Dove, Axe maker will take ‘normal’ off beauty products
Beauty and personal-care company Unilever said this week that it would no longer use the word “normal” on its products and in its advertising, following a study that revealed it makes most people feel excluded.
Unilever, a London-based company that owns Dove, Axe, Sunsilk and Vaseline, among other personal-care brands, also said it would not digitally alter the body shape, size and skin color of models in its advertising as part of its Positive Beauty initiative, according to a news release. And the company promised to increase the number of ads featuring underrepresented people, without specifying which groups.
An aim of these steps and others, Unilever said, was to better “challenge narrow beauty ideals.”
The advertising changes came after the company commissioned a 10,000person study across nine countries, including Brazil, China, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and the United States.
The study found that 56% of participants thought that the beauty industry could make people feel excluded, and that as many as 7 in 10 people agreed that the word “normal” on products and in advertising had negative effects.
That figure rose to 8 in 10 for people between the ages of 18 and 35.
Seventy-four percent of participants said they wanted the beauty industry to make them feel better, not just look better.
“We know that removing ‘normal’ from our products and packaging will not fix the problem alone, but it is an important step forward,” Sunny Jain, Unilever’s president of beauty and personal care, said in the statement.
A spokeswoman for Unilever said Tuesday that the company had more than 200 products that included the word “normal” on the label.
She said the company had already started the removal process, with aims to have it completed by March 2022.
The changes were long overdue and “completely necessary” after last year’s worldwide Black Lives
Matter demonstrations, said Ateh Jewel, a beauty journalist and an advisory board member of the British Beauty Council, an organization that represents the British beauty industry.
“Saying the word ‘normal’ has been used to set you apart,” Jewel said. “I am normal. My dark skin is normal . ... Everything about me is normal.”
Products using the term “normal” could make a person feel anything but, she said, adding that its use could be dangerous for a person’s self-esteem and mental health.
Last summer, in response to the international outrage over the killing of George Floyd, institutional racism and police violence, Unilever was one of several household beauty companies that rushed to declare its opposition to racism.
In June, Johnson & Johnson said it would stop selling skin-whitening lotions, including Neutrogena Fine Fairness and Clear Fairness by Clean & Clear.
That same month, L’Oreal also said it would stop using words like “whitening” on its products.