Beyonce Lightened For Ad? L'Oreal Denies

NEW YORK — Cosmetics giant L'Oreal is denying it lightened Beyonce's skin tone in an ad.

"We highly value our relationship with Ms. Knowles. It is categorically untrue that L'Oréal Paris altered Ms. Knowles' features or skin tone in the campaign for Feria hair color," the Paris-based company said in a statement sent to the Associated Press through the singer's representative.

The ad is in the current edition of Elle magazine.

L'Oreal, the maker of Garnier hair care and Lancome cosmetics, is the world's largest cosmetics maker.

A representative for Beyonce said the singer would have no comment beyond L'Oreal's statement.

Beyonce has been a spokeswoman for L'Oréal since 2001.

Comments

[kadene]

Skin hues lighten and deepen changes with exposure to sun and depending on when the second photo was taken, anything is possible. It shouldn't be a big deal, since bronzing powder is sometimes used to give some models the appearance of a healthy tan. And if her skin was lightened, what's the big deal? JHC, it's getting quite tiresome around here with this color, color all the time! Jeez. Why weren't there green people?

[FeelinGroovy]

Those two photos do not look like the same person to me.

[FdeBear]

Big deal. If you're a model they can manipulate your image any way they want. Beyonce is a widely known celebrity. We know what she looks like (if you care to pay attention to this kinda stuff). Frankly, I thought the image on the left was darker than I am accustomed to seeing her. An art director may want to change your hair color, paint you purple or give you yoda ears. Beyonce will still be bouncing to the bank with L'Oreal's check. That's her job. More power to her.

[FaceYourFears]

What's really going on!

[philinmedford]

I think the definitive answer to this whole thing was something I saw a long time ago, the second season of SNL.

Check out this exchange between Garret Morris and Julian Bond (hopefully you know who they are_

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/76/76rblackperspective.phtml

Hope you catch the irony.

[UnknownSoldier]

OMG that's hilarious, and I do get the irony

[DCCommuter]

Our culture is saturated with PHOTOSHOPed photos. If the fashion magazines had to put in natural shots, they wouldn't be able to push so much of those beauty products! They are selling a fanatsy. And besides all the altered photos, they have 25-year-old models in ads for wrinkle cream!!

[Desdemondo]

Whatever the deabate, she looks much better with the darker skin tone.

[WRPrintz]

I was just hoping their was two versions of her. They both look good to me.

[notthistime]

who cares? This is none of our business.

[Criticalthinktank07]

She has been "ligjhtening" her image for years, to make herself "white washed", to be more marketable. Think about it. When she started out in Destiny's child, she was a caramel skin, dark haired beauty, full figured, african american beauty. Then she began, losing weight, lightening and lengthening her hair (hence, the honey blone hair with platinum blond streaks) to make herself look less african american, and more exotic. At one time I couldn't tell the difference between, her, Jennifer Lopez and Mariah Carey; and to be frank, I think that's what she was going for.

[MalloMel]

Sooo... Is there something wrong with that? The only people who would find fault with that are white bigots and black bigots. Myself? I really don't care. It's her skin, and as far as I'm concerned, she can do whatever she want's with it.

[LiberalBuzz]

It doesn't make you a bigot to notice that Bouncy ligthens herself to make herself look less black and more exotic. What about pointing that out makes one a bigot?

A lot of black actresses and singers do it all the time. Pointing it out hardly makes one bigoted or racist; grow up.

[marymansour]

Such a big news scoop. Get it hot off the press. Beyonce lightened her hair. She also dances with gekkos which is her best act to date.

[stevievi]

um that's not Beyonce that's Naomi campbell a darker skinned super model

[scorpioleidy]

Who cares?

[moodyring]

it's, unfortunately, not a surprise.

[CFAmick]

Beyonce is gorgeous. Forget the skin tone, I find it odd that the photo they chose doesn't highlight her best features; it doesn't scream "Beyonce."

[Propeity]

So, are you suggesting Sarahjane, that we should bury the image of the quadroonic woman, because of the past history involving a subset of them. That sounds as silly and counterproductive. as some of these complaints. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water. Are we going to ban beautiful women in general, because they tend to be the "focus" of literary tradgedies and works of non-fiction as well?