ALBAWABA - An advertisement for a shower gel has ignited a wave of anger and controversy in the United Kingdom, as it was considered to pass a racist insinuation against black skin.
Local media in the UK said that the television ad for "Sanex" shower gel was banned after reportedly showing that black skin is "problematic" and white skin is "superior".
According to The Guardian, Britain's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banned the TV ad after a probe that followed multiple complaints about the shower gel advertisement.
ASA said that it received two complaints from people saying that the Sanex ad displays stereotypical ideas about people with darker skin tones.
Sanex shower gel ad causes controversy. (Ad screenshot/Shutterstock)
The ad, which was released in June, featured a voiceover that was heard saying, "To those who might scratch day and night. To those whose skin will feel dried out even by water," alongside clips of a black woman with red scratches and another covered with a cracked, clay-like material.
The ad then shows another clip of a white woman taking a shower using Sanex shower gel, and says, "Try to take a shower with the new Sanex skin therapy and its patented amino acid complex. For 24-hour hydration feel."
A person posed the ad on X and wrote: "This advert for Sanex shower gel has been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority on the grounds that it 'suggests that white skin is superior to black skin'."
An X user commented, "Just use the same model for before and after. Surely that's how you demonstrate the benefit of the product."
