I know I’m not the only person who has had an awakening since the abhorrent murder of George Floyd in May. I realised that, while I know racism exists and I wholeheartedly wish it did not, I as a white person am not doing enough to change things.
Until now, I’ve been completely unaware of the privilege I am afforded as a white, middle class woman. I thought back to when I had been pulled over in my car by the police in my twenties and realised that, had I been a black woman, I might not have got away with just a request to produce my documents.
I wanted to do something to promote change and decided to do some research into what I believe to be institutional unequal representation of black people by some elements of the beauty industry.
Some good, some not so good
I decided to take a look at a few of the higher-end and luxury beauty and spa brands such as OPI, Estee Lauder and Natura Bisse (some of which are international giants). I went onto their websites to see how many of their images contained black people.
The results showed four of the fourteen I surveyed had no black people on their websites that I could see, another four had fewer than 10% and the others went from 15% to just over 27% - though the one at 27%, Essie, did things really well in my view.
When you look at the latest UK census, 4% of the population is black. So, you may argue that some of these brands are actually going over and above in their representation of black people. Personally, I do not believe it is enough to include just 4% of black images on a website.
I believe that the only way to redress the balance is to go way over and above and to make a point of it and this is something I need to do with my own website too.
It is my belief that we will never solve the problem of black people being considered by some as unequal to white people if we don’t see them represented just as much as white people in mainstream media, regardless of whatever percentage of the population they make up.
To be clear, I am not for one moment suggesting any discrimination on the part of any of the companies that I’ve included in the table below. I don’t know their decision making processes when it comes to their marketing and advertising. I just think it’s worth some of them understanding how their marketing may be unintentionally adding to the problem of under-representation of black people in mainstream media.
Plus, I am aware that my own website does not have images of black people on it (because I am a start-up and I used my friend and friend’s mum as free models and they both happened to be white). This makes me part of the problem too and by saying this I hope that I am highlighting the glaring omission of black people in parts of the beauty industry, which is all part of the bigger issue.
My findings - images found on company websites
OPI: Total images found - 10 | Images of black people - 2 (20% of total)
ELEMIS: Total images found - 18 | Images of black people - 3 (16.66%)
NEAL’S YARD: Total images found - 52 | Images of black people - 3 (5.76%)
CND: Total images found - 42 | Images of black people - 7 (16.66%)
ESSIE: Total images found - 92 | Images of black people - 25 (27.17%)
GUERLAIN: Total images found - 12 | Images of black people - 1 (8.33%)
E’SPA: Total images found - 12 | Images of black people - 0 (0%)
CLARINS: Total images found - 62 | Images of black people - 6 (9.67%)
DECLEOR: Total images found - 19 | Images of black people - 0 (0%)
AROMATHERAPY ASSOCIATES: Total images found - 18 | Images of black people - 1 (5.55%)
MANDARA SPA: Total images found - 6 | Images of black people - 0 (0%)
NATURA BISSE: Total images found - 38 | Images of black people - 0 (0%)
ELIZABETH ARDEN: Total images found - 4 | Images of black people - 1 (25%)
ESTEE LAUDER: Total images found - 73 | Images of black people - 11 (15.06%)
A screenshot of the page on the Essie website showing the nail colour on different skin tones
My favourite website was Essie, which is a nail polish brand. This was not only because it had the highest number of images of black people on its pages, but it showed thumbnail images of each of its nail polish colours on a white person, an Asian person and a black person. Each ethnicity could see what the same red (for example) looks like on their specific skin tone. Essie has clearly thought about this and I was really impressed by it.
I must point out that the statistics above are not scientifically watertight and I am not an expert on racial analytics (or analytics of any kind). These numbers are calculated purely from what I found when I spent a day looking through each brand’s website and going onto as many of the pages as I could find.
There are possibly images that I didn’t see. However, as I got through what I believe must have been most of their images this shows that these are the images the general public is most likely to see and, therefore, is what is represented on the website because they were the most easy to find.
Some brands did not have many pictures that included a person, a lot were only of the beauty products, so this is why I have included percentages in my findings as well.
Images I included in my numbers are those of faces, bodies and hands and I looked specifically for black people in my findings. I am aware that other minority ethnicities come up against prejudice too, but I wanted to focus only on black people at the moment.
This Changes Everything
I got thinking about doing this research and writing this piece not only because of George Floyd’s death, but also because I recently watched a documentary called ‘This Changes Everything’, which is about the way that women are portrayed and treated in the entertainment industry.
During the programme, it says that of the top grossing films of 2018, only 11 featured women from an underrepresented racial/ethnic group in a lead or co-lead role. There is a moment where Mellody Hobson (the former Chair of Dreamworks) says that it is devastating for a little girl not to see herself represented on screen and that she started to think something was wrong with her because she was not seeing other black women like her on the TV.
Mara Brock Akil (the creator of Girlfriends) says on the same subject that she thought, “…well, I think I exist, but why am I not reflected back in what I see?”.
Listening got me thinking
Listening to what these women said really got me thinking about the beauty industry and whether or not black people are properly represented throughout it.
It was obvious to me from the results of my research that many of us in the beauty industry need to do better when it comes to including more black people in our media. It goes back to what was said on ‘This Changes Everything’ – if black people do not see themselves represented in adverts for beauty and spa brands then is this saying to them that they are not a part of this industry and that they do not belong here? As a privileged white woman, I don’t want to assume how black people are feeling, but if the above is the case then this needs to change.
I have contacted each of the brands that had no images of black people that I could see on their websites to ask them to consider and review this (in the same way that I will be reviewing my own website as well) and consider what we can do as an industry to make it a more inclusive place for black people, where they belong and feel welcomed.
In my opinion, black people are beautiful, black people belong and are wanted in this industry and above all else BLACK LIVES MATTER.
UPDATE - 18.6.20: Since writing to the companies with no images of black people on their website, two of them, Natura Bisse and E’Spa, have responded (see their emails below). Natura Bisse agreed that it needs to do more to showcase diversity in the brand. I am really pleased that it has recognised this and has owned the fact that it has work to do on this issue. Thank you Natura Bisse.
E’spa has said that its culture is built on meritocracy, irrespective of race, gender, age, experience or background and that it can - and will - do more to progress. They have stated that equality is the only way and I cannot agree more.
Email from Natura Bisse owning the fact that they need to do more to showcase diversity.
Email from E’Spa in response to my message to them with my findings.