The Dark Side of Dove

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Just about everyone has seen or heard about Dove’s campaign for real beauty. The ads that feature real women with curvy bodies instead of stick thin and noticeably air brushed models. Dove has a special website for young women that promotes self esteem and they have even set up a special self-esteem fund that funds programs for girls. Their goal is to have their message of self-esteem reach 5 million girls by 2010. It’s a great idea and their advertisements are memorable.



While I think their intended message is great and their advertisements are well executed I still feel that there is something wrong with the whole thing, and I’ve found that many other people agree. Dove is above all a body care and beauty company, they sell products that are meant to improve your appearance. But their real beauty campaign is about promoting natural beauty. It all seems a bit fuzzy. You can be naturally beautiful, but you should still buy the cellulite reducing cream because everyone knows cellulite is gross. I also found a few articles out there that claimed that the Real Beauty ads had been air brushed I'm not surprised, although I don’t think they were touched up to the same magnitude many other ads are. I don’t think the ladies in the ads were slimmed down or given bigger breasts in Photoshop, but I do think that they may have removed stray hairs, pimples, dimples, and shiny faces. After all no one really wants to see or be seen on a billboard with a shiny red pimple on their face.

So I’m okay with the air brushing, and even though dove is still selling beauty products they are truly being progressive with their ad campaigns and promotion of self-esteem, you don’t see any other companies doing that. So where is this “dark side” you ask?
Dove is owned by Unilever, the same company that owns Axe, and Fair and Lovely.
The messages from Dove are in stark contrast to those of Axe and Fair and Lovely. Axe is known for their provocative advertising that often features women who are animalistically drawn to men because they smell so awesome. The results of using Axe are obviously not what the advertisements make it out to be, but Axe loves to use sex to sell their product.



Fair and Lovely on the other hand just makes me sick. Unilever promotes natural beauty and self-esteem with Dove and at the same time they are playing off of the insecurities of women with Fair and Lovely. Fair and lovely is a skin lightening product that is sold primarily in India.



So much for natural beauty, and it is also so ironic that women in India and the middle east are buying skin lightening creams and women in North America and Europe are buying products that will make them more tan. I was also surprised to find that Fair and Lovely has their own foundation that is supposedly about empowering women and giving them scholarships. It all sounds very nice, but why is it sponsored by a product that seems to tell women that there is something wrong with them in the first place. It's mind boggling.

Unilever’s brands each have their target audience, and they are all in it to sell a product. Whether or not you find their advertising tactics shameful and exploitative they seem to be working.

What Is Your Hair Saying?

Friday, May 1, 2009

Have you ever noticed that in movies with makeovers, or those television makeover shows, women with curly hair always have their curls “tamed” or “smoothed”. I understand that there are bad hair cuts and frizz but for some reason the media has this aversion to curly hair, and they see it as a problem that needs to be corrected. The article Curl, Interrupted by The New York Observer Sara Vilkomerson asks why Hollywood feels that curly hair is an outward representation of a person’s inner turmoil, or perhaps shows their disregard for their looks. It talks about Meg Ryan’s curly to straight makeover in the movie The Women, apparently Ms. Ryan and her stylist felt that her character needed to come off as “earthy”. Vilkomerson says “since when does having curly hair make one earthy? Neither have we found in our unscientific gatherings that curly hair necessarily translates to being unconcerned about one’s appearance, or more romantic, wild, creative, or crazy and lusty.”

Meg's "Earthy" "Frazzled" Do. Hah!

As a person with curly hair, I find it ridiculous that my hair might be giving people the impression that I’m a wild ungroomed hippy (though perhaps I am some days). I suppose I, and the rest of the curly haired ladies (and maybe even some men) out there have Hollywood to blame for our stereotypes. I found this clip from Good Morning America that really got me going. Its an 8 minute video devoted to finding out which people like more: curly hair or straight hair. The part that really got to me was that most of the men, and the job interviewers seemed to think that curly hair was distracting. Why? It’s just hair? It's not a bright pink mohawk or anything too outlandish. Why should women with curls be spending an hour every day ironing their hair into submission so that they can conform to a shallow standard when they could be spending their time doing more important things? Women shouldn’t need to “tame” their hair to meet society’s approval, and there is an entire movement based around that idea.

Naturallycurly.com was created by Gretchen Heber and Michelle Breyer to promote and give tips about dealing with curly hair, and help girls embrace their natural beauty in general. This quote from their about us section sums it up nicely “ Women deserve to choose how they look. If they’re lucky enough to be born with curly hair, they should be able to show their ringlets to the world without losing their self-esteem, without being derided as less beautiful, less serious or less professional. We're sharing the beauty of curls and the beauty of choice. Hair is just strands of keratin on the outside of the head. It’s what’s inside the head that matters.” I couldn’t agree more, even the most flawless hair will do nothing to hide a person’s shortcomings in confidence, and self worth.

I'm Gonna Go Shave Too

Sunday, April 26, 2009

"Every time I go and shave, I assume there's someone else on the planet shaving. So I say, 'I'm gonna go shave, too.'" ~ Mitch Headberg

The American Laser Center found women will spend $10,207 in their lifetimes on hair removal. I’ve always wondered why people worry so much about body hair, especially women. It must be waxed, shaved, plucked, and lasered into submission. Anyone woman who dares dares to let her hair grow is labeled as unclean or deviant, which is ridiculous when you remember that men are allowed to to roam free with hairy legs, armpits, and chests. It's a terrible double standard, I know guys who have complained about shaving their faces, I just laugh. Hairy men are seen as more manly, hairy women belong in a side show.

Shaving is all for aesthetic appeal, and some people out there have some strong opinions on why a hairless woman is considered more attractive. In “Shaving is the Pits” Robin Friebur states that “Because men value childlike traits in adult women, some men probably become confused when they perceive, either consciously or subconsciously, the (artificial) resemblance between children and adult women. A man who is socialized to become erotically aroused by an infantilized woman may be primed to also become erotically aroused by children.” I don’t think shaving is really turning men into pedophiles, but humans do place youth on a pedestal, so it is understandable that women would want to shave to appear more youthful.

Since the popularization of the bikini women have been spending massive amounts of time and money making sure that they are hairless down there. Recently there was an uproar in New Jersey because of a law that was aiming to outlaw bikini waxes. It started because two women got infections after having bikini waxes. Passing a law against waxing seems like overkill, especially when you know that there are risks to waxing before you have it done. Luckily for the women of New Jersy, the law did not pass, and they are still free to do what they wish to their bikini lines.

I’ll end this post with a video that I found rather humorous,


there is also a not so subtle version that aired in the UK.

I read a lot of comments about both videos on Jezebel.com and saw that a lot of women found the commercial rather offensive and immature, but most of them agreed that decisions regarding body hair should be up to the person who has it.

The First Post

Hello internet, this blog is part of an assignment for my English class. I will be posting bits from a paper I wrote on beauty in America. I hope to also find some current stories and issues that I will post here, and give commentary on. That's all for now!