You can email photos to us at skincoloured[at]gmail[dot]com – just replace the [at] and [dot] with the right sign.

Another plaster photo, different person.

I’d also like to draw your attention to the Women of Color and Beauty Carnival. There’s lots of interesting essays discussing cultural values of beauty and attractiveness.

Admittedly it’s a fairly specialised product and in the UK, stretching your piercings is usually a choice, but it still assumes that only white people have stretched piercings when this is not the case.

We would really like to feature more people on this blog, rather than just ourselves. We feel it’s important to show as many non-white skin tones as possible so we can show just how inadequate provision for us is. A photo can be as simple as sticking a plaster to your skin and taking a clear photo of it – it doesn’t have to be complicated.

This is some sort of foundation stick. We went into some well-known health and beauty retailers in a large, multiethnic city in England. This city is home to one of the oldest Chinese communities in Europe, a Black community dating back to the 1730s and a large population of international students (not counting the British-born second generation). We assumed that retailers would respond to these communities.

Because we are not interested in setting up straw men, we only tested the darkest product available in each range. This was one of them.

(Notice that this tanning moisturising cream is being aimed at people with “normal to darker” skin. Notice also the hand the bottle is held in; it’s dark, but it’s a perfectly normal skin colour for someone of north Indian origin.)