I mean, really?
Korean beauty company, Stylenanda, recently put up an advertisement for nail varnish.
The ad featured two hands overlapped or interlinking, both with the same colour nail varnish on but each hand with different colour skin. One light-skinned, one dark-skinned.
No problems so far, right? Wrong.
People began to notice something odd about the darker-skinned hand, namely that the palm was the same colour as the rest of the hand.
This had everyone realising that, rather than use an actual black person’s hand, the company had simply coloured an Asian model’s hand with darkly coloured foundation.
And, yeah, people were not pleased.
What in tarnation 👀 pic.twitter.com/8RULkX8vi0
— It Girl Darcei (@MissDarcei) July 18, 2018
why is that hand wearing black face
— ?Lili Bella? (@lily_lovexo) July 19, 2018
While a whole load of people were rightly angry at what happened, some seemed almost amused at the whole thing.
Or maybe there is just no other way to respond to such a shocking pretence at diversity than with bemused sarcasm.
I’m in confusion pic.twitter.com/6Z3UiOzPFp
— Lady Tokki ☆ (@sleepy_tokki) July 18, 2018
THEY DIDNT EVEN PHOTOSHOP THE PINKY!!! pic.twitter.com/pZONFq1sPL
— becky (@somehowhipster) July 19, 2018
What is baffling is that the brand would go to the effort of creating an advertisement that celebrated diversity without following through themselves.
Clearly, to them, racial diversity was nothing more than a fashion trend.
With all the complaints shot their way, though, they quickly saw the error of their ways. They have since removed the advertisement and have promised not to use the picture again.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BlfKcILAZc5/?hl=en&taken-by=stylenanda_korea
Maybe next time they will use consider using a model with the actual skin colour they are trying to show.
Seems a pretty straight forward one to remember.
