Singer Halsey has sparked a conversation within the beauty industry after posting a series of tweets about her experiences staying in various hotels as a woman of colour - revealing that she has never felt catered for with hotel toiletry offerings. "I’ve been traveling for years now and it’s been so frustrating that the hotel toiletry industry entirely alienates people of color. I can’t use this perfumed watered down white people shampoo. Neither can 50% of ur customers. Annoying," she tweeted on Thursday.
© Photo: InstagramHalsey sparked a debate with her tweets
The original tweet, which was retweeted and liked thousands of times, sparked a real debate - with many agreeing, while some felt that hotel shampoo is generally poor quality for all hair types. In response to her critics, Halsey later posted: "Who knew me acknowledging that white hair care products are the national standard (while POC are confined to a tiny aisle) would [annoy] so many people - not sorry.
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"Ur “normal” does not = everyone else’s," she continued. "When u make white products the standard, it makes white the “normal”. I was only trying to provoke some thought about the way these things impact our perception. That’s all. & yea, I agree, hotel shampoo just sucks in general!"
One fan seemed to sum up Halsey's argument perfectly, replying: "She’s not saying it to start riots. You need to remember this is one of the many small things that POC go through that makes them feel like we don’t matter enough to be catered to. It’s a microaggression." Well, whatever the conflicting views, we're here for any conversation about equality within the beauty industry.
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Halsey is of Italian, Hungarian and Irish descent on her mother's side, and African-American on her father's side, and has been vocal about her heritage in the past. "I’m proud to be in a biracial family, I’m proud of who I am, and I’m proud of my hair," she told Playboy magazine last year. "Every now and then I experience these racial blips. I look like a white girl, but I don’t feel like one. I’m a black woman."
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