Colourism can be defined as prejudice or discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group[1].
In regions or cultures where colourism is prevalent, and lighter skin is considered better, many women attempt to lighten their skin using cosmetic products in the form of pills, scrubs, creams and even injections.[2] This demand for lighter skin has created a new cosmetics market in predominantly Asia and Africa which creates cosmetic products to make the wearer appear fairer. While this market was created due to historical colourism, the cosmetics companies that have benefitted from it continue to enforce negative stereotypes about darker skin to entice women into buying their products. Cosmetics adverts have long unjustifiably presented darker skinned women as unattractive, undesirable, and impoverished compared their lighter skinned counterparts. On skin lightening products there is often an archetypal ‘before’ and ‘after’ picture,[3]with a sad, dark-skinned woman as the ‘before’ and a smiling, light-skinned woman as the ‘after’. These images are used by brands to convince women they would be happier and more desirable with lighter skin, and so through this marketing technique cosmetics companies weaponize and exacerbate colourism for their monetary gain.
The purchasing of skin lightening products is highest in Asia and Africa – the WHO found that 40% of Chinese women, 61% of Indian women and 77% of Nigerian women regularly use skin-lightening creams. It is therefore not surprising that in 2017 the global skin-lightening industry was worth $4.8bn and is projected to grow to an enormous $8.9bn by 2027, due to the growth of the Asian middle class. This demonstrates the success of cosmetic pharmaceutical companies in advantageously using and abetting historical colourist stereotypes to sell certain cosmetic products.
Many of these cosmetics companies are giant corporations such as Unilever and L’Oréal. Companies such as these have access to massive marketing budgets which they often use to ensure lighter skin stays the ideal of beauty in Asia and Africa[4]. Indeed, Unilever gains over $500 million in annual revenue from its ‘Fair and Lovely’ skin cream and spent over $7 million[5] in advertising for the product in Bangladesh, one of its smaller markets. Therefore, while the actual amount spent on advertising in its larger markets such as India is unknown, it is likely in the tens of millions, as they have a huge customer base of over 27 million Indian women. This indicates advertising for products is an important expenditure for Fair and Lovely.
One example of Fair and Lovely using colourism to market their products is in a TV advertisement they aired to promote their Fair and Lovely cream in India. In the ad the father of a young girl with dark skin complains that he doesn’t have a son that can provide for him, due to his daughter’s low salary – insinuating she has a low paying job and can’t get married due to her darker skin. The daughter then uses the Fair and Lovely cream, becomes paler and gains a higher paying job as an air hostess, satisfying her father. This advertisement strongly implies that women with fairer skin will have access to better paying jobs due to their appearance becoming viewed as more conventionally beautiful. This affects women consuming this media as they may become dissatisfied by the shade of their own skin, and therefore feel they are not reaching the beauty standard advertised. Additionally, the portrayal of the father disapproving of his daughter’s skin tone is representative of the societal pressure many dark-skinned women experience from their peers to become lighter, likely making the consumer more receptive to purchasing a skin-lightening product and impacting their self-esteem negatively.
The growth of internet marketplaces and improved digital access has increased the availability of skin lightening products to areas which could not previously access them, making their use more widespread. Online forums have also opened online where users show off their skin lightening progress and encourage others to lighten their skin. They often pull shades from makeup pallets to describe their current skin tone and set other challenges to reach a lighter tone by a certain date. One of these forums, SkinCareTalk, has around 450,000 post discussing skin lightening. These forums often cause a phenomenon called groupthink, as the women on the forums validate each other’s desires to become lighter and often perpetuate colourist ideals. However, these forums can also directly contribute to causing physical problems for women. As skin-lightening products are often bought under the counter in developed countries (where they are increasingly banned) or sold in developing countries with scarce regulations on product ingredients, these products often contain harmful ingredients such as mercury, bleach and hydroquinone which can be very damaging to the user’s health. Some side effects of these ingredients include irritation, corrosion of the skin and kidney failure. By intentionally selling products with dangerous ingredients to women after marketing lighter skin as desirable, cosmetic companies are directly decreasing women’s quality of life and damaging both their mental and physical wellbeing. After increasing pressure from women, mainly in developed countries, Unilever announced in 2020 that it would remove the words “white/ whitening”, “fair/fairness” or “light/lightening”[6]from its packaging and change its brand name from “Fair and Lovely” to “Glow and Lovely” after facing criticism for women groups and Indian government officials.
This illustrates that many women are not successfully influenced to believe fairer skin is more advantageous, due to the significant backlash Fair and Lovely received from their adverts, and so their marketing strategy has not been completely successful. Indeed, the Dark is Beautiful campaign, backed by celebrities such as Nandita Das, argue that these creams continue a tradition of discrimination based on skin colour which plays on a historical caste bias. This campaign received public support in India, which likely counteracted some of the effects of Fair and Lovely’s marketing. The company also removed before and after shade guides in 2019, while claiming that its product was not a bleaching one and instead uses a combination of vitamin B3, glycerine, UVA and UVB sunscreens which is much safer than the products customers were using before. However, many dermatologists argue that skin cannot be lightened without these ingredients and so the lightening creams being sold are not effective and are instead just a cash grab for large corporations. While changing the name of the product and removing shade guides is widely considered a step in the positive direction, it is little more than an inconsequential change as Fair and Lovely is a profit-based corporation who will continue to profit from colourism in Africa and Asia, and likely changed their packaging and marketing approach to avoid being boycotted through “cancel culture”.
Cosmetics brands have been very successful in influencing women psychologically and monetarily from 2000 to present, causing high levels of insecurity within some women and overall reducing the confidence of women and girls in their appearance. Indeed, some of these brands have also cultivated and profited from colourism across Asia and Africa, from which they gain billions of dollars every year from selling skin lightening products. However, cosmetics brands are not the only player responsible in causing these psychological insecurities. Social media, since it was created in 1997, has quickly spread worldwide and is a large creator and influencer of beauty standards as well as popularising beauty filters online. Therefore, while cosmetics brands have a large part to play in how women perceive themselves, social media is increasingly becoming a larger authority. Indeed, 73% of girls surveyed thought social media was the greatest influence in imposing beauty standards, compared to only 2% saying cosmetics companies. However, the way that women and girls are influenced by cosmetics marketing is not equal. Some girls feel no pressure to wear makeup, are barely influenced by cosmetics advertising and social media, and feel completely happy in their natural skin without purchasing any cosmetics. Therefore, although colourist cosmetics brands overall have a negative impact on women’s self-confidence, this does not apply to everyone due to social circumstance, personal beliefs, and variations in mentality or self-worth.
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[1] Oxford Languages (2021)
[2] Khan,C. (2018). ‘Skin-lightening creams are dangerous – yet business is booming. Can the trade be stopped?’ [online]. The Guardian.
[3] Khan, 2018
[4] Khan, 2018
[5] Karnani, A. ‘Doing Well by Doing Good. Case Study: ‘Fair & Lovely’ Whitening Cream’ (2007)
[6] Unilever. ‘Unilever evolves skin care portfolio to embrace a more inclusive vision of beauty’ (2020)
