Some standards of beauty are considered to be universal. I don’t really believe in them personally, but OK. One of those beauty standards has a lot to do with what type of skin you have. Apart from the skintone-based mistreatment a lot of POC face on a daily basis, this has also crept into our beauty standards.
Firstly, I want to start with a little disclaimer. The most common assumption people make here is that men aren’t affected by beauty standards. They are. They really, really are. But the beauty standards and restrictions women are presented with and held to are a lot more overt, and that’s what this article is about.
So a couple of weeks ago, I was in Egypt. Having packed in a hurry and being the person that I am, of course I forgot an entire category of stuff. This time, I forgot all my skincare products. You know, creams, lotions, the works. So upon my arrival in Egypt, the first thing I did was go into a store (stores in Egypt are ALWAYS open, it’s amazing) to stock up on everything I forgot to bring. And lo and behold…
It was damn near impossible to find anything that wasn’t also a skin whitening cream. In a lot of countries throughout Africa, the Middle East and Asia, lighter skin is preferred over darker skin. We’ll get into why that is in a minute.
So you see this picture, right? And I know what you might be thinking: “but this is there, of course they’re going to have their own weird whitening creams.” Guess again!
Back home I always use L’Oréal cream, so this was the first brand I looked for. I really want to say I’m surprised at this, but I can’t.
So where does it all come from? We all know about racism, right? As if it isn’t bad enough that so many people have to deal with that every day, there’s a special branch of racism that most people (who aren’t faced with it) don’t think of. Colorism. Colorism is the discrimination based on skintone among those with non-white skin, where lighter is considered to be better. Why, you ask? Well, let me lay it out for you in excruciating detail. Don’t get uncomfortable now, we’re just getting started.
history
The notion that lighter skin is more beautiful comes from two places. Firstly, as it still is in the far East (which is a problematic term in itself but let’s save that for a different discussion), darker skin is associated with working outside, which usually means performing manual labor. This is something that’s considered to be “lower class” and therefore, an undesirable physical feature.
Over time and particularly in other places of the world, however, the source of the idolization of light skin stems from somewhere else entirely. Light skin is often attributed to having more European features, which, along with a long list of other features, is considered to be “better” than other features. So why is that, where did it come from? For that, we’re going to take a long hard look at the aftermath of colonialism and slavery. See, as much as some people would love to believe that the past is in the past and it’s unfair to involve something that happened “so long ago” in the discussion, the truth is that these events that took place, these horrible things that have happened to people, do have an aftermath that is felt to this day.
It was the colonialists who started to distinguish between those with more west African features and east African (more similar to European — according to them) features. It was the slaveowners who, although still considered inferior, introduced a ranking among people of African descent based on skintone. This evolved into the brown paper bag test that we saw just a couple of decades ago. And even today, most makeup products are created with one particular customer in mind: a white person. How do I know this? The only way I can get, for example, a drugstore brand foundation, is if I buy the darkest shade they have and only use it in the winter. And I’m not all that dark. How ridiculous is that? Look at any mainstream magazine and flip through the beauty and hair tutorials. Tell me, after reading this, what’s the first thing you notice?
All of these factors combined make it that to this day people, especially women, are taught to hate the skin they live in. “Don’t sit out in the sun too long, you’ll get too dark.” Comments like that are not uncommon. And here are these companies selling beauty products, shamelessly advocating for this highly unethical, immoral, historical burden that so many people still have to deal with today. All for the sake of a bottom line.
#unfairandlovely
Fortunately, our generation and the next is starting to wake up and reject these ridiculous Eurocentric beauty standards and is starting to accept and love their very own beauty. The movement against skin whitening creams recently came under fire when the hasthag #UnfairandLovely started trending. It started in India and quickly spread across the globe. The hashtag refers to Unilever’s Fair & Lovely skin whitening cream, which actually is the biggest brand on the whitening market right now. The hashtag was also used by the ‘Dark is Beautiful’ campaign, which aims to empower women of ALL skintones.
So what can you do? Simple. Call companies out on their unethical and immoral products. Apart from the fact that they’re making money off of people’s insecurities, these products contain chemicals that are deeply damaging to the skin. Some products claim to not have these chemicals, but tests have shown that that’s a lie. Just because there’s a low quantity, doesn’t mean it’s not there. Raise your voice against racism and colorism in all forms. That includes the beauty product market.
There are so many more facets to this, but for the sake of this article I decided to leave it at this. What are your thoughts and/or experiences? Share in the comments!
For other effects of racism and colorism I’ve discussed on this blog, check out this article about racism in the dating world and how it’s not always as out in the open as you’d like to believe.
