Tesco's black plasters are great – shame they allegedly stole the idea from two women of colour

Two entrepreneurs claim to have first pitched the idea of diverse skin tone plasters to Tesco in 2018

Last week, supermarket giant Tesco announced that they would now start selling plasters in a variety of different skin tones. Diversifying “nude” products seems to be a trend many British brands have cottoned onto, from Ballet Black’s pointe shoes to Bianca Miller-Cole’s hosiery, brought to public attention when she was a finalist in 2014’s series of The Apprentice.

Whilst to some, diversifying “nude” products may seem unnecessarily “woke” – a term now used for anything classical liberal and right-wing commentators don’t like – communities of colour have long lamented that products are often not made with us in mind.

Malorie Blackman’s book Noughts & Crosses, set in a race-reversed Britain where the majority black community is dominant over the historically disenfranchised white community, illustrates the frustration we feel quite well. Sephy, a black character (a cross), sees a white girl Shania (a nought) with a dark brown plaster on her head:

“That plaster’s a bit more noticeable.”

“They don’t sell pink plasters. Only dark brown ones.”

“My eyes widened at that. I’d never really thought about it before, but she was right. I’d never seen any pink plasters. Plasters were the colour of us Crosses, not the noughts.”

Similarly, in a 2018 episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, rapper Kanye West expressed frustration about not having “skin-coloured Band-Aids”. Last year, a Twitter user’s tweet about finally finding a dark brown plaster went viral. Tesco citing the tweet as the impetus for the launch.

Yet while their intentions might be unimpeachable, their actions have been less so. For Tesco is alleged to have stolen the idea of diverse skin-tone plasters from women of colour.

Skin Bandages By Nuditone is the result of a collaboration between Nünude, a British nude skin-matching garment brand founded by Joanne Baban Morales, and Skin Bandages, a Swedish plaster brand, founded by Vivan Murad.

Murad claims to have first pitched the idea of diverse skin tone plasters to Tesco in 2018. The supermarket, she said, showed no interest. However, there are records that show that, after the Nünude and Skin Bandages collaboration came out, Tesco purchased numerous packages of Skin Bandages by Nuditone in July 2019. Murad and Morales noticed this and so attempted to reach out to them in August 2019 but again the retailer showed no interest in collaborating with them.

Superdrug has since entering the fray, announcing on the back of Tesco’s launch that they too will launch a range of diverse skin tone plasters in the coming weeks. Increasingly, it seems that Morales and Murad are going to be cut of the narrative. Given that a sample of the Skin Bandages by Nuditone was sent to Boots in 2017, who replied by saying that they would bear the products “in mind” before ceasing contact, we shouldn’t be surprised if Superdrug’s competitor makes an announcement of their own.

For Murad and Morales, it is disheartening that Tesco appears to have copied their product. In a press release, Morales writes that “we are absolutely thrilled big brands understand the demand there is for skin tone products. But we should recognise brands that are breaking boundaries in their own industries.” Murad adds that “the fact that they have produced and stocked skin-toned plasters is not an issue at all…What’s disheartening is the way they have campaigned, boldly claiming ‘it’s about bloody time’ and giving no recognition to the brands they’ve sourced inspiration from.”

Sadly, Nünude and Skin Bandages do not appear to have a legal case. Yet this does paint a disturbing image of how creatives can have the rug ripped from beneath them with no consequences. As Morales tells me, “we are in an industry that is like this, all brands really do copy each other or get inspired from runway to high street but it’s not morally correct when it’s off the back of small brands’ creativity and hard work. There needs to be the right recognition.”

Yet there is something particularly ironic in releasing a product ostensibly for the benefit of people of colour, which may have been stolen from women of colour. Whilst Nünude and Skin Bandages are not the first to produce diverse skin-tone plasters, they were the first to do this in the UK and have long had strong support from many British women of colour who felt “seen” when they released their product. In a marketplace which so often ignores us, Nünude and Skin Bandages put us first. That’s why so many of us who should really be celebrating Tesco’s recent announcement instead feel despair. A national retailer is finally paying attention to us, but at what cost? We want and need diverse skin-tone plasters but by purchasing them from Tesco would we inadvertently by hurting and contributing to the marginalisation of entrepreneurs from our own community? Certainly, as Morales tells me in an interview, it would be better if Tesco could simply work with her and Murad, “and be known for the first retailer to support a small start-up brand paving the way for diversity.”

Seun Matiluko is a writer and researcher in race, law and human rights.