Quote from Nashequilibrium:
I always wondered why? Never heard a scientific explanation for it and this should not be the case since most cosmetics are made for white woman and tested on white woman.
Either way nobody can defy gravity in the long run!
The explanation is quite simple..............sun damage. Sun damage obviously, is more prevelent amongst fair skin people, as opposed to dark skin. The ironic thing is that these are the exact people that spend hours every week fake baking.
Sun damage rears it's ugly head in the following ways:
Pigmented Lesions (sun spots)
Diffuse redness (rosacea, etc)
A breakdown of collagen (wrinkles and skin laxity)
Smoking and sun damage are the primary factors in the appearance of skin. Look no further than fair skinned women, who are runners. They are constantly accumulating sun damage, not to mention that gravity does also lead to more skin laxity.
As someone else pointed out, Asians, West Indians, Blacks, etc, all look much younger than white men/women of the same age, assuming they are not signifacantly overweight, etc.
Dark skin types have melanin in their outer layer of skin, which protects them from sun exposure.
As to your cosmetics question, yes the vast majority are made and marketed towards light skin types. That is because those people have more sun damage, as well as the fact that redness and brown spots are much more apparent on lighter skin.