DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP via Getty Images
Cosmetics companies have agreed to remove racially offensive language from their skin products - but history, in Kenya and South Africa, shows they’ve done the same before.
Detail of book cover.
Wits University Press
The long history of racist beauty standards alone cannot explain the ongoing global use of harmful skin lighteners.
Beauty is still understood as a process of ongoing work and maintenance.
Shutterstock.com
The history of dangerous cosmetics shows us the harms that women have suffered to meet expectations of what is beautiful.
A growing number of young Asian men are using a plethora of whitening products.
Cheryl Ravelo/Reuters
Skin whitening among women has long been commonplace, but now young Asian men too, are using a plethora of whitening products.