Becoming white(r): skin-whitening creams for white women? Contradictory cosmetics in early twentieth-century Spain

Abstract

ABSTRACT The market for skin-whitening creams in Spain exploded in the early twentieth century. Marketing whiteness presented a particular challenge because of the contradictory nature of the pursuit: if even white people had to strive for whiteness, it was surely exposed as a construction, rather than a natural state of being. Skin-whitening products thus went against the “ordinary, neutral, even universal” manner in which whiteness was traditionally represented, as outlined in Dyer’s White (2017, xvi). How could skin-whitening creams sell whiteness without stripping it of the invisibility that made it so powerful? To add to the challenge, marketing whiteness presented a particular problem in Spain, a country so sensitive about its whiteness. Studying the changes in the advertising approaches of two case studies in Spain, Crema Tokalon and Cera Aseptina, reveals that the term blanquear was introduced very gradually, only appearing explicitly as a unique selling point in 1930. By 1933, it was removed almost as quickly as it was added. Despite this retraction, I argue that the colour white remained central to the appeal of skin-whitening products in Spain. Whiteness had not become unsellable; rather, it had become invisible, woven into other desirable traits, such as religiosity, cleanliness and suitability for marriage.