By Alicia N. Jones
Most people know L’Oreal for their dream-like cosmetics ads that feature todays hottest stars like Cindy Crawford, Vanessa Williams, and Eva Longoria Parker. But have you ever questioned how real those ads are?
Recently the cosmetic company is under fire for altering the complexion of R&B singer Beyoncé Knowles for their September ad campaign. Now if you look at the picture you can see the already lighter-skinned diva does look like shes been out of the sun for a few days. But do you really think L’Oréal made her lighter to appeal to a lighter audience?
If you’ve watched any of her videos or award show appearances you can see the girl looks like a chameleon; lighter one day, darker the next. It could be anything from the changing seasons to a nice spray-on tan.
Of course the cosmetic company has adamantly denied the alteration and a spokesperson for the company said, “We highly value our relationship with Beyoncé. It is categorically untrue that LOréal Paris altered her features or skin tone in the campaign for Feria hair color”.
Advertising analysts and specialist in New York have claimed that Beyoncés lighter appearance in the L’Oréal ad is based on outcomes of creative touch-ups meant to balance her highlighted hair.
So what do you think? Is Beyoncés new complexion because of the re-touch or does L’Oréal Paris want to make our beautiful black diva look lighter?
8 responses so far ↓
1 keisha monique // Aug 9, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Well, hello! Everyone is acting suprised as if ad agencies don’t lie everyday. Of course they altered her appearance. L’oreal Paris most likely wants to appeal to the white women, and the ligt-skinned male/females of our generation. Please people, don’t act as if you never knew the whole world is based on lies.
2 kheri elise // Aug 11, 2008 at 11:25 am
I agree with Keisha. The ad agencies love the fact that they can have a Beyonce who they can lighten to the point of making her race ambiguous. She is already beautiful so it is marketing & sales.
3 Christine // Aug 15, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Agreed ladies. I work in the ad/promotions world and I am a dark skinned female. In so many words, they don’t love us. You can see it in ads, TV etc and who among us is “the most popular” tend to be light skinned or closest to white. The fear of “dark skin” has plagued our society since the days of slavery. But I love this skin and all that comes with it. It’s truly a shame that we continue to instill this sort of self-hatred in our community. Don’t they know we come from greatness? Moreover to B, the girl is beautiful but she seems to think what she’s doing is ok as well as the people around her. I wonder what Jay thinks, lol? She already made a comment to the Latin press that alluding to wishing she was born a Latina and continues to promote that she is Creole. SO, I think it’s obvious where her head is. We need an Angela Basset or Nina Long to stand for us, but they don’t let the darker ones get that famous do they? The funny thing is practically every African American has DNA traces of European or some other races blood in them, so should we all call call ourselves multi-racial? It’s a mess!
Let’s bow our heads and pray!
4 T3000 // Aug 17, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Nothing surprising here…This WORLD not just country seem to believes dark skin equates to
1. ugliness
2. inferior
3. uneducated
4. lack of comprehensive skills
5. being unclean
It’s not just the black race affected by this ignorance but any race that have black skin. It’s not just Caucasians who believe this but it comes from our very own race. We need to first stop hating ourselves…
5 precious // Aug 20, 2008 at 7:59 pm
I agree with most of the comments. Most makeup advertisements cater to light-complexion black females. They believe as long as they put an african american in their ad, they won’t appear bias. Beyonce getting paid she doesn’t care.
6 victoria // Oct 3, 2008 at 5:46 pm
i dont think beyonce doesnt care. she is proud to be a black woman. im light skined too. n yea its more acceptable by white ppl. but let them be ignorant b/c at the end of the day who the ones thats gonna really take u in for who u r? black is beautiful ……believe that
7 lexi101 // Nov 2, 2008 at 7:54 pm
well you think anyones trully gona notice the diffrence i din’t in’till you pointed it out the probally did alter her on camera they do it to everyone.
beyonce an african american woman they can try to make her white it won’t change her skin color she is always black will always be vlack no changing that.
8 MS KO // Mar 11, 2009 at 9:39 am
Creole people in the U.S. are people with mixed ancestry descending from mainly French, Spanish, African-American, and Native American heritage (wiki.com). A light skinned person represents black women the same as a brown-skinned or dark-skinned person. We are all black and blackness is not defined by the depth of our darkness. It sounds like a lot of you have slave mentalities. It is really very sad. If she did say she was Creole that does not take away from her African American heritage and is not a denial of her being black.
The picture looks like they took out a lot of her pink tones not her brown tones. Please educate yourselves.
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