It’s incredible to think that it’s 2020 and non-white people are still having to walk around with beige plasters covering their cuts and grazes. It’s just another example of how people of colour are routinely failed by companies.

Fortunately, the biggest provider of plasters – Band-Aid – is about to institute some long-overdue changes. The company has just announced that it’s bringing out plasters in a wider range of colours to cater for more skin tones.

Other brands have created more inclusive plasters for a while and Band-Aid actually used to have a wider range of skin tones, but apparently abandoned the diversity drive citing lack of demand.

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We hear you. We see you. We’re listening to you.⁣ ⁣ We stand in solidarity with our Black colleagues, collaborators and community in the fight against racism, violence and injustice. We are committed to taking actions to create tangible change for the Black community.⁣ ⁣ We are committed to launching a range of bandages in light, medium and deep shades of Brown and Black skin tones that embrace the beauty of diverse skin. We are dedicated to inclusivity and providing the best healing solutions, better representing you.⁣ ⁣ In addition, we will be making a donation to @blklivesmatter.⁣ We promise that this is just the first among many steps together in the fight against systemic racism.⁣ ⁣ We can, we must and we will do better.

A post shared by BAND-AID® Brand Bandages (@bandaidbrand) on Jun 10, 2020 at 7:00am PDT

This week, however, it announced on Instagram that it was going to resume selling multi-tonal plasters.

‘We are dedicated to inclusivity and providing the best healing solutions, better representing you,’ the post read, going on to mention that Band-Aid would be donating to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Understandably, lots of people felt that this was long, long overdue and questioned why Band-Aid was committing to inclusivity now. Is it because they genuinely want to see change (and if so, why discontinue the line back in 2005?), or is it cottoning onto the fact that diversity is in now and they want to be seen as being part of this grand racial awakening?

Tesco, for example, launched its first set of plasters in different skin tones back in February. After seeing a Black man’s tweet about finally being seen after finding a matching plaster, Tesco chatted to its ‘BAME at Tesco’ internal colleague network and found that the UK was also desperately in need of better everyday representation.

Ultimately, every brand should be committed to being accessible to a diverse range of people, and it’s really important that the mainstream offers options for every skin colour. However, it is embarrassing when that commitment to anti-racism only seems to happen after brands wake up to the commercial possibilities.

It’s no wonder if people decide that they want to continue buying Black when it comes to products like this, but at least when you accidentally nick yourself in a station, you’re going to have more of a chance of getting a last-minute plaster in your skin tone in the future.

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