White Women Observation Report

I took this picture in the beauty aisle of the Walgreens on Washington Avenue. I was originally planning on taking a picture of the makeup section to show how the vast majority of the pigments are geared towards lighter skin tones, but when I walked further down the aisle, I saw a wall of white people with vibrant hair colors staring at me. Every single box of hair dye had a white person on the front. I notice that off to the side, on the bottom shelf, there was a small row of products with black women on the boxes. On the surface level, it looked like just another example of white people dominating the media and advertising while people of color get just a sliver of representation, but when I looked closer, I saw that nearly all of the boxes marketed towards black women contain hair relaxers. Not only is there an entire wall of boxes with images of white women setting a beauty standard of whiteness, but nearly all of the products aimed towards black women were products meant to straighten out their natural, kinky hair to closer resemble the white standard of beauty.

This standard of beauty extends far beyond the beauty aisle of Walgreens; there is an entire system of white people dominating the beauty industry that can be seen on TV, in magazines, in advertising, and in stores. It’s everywhere you go. The lack of representation of people of color in the beauty industry tells people of color that they are less than beautiful. The system tells young women of color that the lighter their skin, and the straighter their hair, the more beautiful they are, and that can be very damaging for some people.