Skin lightening is a practise that dates back to the Ancient Egyptians, Romans and Greeks who discovered that olive oil and honey had a lightening effect on the skin. Now, it is a standard beauty treatment used by millions of women globally from scrubs, pills and creams to reduce the production of melanin. According to a World Health Organisation study, 77% of Nigerian women use skin-lightening creams, followed by 61% in India and 40% in China. Within the influencing community, editing photos is part of the lifestyle; retouching parts of the face and body to appeal to their target market. According to Influencer Marketing Hub, nearly four in five brands (79%) predominantly tap Instagram for influencer campaigns, compared with Facebook (46%), YouTube (36%), Twitter (24%) and LinkedIn (12%). The average influencer can make $30,000 - $100,000 annually by promoting clothes, beauty products, food, health, etc on their pages. Jenny Mosienko has been an influencer for 10 years; specialising in fitness and modelling spoke about the pressures of looking ‘perfect’ in her photos. “If I'm not in the mood to take photos, then I won't like how I look and can get upset. Just like anyone else, if I'm having a down day then I'm much more sensitive.” “If I'm in a good mood then I can honestly say that I couldn't care less about how I look, I just enjoy the fun of shooting and look forward to engaging with my followers.” According to The Guardian, FaceTune has been downloaded over 20 million times. FaceTune is an app which lets you edit, smooth, reshape and refine your looks on any photo on your camera roll from reshaping your nose to whitening teeth. Shaz Memon, a social media trainer and marketing advisor who authored the global bestseller “Instagram for Business” spoke about why retouching photos for social media is damaging. “Retouching photos to a level that takes you away from reality is wrong, for example enlarging eyes and adjusting your weight creates insecurities within the wider community but also in yourself.” “Young people are aware of the apps available to improve their appearance; however, this does not stop insecurities festering.” Jenny uses InShot and VSKO for her photos, but says apps like Photoshop should be banned. “I typically use filters and colour correction effects; I don’t necessarily edit parts of myself, I’ll just use these apps to make my photos look flawless overall, making colours pop and keeping my pictures in line with my Instagram theme.” “’I’m just making the photo look ‘pretty’ as opposed to altering my actual body as changing your appearance with editing apps can be really damaging,” she continued. Shaz explained the relationship between social media and self-esteem. “Editing apps increases the negative relationship by making it easier and ‘ok’ to change the way you look in this virtual world.” “These photos create a young generation of highly self-conscious individuals who are ultimately never feeling good about their natural appearance.” Colourism also comes into play within the influencing community as BAME influencers feel more pressured to lighten their skin. Colourism is a form of discrimination against a person with a darker skin tone, where lighter skin tones are treated more favourably. Erim Kaur, a Sikh hair and fashion influencer from London says that better representations of all skin tones are needed. “Brands need to understand that there is a subconscious bias towards lighter skin and once they start putting certain practises into place to ensure they are fully representative, we will start to see change.” The Bollywood industry have been criticised for endorsing skin-lightening creams. Celebrities like Priyanka Chopra have been scrutinised for promoting fairness creams for Garnier and Neutrogena. Speaking to The Guardian, Neha Mishra, an assistant professor at Jindal Global Law School and an expert on colourism said: “In India, darker skin is undesirable and fairer skin is considered superior by many, irrespective of caste, class and religion.” She continued saying that “through accepting endorsement deals, stars are signaling a disapproval of “black or brown” skin.” Influencers are trying to make a change to ensure there is an end to colourism in Bollywood and the media. 29-year-old Diipa Khosla, an influencer with over 1 million followers on Instagram is the founder of Post For Change, a platform which uses social media to drive change. She currently has a campaign called #EndColourism, where users share a photo of themselves with their normal skin tone and the other side whitewashed.
“This campaign stems from the idea that many BAME communities are conditioned to think our skins are not pretty, worthy or not good enough - based on the media, we are always fed images of lighter tones and success comes in tandem with having light skin,” Diipa says. “Our goal is to debunk this and allow people to know that their skin, what they are born with is the BEST and to own it and be confident,” she adds. Diipa felt pressured to lighten her skin many years ago as she fell victim to some of the thoughts and ideas, but now she owns her skin and wants others to do the same. “In my family, I was the darker sister and that hung over me for a while, as an Indian girl you don’t get to escape the peris of being “darker” because people around you constantly remind you of it.” “Eventually, I learnt to ignore and came to realise that fair does not equal better, more pretty or superior.” Diipa’s aim for the campaign is to help change beauty standards to ensure they are “inclusive” for all skin colours around the world. “I want the Bollywood industry and top brands to take the pledge to stop pushing messages about being fairer - we see models in photos are always lighter, heroines are lighter and brands using light models.” “Where are the girls that actually represent us as brown, Indian girls; that’s what I want to see.” Things are starting to change, with Johnson& Johnson announcing it would no longer distribute two lines of skin-lightening products in Asia and Unilever renamed their ‘Fair and Lovely’ cream and removed references of “whitening” and “lightening” on their products. There is still a lot of stigma around skin-lightening and colourism on social media which needs to be addressed. Influencers are starting to speak up and tackle these issues through campaigns and petitions; however, there is still a long way to go to ensure social media platforms are inclusive and less discriminative for BAME people around the world.
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AuthorPriyanka Patel - Editor for AURA Archives
September 2020
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