Beauty Demands

Following recent reports that some cosmetic companies are removing the word "whitening" from their skin products, we republish Nadia Craddock's excellent 2017 critique of this market. Skin whitening is a global phenomenon and according to market research, is one of the fastest growing segments of the global beauty industry, expected to be worth $31.2 billion by 2024 . Notably, the practice of skin whitening is most prevalent across the Global South in places where slavery, colonialism, racism and colourism are deeply imbedded in societal values and beliefs. For example, in India, Japan, and Thailand, skin whitening products account for more than 60% of each country’s respective skin care market. According to the World Health Organisation, more than one-quarter (and up to 77%) of women in Japan, Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, China, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and India report to regularly using skin whitening products. Skin whitening products and their associated ...

I am an anthropologist and have studied cosmetic surgery practices in Tehran, Iran, named as the “nose job capital of the world” (CBS, 2005). Hardly surprisingly, there are intriguing contradictions and paradoxes in regard to perceptions towards and practices on the body, beauty, and cosmetic surgery among people including Islamic jurists, plastic surgeons and also official authorities. The recent news about the ban on “ugly” teachers from teaching – as worded by Western media (e.g. Euronews, 2017) convinced me to write this post:   The increasing demand for cosmetic surgery in Iran is peculiar in terms of its contextual dynamics, which have been reflected in the Western media with a tone of surprise; how could this be happening in an Islamic state whose leaders are anti-West? Seeing Iran listed among the countries with the highest number of cosmetic surgeries together with other “Western” or “Latin-American” countries wherein public bodily display is allowed, and/or is seen...

Previously, I wrote about why skin-whitening products are trash and why the companies that produce them are shady AF . To recap, many skin-whitening products are highly toxic; they can cause permanent skin damage, they can be carcinogenic, and can even cost lives . Companies that produce these products can therefore be seen as culpable of harming the health of people of colour, particularly in the Global South, where the sale of these products is most prevalent. Crucially, even when less active products are deemed ‘safe’, the marketing used to promote them is both toxic and far-reaching, affecting not only consumers, but also all those in the communities in which the company is operating, including children and other vulnerable groups. The prevailing message in skin-whitening advertising equates lighter skin to improved life prospects, confidence, happiness, and wealth. This serves to reinforce and perpetuate systemic racism and colourism in the societies these products are being sold...

I’m a body image researcher and unlike Edith Piaf I have a lot of regrets about it. In my last post, I outlined my regret for my field’s minimization of injustices that are simply more urgent than having body image concerns. I also regret my field when it treats now near universal body dissatisfaction as something caused by individual level factors i.e., because a person compares themselves too much to others, has the wrong kind of thinking patterns or their hormones are imbalanced. And I regret my field when it pronounces Black women immune to developing body image issues because of our racist ideas about Black culture and booty sizes (as noted by Bordo, 2003) .  Previous research in the body image field has even eschewed the influence of media on body image. Specifically Christopher Ferguson concludes in the biggest meta-analysis of experimental research to date on the media’s impact on body dissatisfaction: “media effects are generally minimal and limited to those with pre...

Images taken of ads for clothing and/or jewellery, and advertising by make-up artist in South Asian shops in Birmingham Across South Asia and the South Asian diaspora, the symbolic value of fair skin remains a contour of social reality, particularly for women (Jah, 2016; Malik, 2007; Shankar and Subish, 2007) – both perpetuating, and facilitated by the continued; veneration of fair skin as best, and the proliferation of skin-lightening products. Consequently, in my PhD project I am investigating cross-culturally British South Asian (BSA) women’s lived experiences of racialised beauty, with a specific focus on skin-lightening and skin colour. By doing so it has become increasingly apparent that there are nuanced differences in histories and socio-cultural mores and practices, across but also within large arbitrary categories like South Asian, which mean how the preference for fair skin as an aesthetic ideal and norm manifests and is enacted, can diverge. Thus, greater deliber...