Hana from Me My Style and I alerted me that feelunique.com has done something I never thought I’d see, a section with whitening products. Don’t believe me? Check for yourself here.
It’s a fact that cosmetics brands use the insecurities that we have to sell products. Don’t like the dark circles under your eyes? Well there’s a million and one concealers promising to cover them. Hate leaving the house because of your uneven skin? Have no fear, you can find foundations that’ll even out your skin, cover and conceal. As a beauty obsessive, I won’t deny that I love what makeup can do; it gives us all a confidence boost and it can transform us however, that being said I cannot stand when brands unashamedly try to cash in on bigger insecurities such as our weight, the colour of our skin and the size of our breasts. You’ll find products that claim to help you lose inches off your waist and increase your cup size.
In a time where young, impressionable girls are pressured into having the perfect body more than ever it’s incredibly irresponsible for brands and stores like feelunique.com to have sections dedicated to whitening the skin. I guess none of their team knows what it’s like to grow up as a woman of colour, insecure about the colour of their skin because you’re not white enough to fit in with everyone else, or your skin isn’t light enough to grab the boy you like’s attention. And that’s exactly why women go out and purchase whitening products only to fall into a spiral of low self-esteem and constant spending of money in the pursuit of perfect light skin. Brand know that the whitening market is profitable and if the big brands brought out whitening products (most do, just not in the UK though) there’ll be a lot of money to be made but I think they understand the backlash they’d face over here. Even if these products don’t make a dramatic difference in lightening the skin, the fact that feelunique.com called it ‘whitening’ is incredibly distasteful and I’m certain that the majority of you would disagree.
Hi Hafsa, I completely agree with you. It’s disappointing Feel Unique decided to tag these products as ‘whitening’, they’ve since re-tagged the range of products as ‘brightening’. Unforunelty I’ve noticed several other mainstream beauty websites/brands are also selling whitening/brightening products. Another issue with these products is they can lead to skin pigmentation.
That’s great news, I just saw they changed the name. Thanks for sharing that Ebyan!
To be honest I understand your point, and while I don’t think it’s disgraceful to sell “whitening” products, I think having a tab called “whitening” is pretty bad. However I don’t see the problem as most people (should) know, no cream can actually whiten or lighten your skin unless it contains extremely harsh chemicals like hydroquinone, which is banned in the EU (but still available in some afro hair care stores). Since the brands on the screen shot are pretty big and well known, I am certain their products don’t contain this illegal ingredient- and therefor I don’t see anything wrong with it. Personally I don’t understand, but if someone want’s to buy it, why not? Also, as I said, no product is really whitening or bleaching your skin unless it contains banned hydroquinone so they are really just face brightening/evening creams