African Skin Lightening Cream Advertisement

Whitenicious is a skincare company created in early 2014, based in the United States that has been specifically promoted in Lagos, Nigeria by celebrities like Dencia and Blac Chyna. The advertisement above presents one idea of femininity that reinforces negative gender and racial stigmas. The ad itself shows celebrity Dencia using a skincare product emphasis on the lightening qualities of it due to a strong white sheen over her skin and intense white lighting. Dencia is quoted saying “White means pure, thus Whitenicious," promoting to a predominantly female-based audience that the ideal is to have whiter skin; that women are clean, or “pure," if they whiten their skin. Many argue that these kinds of brands are not still around today and that it is irrelevant to bring up in discussions surrounding today's issues, but this company was surprisingly created very recently (early 2014) and is still surprisingly active to this day. This comes to show that just because society seems more progressive on the surface level as time goes on, these kinds of unjust companies still persist behind the scenes and continue demonstrating the capitalist greed that comes from profiting off of society's stigmas.