Thanks, L’Oréal, but I’m growing weary of this hijab fetish

This month Amena Khan became the first hijabi model to star in a global mainstream hair campaign. L’Oréal, which featured her in its advert, apparently wanted to promote an important message: hair care is for everyone, whether or not they choose to show their hair in public.

I’m not sure who exactly thinks that women in hijab don’t care about their hair because they wear a headscarf in public. Maybe they let their hair dry and wither away into a hijab-shaped husk? Maybe in private they take off their hijab, only to reveal another hijab? But many thanks anyway to L’Oréal for wanting to show that some Muslim women have hair and engage in some form of follicle husbandry.

It wouldn’t be the first time that women were told something obvious in order to sell beauty products via nauseating copy and a model whose looks are a genetic gift rather than a perfect blend of beauty-product success. And it wouldn’t be the first time a company co-opted a symbol of authenticity to sell. Last year, Pepsi was accused of trivialising the Black Lives Matter movement, because of its ad campaign featuring a generic street protest. Sooner or later we’ll be sold sanitary products by a telegenic refugee against the backdrop of a displaced persons’ camp. In fact, I had to Google that to make sure it hadn’t already happened.

Source: theguardian