lemon only so again mix it with little water,even though on my skin it works very nicely even without any dilution. Still,why take chance? :) Similarly,take a very ripe papaya,mash it and use this pulp on face to dry for 20 minutes and wash off. It will create a big mess in your bathroom but it is the shortest way to get intense glow on face immediately. Also using these 2 alternately for just 1 week will guaranteed get you a fairer skin shade!
4. The most expensive way is -using Saffron, oh yes,it is very effective but you have to be a millionaire to be able to afford using real saffron strands everyday! Better to use a few strands in milk and drink at night before sleeping whenever possible. This is my grandmother's favorite tip. Apparently,my grandfather could afford buying loads of saffron for her to drink up at night :D