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“Moisture White”

Jill

I was buying lotion at The Body Shop the other day and was taken aback by a display of “moisture white” skincare products. They don’t seem to be advertising it as skin-whitening cream, but it does claim to “brighten” skin — and, come on, the name is moisture white.

Am I over-reacting?

34 thoughts on “Moisture White”

  1. Yeah. There is an entire level of Hell where the souls of the damned have to come up with new, catchy marketing slogans for the most boring, mundane crap that ever existed.

  2. I hope that’s just a weird name choice. It almost sounds like Engrish.

    The “Brightening Serum” is supposed to counteract skin discoloration and freckles. Hm.

  3. I dunno … it is pretty, um, suspicious. That being said, I am tempted to try the product myself (I love me some licorice root), and I certainly don’t need any skin-whitening (I am frighteningly white/pink … well, except for all those burnt-orange polka dots and reddish fuzz on my skin they call “freckles” and “body hair”).

  5. No, I think “brightening” is basically the term of art in this country for “whitening.” I get the DHL (a Japanese company) skin care catalog, and they have pages and pages of “complexion brightening” creams and serums and lotions and gels.

  6. When you click on the link, the keywords at the top of the window include “skin lightening” and “skin bleaching.” So, no, you’re not crazy.

  7. Yeah, brightening is definitely the new code word for skin bleaching.
    I’ve noticed that there have been a number of new “skin brightening” products hitting the North American markets, put out by mainstream (read: marketed at white people) cosmetic companies. They’ve always been available here (Toronto) if you look in Black, Indian, and Chinese beauty supply stores.

  9. When you click on the link, the keywords at the top of the window include “skin lightening” and “skin bleaching.” So, no, you’re not crazy.

    I might be, though — I don’t see that. Is it because I’m using Firefox?

  10. I had a girlfriend who had lived in the Philippines for a while, and “skin-whitening” products were all the rage over there. Heck, she brought me back a flyer for one that sad “White is beautiful” on the front.

    I don’t think there’s anything insidious going on with this product, to each his/her own.

  11. Hmmm…I guess I’ve been hoodwinked. I was told it was for reducing redness…blasted salespeople, knowing my weaknesses.

  12. I found this stick of deodorant at a dollar store once called “White Essence” (a google search for white essence results in links to some other product by the same name). It was just deodorant and didn’t claim to have any effect on skin color, but the name still bothered me.

  14. “Brightening” is totally American/Canadian code for whitening. If you’r e in doubt, check out catalogs of skin care/cosmetic lines marketed towards populations of Asian descent in these two countries.

  16. No you’re not over-reacting. In Cambodia all the girls want to whiten their skin and use dangerous means. I covered whitening creams in a post last week called Dying to be white. But whitening creams is only the beginning. Girls also beach their skin. Whiteness is a status symbol here – not white European but white Chinese. The elite have white skin and the poor are trying to lighten theirs by chemical intervention

  17. This is an odd way to come out of lurkerdom, but oh well. The courage to finally include my voice in the chorus has finally arrived, and it’s arrived to question one of the many hypocritical aspects of what’s defined as “beautiful”.

    I don’t think you’re overreacting, Jill, and that’s what makes this so disturbing. But what strikes me as particularly odd/fucked-up about this whole bullshit “skin lightening” fad is this; If we’re all supposed to want to be “white”, then why the fuck are tanning salons and spray-on tans so popular?

    Talk about unrealistic beauty standards…

  18. I used to work there. Even before being bought by L’Oreal, TBS had some problems, specifically along racial lines. Every year, the sun care line would focus exclusively on white people; the implications of young white women playing on the beach contrasted against those “community trade” photographs of poor, old women of color mashing up their cocoa butter were, erm, troubling to say the least.

    While I was there, they redid their entire make-up line. They had every conceivable shade of white-person skin and one, maybe two, color in each product line suitable for even fairly light people of color. Worse still, the one brown concealer they made was BROWN. Between its release and its discontinuation we could not find one black women with skin that dark, to speak nothing of a shade darker (as concealer is meant to be a shade lighter than one’s skin tone).

