We’ve written several posts about how the words “nude” and “flesh” tend to be used to refer to colors associated with light-colored skin. For examples, see our posts on “flesh-colored,” Michelle Obama’s “nude” colored dress, the new in-color, “nude is the new black” (and by black we mean white), lotion for “normal to darker skin,” and color-assisted medical diagnosis. Readers have sent in an additional example and several counter-examples.
Catherine M.P. snapped this photo of an ad for Ripley in Santiago, Chile (she says English is often used to make a product seem “edgy”):
Comments 58
el.j — July 16, 2010
The myskins don't seem to go past a medium dark skin tone though. Even when companies are trying to be inclusive, it's like truly dark skin tones just are not a reality for them. I almost feel it's worse when there is an attempt at inclusion that acts like dark skin is inhuman or something - at least when it's just white people's skin tones everyone is ignored, but when there's supposed to be a scale, and yet the darkest dot is not much darker than most bi-racial people, it sends a message about the value of people with dark skin, as if they do not even exist and cannot be imagined. It's like it's saying it's ok to be this dark, but no darker than that.
Hannah — July 16, 2010
This makes me really happy. It's the first effort I've seen at all to de-white-ify the words "flesh" and "nude." But I agree; usually when things are "diverse," they go to about a caramel complexion and then shove everything darker than that into one category.
JihadPunk77 — July 16, 2010
and again-- where are the shades for very dark brown and black skin? Do I need to point that out?
wow. I typed in google to get a photo of Alek Wek and a Google Suggestion came up and suggested "Alek Wek Ugly." WTF? So having dark skin is ugly, huh?
K — July 16, 2010
I had to buy a bunch of stockings the other day. I'm pretty pale, and the only appropriate stockings for me were labeled "Nude" or "Naked." It was really disappointing to have to buy those. I seriously could not find a brand that didn't use those terms.
K — July 16, 2010
The Myskins site doesn't seem to use much airbrushing. It's actually shocking to see underwear models with a little cellulite and visible skin texture. So I have to give them credit for that.
Anonymous — July 16, 2010
Odd that some of the "nude" shoes appear to be plain white, though.
nunya — July 17, 2010
links that works, please.
karinova — July 17, 2010
As far as "example" vs. "counter-example," I find the phrasing in the Elle article significant:
"And if you’ve already blown your nail polish budget on Chanel [...] a bottle of OPI always does the trick— and they have actual nude options for every skin tone" [bold mine].
Two things are communicated here: 1) the fact that OPI has a wider range of "nude" colors, and 2) the fact that this is unusual. Somehow #2 jumps out at me more. [And granted, I'm reading into it a bit, but it seems to me to kind of imply that one would naturally expect to have to pay a premium to get darker options— "contrary to popular expectation, here's OPI, coming with darker nudes for only 10 bucks!"]
Also, my eye was caught by the four colors Elle chose (?) to illustrate "notably wide range of nude." The darkest one there is pretty light— surely OPI colors go a lot darker than that? (The brand is known for its huge color selection.) Curious, I went to their website; turns out they've assembled a category explicitly labeled "nude" (Nail Color > All OPI colors > Nudes/Neutrals). Compare the darkest shade there to the lightest shade under "Browns." No overlap. Further underlining this: note the color-animated hand on which you can "try on" the different nail colors. The colors that match the lightest-possible skin tone ("At First Sight," or maybe "Honeymoon Sweet") are under Nudes/Neutrals. To find the colors that match the darkest-possible skin tone ("Mauving to Manitoba" or perhaps "Can You Tapas This?") you have to look under Browns.
IMO, this is much more an example than a counter-example!