A Facialist Tried to Bleach Amy Adams’s Skin

Amy Adams hates the skin lightening trend, too. (Photo: Getty)

At 41, Amy Adams’ youthful and fair complexion is nothing short of gorgeous, but one facialist seems to think that the natural redhead’s pale skin isn’t pale enough. “I was getting a facial, and a woman put something on me, and it started to burn,” Adams told Allure. “I was like, ‘What is this?’ She said, 'Skin lightener.’ I was like, 'Get this off immediately!’“ The actress favors natural beauty, so it’s no surprise she was more than a little taken aback. “I feel more authentically myself if I’m a bit more natural.”

Adams isn’t the only one to be angered by skin whitening products. Recent backlash against a cream called Fair & Lovely spurred the #UnfairAndLovely campaign, which inspires women to reject skin lightening efforts typical to South Asia. “I know there are many situations where I’ve held myself back or felt excluded, not because I’m Indian, but because I’m not fair skinned,” one woman wrote on Instagram. “This is my first step in fighting cultural appropriation, and proving that beauty is not limited to being white. This is me being comfortable in the skin I’m in.” Another skin lightener was widely criticized in the media earlier this year for its campaign that claims, “white makes you win,” and last year, Kerry Washington fell victim to a skin lightening Photoshop fail when her March 2015 InStyle cover was lightened up. “Glad you made the cover Kerry, but this isn’t right. I’m sorry it’s not. Don’t let them do that to you,” one fan wrote to Washington on social media.

Kerry Washington’s ‘InStyle’ cover was lightened with Photoshop. (Photo: InStyle)

The trend of lightening celebrities’ skin is akin to slimming their waists and thighs: misleading and damaging. In a time that diversity is beginning to be embraced in Hollywood, skin lightening creams are still in South Asian women’s cosmetics bags. With beautiful dark-skinned celebrities like Washington, Lupita N’yongo, and Priyanka Chopar making waves in Hollywood, Amy Adams’s incident is a testament that we have a long way to go before skin lightening are a thing of the past.

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