    ::sigh::

  19. I think it’s an overreaction. This isn’t Cambodia, after all, and just because the product says ‘white’ on it doesn’t mean that it’s making a racist statement. Frankly, I wouldn’t think twice if I saw a lotion with ‘white’ in the label, nor ‘black’, ‘brown’, etc. what with all the bizarre things they stamp on products lately.

    It’s just one of those marketing things, they need all the weird new names they can think of to sell their crap. It kind of sounds like it’s been translated from an Asian language.

  20. Hmmm…I guess I’ve been hoodwinked. I was told it was for reducing redness…blasted salespeople, knowing my weaknesses.

    Watch out — if your redness is due to rosacea, the ingredients in that will send your skin into overdrive and make things 10 times worse. I was diagnosed with rosacea at 19, so don’t let anyone tell you it only happens to people over 40.

    I now spend an insane amount on my skin between the prescription cream my insurance won’t cover (Noritate), the monthly facials, and the organic skincare products, but at least I don’t look like I have a permanent sunburn anymore, and I don’t get big nasty cysts just under the surface of my skin. Ouch.

  21. In India, where the concept of using bleach, and “fairness lotions” is very standard, the next step is “skin so fair, it gets pink when you blush” – a hard thing to do when you have yellow-brown skin.
    Ponds has come up with a product called I-Blush, which helps you get “fair pink blush-able skin”, and they are promoting it by asking women to talk about when do they blush. I have talked about it here.

  22. You’re not overreacting. “Brightening” is a pretty standard code for “whitening.” The people who come up with the Body Shop’s marketing definitely know that, whether or not everyone here does.

  23. Shiseido has a ‘White Lucent’ line that talks about fading age spots, freckles, etc. but nothing about lightening the skin in general. Or maybe I missed it because I wasn’t looking. And, also, I was thinking ‘Hey, could that make me even paler? Awesome!’ I suppose, being white and not always remembering to think of such things, it never even occurred to me that this would be marketed as a way of becoming ‘white’.

    Does this stuff actually work? And wouldn’t you look kinda strange, with a pale face, and darker body?

    Shiseido is a Japanese company-does anyone know if whitening products are popular in Japan?

  24. JPlum, the Shiseido line was one of the lines I was thinking of that has come out with whitening products. From my (limited) knowledge of these products, they are often marketed to women to get rid of hyperpigmentation – darker spots on the skin and nails caused by excess melanin deposits. Age/liver spots, freckles, and acne scars are all examples of hyperpigmentation. Hyperpigmentation effects people of all skin colours, but I do think it may be more common amongst women of colour (generally as a result of sun damage). I can’t source that, and don’t have time this morning to do any research. If someone knows more about it, please correct me.

    To answer JPlum’s question about a lighter face and a darker body. My face is usually a few shades darker than my body, and I’m a pasty white girl, My face is exposed to the sun all year, whereas my arms and legs only get exposed in the summer. The skin on my shoulders and arms also tends to be darker than my legs. I would assume that most other people’s skin is not uniform.

    And again, Jill I don’t think you’re overreacting, even if you don’t live in Cambodia. Nor do I think the product name is a mistranslation from “some Asian language,” seeing as The Body Shop is owned by L’Oreal. I keep reading Kate’s comment (#19), hoping it will start to make sense, and not be some random racist interjection, but no dice.

  25. You’re not overreacting. “Brightening” is a pretty standard code for “whitening.”

    And has been for a pretty long time, I think. I’ve read a lot of black-interest magazines from the 1950s and 1960s in the course of my own research, and my recollection is that I’ve seen that term in ads for skin-care products from that era.

  26. I lived in Japan and whitening products are popular. I learned the Kanji/hiragana for “whitening” and “bleaching” so I could avoid those products when I was shopping for lotion or foundation.

