Wearing a genuine skin-tone plaster can feel like a revolutionary act for people of colour

A simple tweet by Dominique Apollon – a campaigner for racial justice – showing his finger covered with a brown plaster highlighted what people of colour already know: few products are made with us in mind.

The picture showed Dominique wearing a plaster designed for those with darker skin that perfectly camouflaged against his own brown skin. The image brought him to tears – likely a feeling of relief – which many with darker skin can relate to.

Globally, those with paler skin are in the minority, yet products ranging from plasters to medicalised patches continue to be made in only one skin tone. Too often it feels like we are not part of the marketing consultation.

As a child I was quite accident-prone, regularly play-fighting with my older brother or falling over in the playground and getting cuts and bruises on my shins. The teacher would give me a skin-toned plaster, slap it on and I would continue to play. As a primary school kid, wearing a plaster was a real badge of honour: we usually got a sticker too, to show that we had been brave.

At aged 12 I read Malorie Blackman’s Noughts & Crosses in which she describes the world almost in reverse, where everything is made to cater to the needs of “crosses” who possess darker skin. When a nought (white) child cuts herself, she is forced to wear a dark brown plaster as there are simply none to match her paler skin.