Skin tone has long held significance within my family. My Asian grandmother judges my mother for looking like a “dark-skinned farmer”, while I am warned to remain pale lest I limit my chances of marriage. Conversely, among my white friends, my skin is often admired for how readily it tans to a deep brown colour. But beneath this apparent oxymoron of Western and Eastern beauty standards lies the commonality that skin colour is perceived as a marker of status. Although colourism — discrimination based on skin tone — has rightly been subject to extensive discussion, the normalisation of altering skin tone remains underexamined. Skin tone has become changeable and commodified, driven by the human desire for social belonging and identity.

Across time and place, paler skin has been linked to a higher social status, signifying that a person did not have to endure the effects of the sun’s rays from manual labour. In Western Europe before the early twentieth century, wealth was marked by the ability to avoid such exposure — parasols, gloves, and wide-brimmed hats shielded elite women from the sun, preserving their fair skin. By the 1920s, this association had reversed. Tanned skin became associated with affluence and leisure, with those who could afford expensive holidays abroad. An abundance of easily achieved tans won through sunbeds, package holidays, and tan-deepening products such as oils and reflective blankets then followed.

But as access broadened, what was once seen as exclusive and elite turned commonplace. Fake tans came to be seen as working-class, while the still-difficult-to-acquire real tan remained a prized possession of the middle and upper classes. In the UK, the usage of sunbeds was associated with the derogatory ‘chav’ stereotype used to label people from working-class backgrounds. This constant push and pull within the arbitrary beauty standards reveals how skin colour serves as a mediating tool within the perpetual tension of social identity and class: as the lower classes continually attempt to emulate those above them and the upper classes seek to distinguish themselves.

The same dynamic plays out in East Asia. Many Chinese women believe lighter skin increases their competitiveness in the job market and nearly half of job postings for health-related roles specified physical attributes, a “good image” and fair skin. Indian marriage advertisements define women’s beauty by their fair or white skin colours. While the preference for lighter skin predates colonial influence, skin-whitening has since become embedded within a history of colour and racial hierarchy. Bleaching is only one facet of a broader industry of body modifications aimed at achieving the enthroned Anglo-European standard of beauty, from double eyelid surgery to nose reshaping and hair dyeing.

Psychological research offers a useful lens through which to understand this. Whether through appearance or behaviour, individuals adopt the identity signals of a desired in-group in order to signal belonging. Skin colour, then, is a modifiable, highly visible marker of economic status and class — much like branded clothing. These markers do not simply communicate who we wish to align with, but also the less desirable out-groups we seek to distance ourselves from, such as the working-class. This dynamic is evident in Britain in the 1990s. Faced with growing concerns around skin cancer, medical experts sought to shift public attitudes through a form of negative media reframing. They portrayed consumers as “sunbed addicts” and “tanorexics”, but most importantly, as predominantly working-class. Whether through tanning or bleaching, the underlying goal remains the same: the rejection of a less desirable identity and the pursuit of one that is more socially valued.

There is something deeply unsettling about the commodification of a characteristic so intimately tied to racial identity. The ability to “wear” a tan or a face five shades paler — to adopt a persona and then discard it — changes the concept of skin colour from something unchangeable to something based on one’s material wealth. Within the discourse around darker skin tones, if skin colour can be taken on and off at the whims of a single purchase, what does it mean to momentarily inhabit an aesthetic without inheriting the histories attached to it? Skin colour carries centuries of legislated oppression and remains a lived condition that determines one’s access to safety and opportunity — unlike a fake tan, these realities do not wash off at the end of the day.

And yet, I would say that we should approach judgement with caution. One’s physical appearance continues to shape access to status, employability, and desirability in our unequal society. Vanity is not the only driving force — however limited, altering skin colour may be a rational choice born of necessity, and one’s only tool for social mobility across both Western and Eastern societies. So, as summer approaches, the next time you decide to bask in the sun or stay in the shade, the next time you reach for a bottle of tanning or bleaching cream, all I ask is that you remember that your skin holds far more than skin-deep beauty; it is a contested site of politics, history, and class. I ask that you pause and question: what am I trying to convey, and why?