    It seems like some of these whitening agents (that sounds strange) are being exported to new markets.

    You’re not over-reacting at all, Jill. Definitely an insidious racism present in the name “moisture white.”

  27. Also, this has been bothering me a bit: “This isn’t Cambodia, after all…” No it isn’t, but it is the United States where we have a long history of racism and white privilege and I think these skin whitening products are an aspect of the privilege given to people with lighter skin.

  28. I’ve worked for Shiseido here in the states. The White Lucent line mostly only fades freckles, age spots, sun spots and scars.
    Most “Brightening” products in the U.S. JUST AREN’T STRONG ENOUGH to change overall skin color. Period. They just even out the overall tone of facial skin.
    No. Big. Deal.
    I don’t think that these products are racist in nature or promote racist ideas. I mean, products that remove stains from teeth are called “tooth whiteners” is that racist or classis b/c not all of us have naturally pearly white teeth? No. That’s all brighteners do, they remove “stains” from your face. Like a Crest Whitestrip for your visage.
    (I’m talking about the products in the U.S, not Asian and South Asian products. I really don’t think skin bleaching will ever take root in the States. I mean, the ultimate standards of beauty these days are Jessica Alba, Eva Mendes, and Halle Berry, right?)

    So yeah, sorry, I think you’re over reacting a tad.

  29. At first I was weired out by the name, but when I think about it…I actually want to try it.

    My oodles of freckles just seem to make my otherwise pale face look filthy.

  30. The Body Shop (along with L’Oreal) is evil, as any regular reader of the Antifeminist Offenders thread on Twisty’s forum knows. It is now partially owned by Nestle.

  31. I first encountered these things on a visit to Vancouver in 1989. Clinique marketed a skin lightener in Asia that became very popular in Canada. I asked the counter clerk, who said at the time that this stuff was mostly aimed at Asians who wanted to ensure an even skin tone. It wasn’t so much about becoming European. I still don’t know what to think about it, but I’ve never seen anything similar sold here in Texas. Still, it’s got a kind of creepy name. I would have called it ‘even skin tone cream’ or something like that.

  32. In reference to #28:
    Perhaps, whitening creams marketed by Shiseido in the US (and other such products) are no designed to be strong enough to actually lighten your overall skin tone. Assuming Pandeo is correct, said products are not marketed on a racist premise…
    BUT
    Are freckles and sunspots “stains”? Is trying to bleach away your skin pigmentation, as a whole or in part, really “no. big. deal.”? And does anyone actually want to bring up tooth whitening and how bad it is for your tooth enamel?

    I know these things are part of American beauty ideals (whacked as said ideals may be) and thus treated as the norm. However, that doesn’t mean that these norms for appearance, and the damage one does to one’s body in pursuit of them, is sane.

    Pandeo, I’m sorry, but you comment seems to be made from the position of an apologist for the above-mentioned cosmetics companies, to the extent that I question your motivation for posting.
    Am I out of my mind here, guys? Just reread #28, especially the bit comparing tooth whitening to age-spot and freckle removal. The diction is just a little to disingenuous.

  33. Derma-E is the one we sell at my workplace.

    This is a natural skin line, therefore note how it carefully claims to be a “melanin inhibitor”–not a bleach. But it’s still called a skin lightener.

    I’ve never been comfortable selling it. Even though it is supposedly marketed for older women with “age spots” and “uneven skin tones”, the primary buyers (my observation) have all been African-American and Asian women.

  34. In reference to Pandeo and MissKate – I think the fact that these products are being developed and marketed by mainstream cosmetics companies (with well-to-do white clientele) has more to do with the effects of aging than anything else. There simply weren’t effective sunscreens and knowledge of the dangers of tanning when middle-aged and older women were growing up. It seems to me that this has more to do with mistaken perceptions about aging, sun spots, etc, and considering freckles and the like to be unattractive, rather than promoting “whiteness” over darker skin.

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