MasterChef’s Melissa Leong slams the beauty industry as she accuses companies of ‘whitewashing’ traditional Asian products
Melissa Leong has called out the beauty industry and accused them of ‘whitewashing’ in a scathing post on Instagram Stories on Tuesday.
The 38-year-old MasterChef judge re-shared a post from a beauty company advertising a jade gua sha beauty tool.
While Melissa blacked out the company’s name, she was scathing in her comments about the post, which featured a white model.
Speaking out: Melissa Leong has called out the beauty industry and accused them of ‘whitewashing’ in a scathing post on Instagram Stories on Tuesday
‘Yep. It’s just a “skin fitness tool”. Let’s not talk about the cultural and medical significance of gua sha (in this case) in Chinese or Asian culture or how much we largely ignore appropriation in the beauty industry,’ she began.
‘Let’s keep selling POC down the river by having attractive white women sell us back our culture in cute pink packaging and nice fonts.’
In a second post on Instagram Stories, she included a link to an article which appeared on UK Glamour magazine earlier this month.
Furious: The 38-year-old MasterChef judge re-shared a post from a beauty company advertising a jade gua sha beauty tool and was scathing in her comments
Get woke: In a second post on Instagram Stories, she included a link to an article which appeared on UK Glamour magazine earlier this month and urged her followers to read it
The article was titled, ‘How wellness got whitewashed’, and Melissa urged her followers to read it ‘if you want to know more about why us women of colour feel this way’.
‘Even though we’re all aware that appropriating cornrows, feathered headdresses and bindis is abjectly wrong, when appropriation veers into the wellness sphere, we just seem to care less,’ wrote author Anita Bhagwandas.
She added: ‘Don’t be that basic wellness b***h – you should care.’
‘Yep. It’s just a “skin fitness tool”. Let’s not talk about the cultural and medical significance of gua sha (in this case) in Chinese or Asian culture or how much we largely ignore appropriation in the beauty industry,’ she wrote on Instagram
Gua sha is a tool used in traditional Chinese medicine, which has grown in popularity in the western beauty industry in recent years.
It’s used to scrape back the skin, with practitioners believing it helps to stimulate blood flow, promoting cell repair, regeneration, recovery and healing.
It involves repeatedly stroking the gua sha tool over moisturised skin while applying firm pressure.
‘Let’s keep selling POC down the river by having attractive white women sell us back our culture in cute pink packaging and nice fonts,’ she wrote