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Padma Lakshmi slams beauty brands for promoting colourism with skin lightening ads: It affected my self esteem
Amid the Black Lives Matter movement, Padma Lakshmi criticised beauty brands for promoting colourism with skin lightening ads. Here’s what she had to say.
Padma Lakshmi is calling out beauty bands for promoting colourism by selling skin lightening products. Amid the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests taking place across the world, paving way for discussions and debates about discriminating on the basis of skin colour, Lakshmi expressed frustration over these brands favouring fair complexion over dark complexion. She stated that she is “sick and tired” and tired of the skin lightening ads that target people of colour by suggesting that fair is lovely and dark is not.
She took to Twitter and stated that growing up, the ads, that portrayed that dark complexion is not good enough, took a toll on her self-esteem. She even posted one such advertisement on her handle for her followers. “Anyone else out there sick and tired of being told that fair=lovely? Because I sure as hell am. I’ve been hearing that crap since my girlhood and it did a number on my self-esteem,” she wrote. Her post was instantly appreciated by many who praised the 49-year-old author for speaking it.
“Yes. Colonialism in the Philippines created an equivalent “fair and lovely” mentality,” a Twitter user wrote. Some users pointed out that these advertisements pave the way for discrimination in society. “This kind of ads are the sole reason for the discrimination, which sadly still exists in 2020,” another wrote. Others shared how societal pressure and these advertisements affected them. “It is frightening skin lightening is such a pressure. I have a body dysphoria issue, which is different but I can totally appreciate the horrid mental pressure,” a tweet read.
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