Top pharmaceutical company, Unilever has announced it will drop the word “normal” from its beauty products and ban excessive editing of models’ photos in a push for inclusivity.
The company has previously faced allegations that it promoted stereotypes around dark skin tones after revealing the Fair & Lovely skin cream and using white models for its products.
Unilever which produces the Sure, Simple and Dove brands said the editing ban would apply to “body shape, size, proportion and skin colour” and “normal” would be removed from 200 products so they can have a “more inclusive definition of beauty”.
The word “normal” is typically used on shampoos, conditioners and face products, such as for “normal or oily skin”.
The changes are set to happen next year according to the company’s management.
The ban on editing will include photos taken of models as well as social media influencers.
Unilever’s president of beauty and personal care products, Sunny Jain, said: “We know that removing ‘normal’ from our products and packaging will not fix the problem alone, but it is an important step forward.”
Mr Jain added that consumers were increasingly “rewarding brands” that take action on environmental and social issues. He said the personal beauty campaign would make Unilever a “more successful business”.
Instead of the word “normal”, Unilever will use different descriptors for customers looking for particular qualities in their beauty products. Shampoo for “normal to dry” hair, for example, will be labelled for “dry and damaged” hair.
Unilever said on Tuesday, March 9, it would also take a number of other steps in an attempt to promote “a new era of beauty that’s inclusive, equitable and sustainable”.
The company also promised to do adverts with models from under-represented groups and use more natural and biodegradable ingredients across its range of products.
Last year, following the Black Lives Matter movement, the company rebranded a skin-lightening cream from “Fair and Lovely” to “Glow and Lovely”.
“The product has never been and is not a skin bleaching cream,” Unilever says on its website.
The firm also apologised after it ran a Facebook advertising campaign in 2017 for Dove body lotion, which showed a series of three images, showing a black woman peeling off her T-shirt to reveal a white woman underneath her skin. The third image shows the white woman undressing to reveal an Asian woman.
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