Feminism and the beauty industry have historically had a difficult and highly contested relationship. Yet, as a company made up primarily of women (71% of our staff are female, represented equally in each area of our business) and selling to a predominantly female audience, it's a topic that should not simply be ignored just because it is too awkward or difficult to discuss.

Feminism and notions of female beauty have a notoriously turbulent relationship. Indeed, it is probably fair to say that "beauty" is the issue which divides feminists more than any other (see our 'further discussion' below if you would like to read more on this topic).

Is it to duck out of the argument to point out that a spray tan mimics only a natural skin reaction to sun exposure? Is it to skirt around the issue to point out that when you step inside that spray tan tent, you do so with your makeup off, and your wobbly bits out? Is it looking for excuses to highlight the fact that for many women, the feeling that having a tan gives - of feeling more confident and healthy - often takes the place of makeup, or at least renders it less of a necessity?

Maybe - because, regardless of where you stand on this issue, we cannot escape the fact that all spray tans are cosmetics, marketed primarily towards women. So what can we do?

Fake Tanning & Feminism

This was a question which we found ourselves asking when thinking about our big rebrand. Many of our competitors use highly sexualised images of women to advertise their spray tanning products - an approach which is possibly more appropriate for a product designed to go on the naked skin than for cars, digital cameras or gaming consoles - but nevertheless, a rather unimaginative one. One wonders whether the discussion even came up, or whether it was the default assumption that the female body was the natural, ready-made marketing tool. Indeed, it's interesting to the note that the (very) few brands which have resisted the temptation to use images are headed by women.

Most of us will be familiar with the imagery used by the big tanning brands - a heavily airbrushed Kate Moss on a lilo springs to mind - but some of the more unusual attempts include:

- A waif-like woman in a bizarre state of bliss, despite having her naked back arched uncomfortably against the bark of a dead tree, with the tagline "the tan that you have been waiting for." We don't know how long this lady has been waiting, but we can only hope it won't be for too long seeing as she finds herself in the middle of a desert in only high heels and a bikini.

- A woman sucking what one optimistically assumes is chocolate from her fingers. Despite being so completely covered in the stuff - shoulders, face and hair - that she could beat even the messiest two year old with twelve Dairy Milks on a hot summer's day, she still manages to look seductively into the camera, inviting us all to buy this spray tan so that we might look as... erm, gorgeous... as her. Well, that's confidence for you, at least.

 

Whilst the decision not to follow this particular model of advertising wasn't a very difficult one, the product we sell and the imagery that we use will always be contentious. Given the debates around beauty and feminism as a whole, and within a culture where the female body has been hijacked by just about every other industry to promote their own products, any depiction of women in our own advertising has to be done with a degree of self-awareness, to ensure that we avoid making the assumption that we're always going to get it right by virtue of the fact that we want to.

The fact that we are women can't make us complacent. The fact that the overwhelming majority of our customers are female doesn't mean we've been given free license to make claims for and about women - about what they should or shouldn't want to be, look like or have. This is perhaps a hypocritical statement, given that we are a business selling a beauty product, which brings us right back to the beginning of the argument, and one's own personal viewpoint on the place of spray tanning within a broader feminist debate.

 

Further discussion:

Even the most well-informed of us cannot fail to conjure up a certain image in our heads when we hear the word "feminist," even if we ourselves - when logic prevails - would identify ourselves as one.

If there's one preconception that comes free with the feminist 'package' - one thing that stops the majority of women from being able to comfortably identify with a label that surely every sane human being should feel some affiliation to - it's fears that by using this term in reference to themselves, instead of instantly conveying an intellectual standpoint (simply, a belief in gender equality), they will in fact convey something else entirely. Indeed, it's one of the great paradoxes of feminism that to use this term makes many women feel, at least, that they will instantly cast the spotlight not on their mind and their opinions, but on their bodies.

Molly Bushnell, who humorously refers to herself 'The Fake Tan Feminist,' discusses that any identification of herself as a feminist is almost inevitably greeted with some kind of judgement of her appearance on that day ("I've never heard of a feminist in fake tan" / acrylic nails / false eyelashes / that style of clothing), and not only from the usual suspects. "I don't get these objections just from patronising old men, or girls my age who thought they'd made an anti-feminist choice when they'd reached for the [fake tan], but predominantly the objection comes from within feminism itself."

Indeed, the field of feminism is anything but united on this topic. For every claim that wearing makeup is exercising the very freedoms and choices that feminism has gained, is the counterclaim that all of these 'choices' are made within a context of patriarchy and misogyny. Writers like Sheila Jeffreys correlate the rise of the beauty industry with women's increasing legal equality and visibility in the workplace, and draw conclusions which link the beauty industry with a way of promoting "female difference" and maintaining the gender divide. Whilst many of her points may be valid, placing the use of makeup along the same spectrum as plastic surgery and genital mutilation is an argument that many women may feel is not quite the natural progression that Jeffreys may suggest.

The reality is probably somewhere in between. Even the strongest, most self-confident woman surely cannot claim to be immune from all pressures, influences and expectations which stem from the cultural norms of the society in which she lives. Choices, no matter how well-informed, are rarely down to logic alone, nor made in an emotional vacuum.

 

Further reading:

Jeffreys, S., 2005. Beauty And Misogyny: Harmful cultural practices in the west