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It’s not normal, says Unilever, culling term from beauty product packaging

Unilever is charting a course towards more inclusive beauty products.

Unilever is to remove the word ‘normal’ from all its beauty and personal care products on packaging and advertising.

The initiative is part of Unilever’s broader new Positive Beauty vision and strategy it hopes will help end discrimination in beauty and champion inclusion.

In 2017, the company faced a social media outcry over an advert for Dove body wash, which showed a black woman removing her top to reveal a white woman. More recently, reports Reuters, consumer backlash over an ad forced Unilever to pull all its Tresemme hair care products from South African retail stores for 10 days.

Besides removing the world ‘normal’, Unilever said it will not “digitally alter” a person’s body shape, size, proportion or skin colour in its brand advertising, and will increase the number of advertisements portraying people from diverse groups who are under-represented.

Some of Unilever’s products which will no longer refer to ‘normal’.

“We know that removing ‘normal’ from our products and packaging will not fix the problem alone, but it is an important step forward,” said Sunny Jain, president beauty & personal care at Unilever ANZ. “It’s just one of a number of actions we are taking as part of our Positive Beauty vision, which aims not only to do less harm, but more good for both people and the planet.”

“Australia is one of the most diverse countries in the world, and it is important that the language we use on our popular products reflects our diverse customer base, as well as our values as an inclusive brand,” said Markus Rehde, GM of beauty personal care and homecare at Unilever ANZ.

The company said it set three commitments as its effort to create real and measurable impact, which are taking action to advance equity and inclusion, protecting and regenerating 1.5 million hectares of land, forests and oceans by 2030, and supporting a global ban on animal testing for cosmetics by 2023.

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