I recently ordered a new sports bra and it arrived this afternoon. It's light beige and came with tags that declare the color to be "body tone".
I'm getting really annoyed that a light Caucasian skin tone is considered Flesh Tone--as if that's the only skin tone out there.
The light beige is actually a very good match for my skin tone. See?
But Reader, I'm really pale. Pale enough that people always comment on it and I have to chant "Nicole Kidman Gwyneth Paltrow" over and over in my head to make myself feel better.I can't even imagine how pissed I'd be if I had darker skin and was constantly being told that a shade several times lighter than my own was the Official Flesh Tone. It's like they're saying, "Anything darker doesn't count."
It's all so very ironic when you consider that many pale skinned people covet darker skin and that they are willing to go to great lengths to get it (tanning beds, spray tans, bronzer, etc).
Clothing companies, particularly for undergarments should never ever select one color and call it flesh tone. Why don't they offer a separate line of skin tone bras and underwear in a range of colors?
They do realize people come in different colors, right?
I wonder sometimes.
Strangely enough, because I have no idea how we got started on this conversation, I had an evening out with friends last night where the same topic came up, albeit referring to crayons. We decided (in a blaze of annoyed sarcasm) that if crayon companies are going to do that, they should go all out racist. Label a shade just off-white as "pasty" or "albino", a medium brown might be "hispanic brown," or a new shade called "oriental yellow." It really is ridiculous, especially seeing how many years they've had "flesh" as a color.
ReplyDelete[Note: I have to admit, it was a bit uncomfortable just typing some of those words. But it was only meant to highlight how off-putting "flesh" is for the reason you say, it suggests anything else is 'wrong'--which is kind of prejudiced.]
Bleh. I don't think I'm explaining this well, but ultimately I am saying yes, (as a fellow pale person) I agree with you, and I don't like that color label.