Allergan Aesthetics, an AbbVie View company, and skinbetter science announce a new report from their DREAM (Driving Racial Equity in Aesthetic Medicine) Initiative, along with a long-term partnership with Shutterstock Studios. The report, titled Forces of Beauty, provides a new understanding of what inclusive and representative beauty looks like today by shedding light on how narrowly defined Eurocentric ideals continue to impact women of color. 

By surveying over 4,000 women aged 21-65, from multiple geographic locations and backgrounds, the report explores what defines beauty, how beauty impacts women’s lives, and the interplay between beauty and race. Some key insights include:

  • Only 17% of all women, regardless of their race and ethnicity, feel like their racial beauty is accepted by society.
  • One in four Black, Hispanic, and multiracial women believe that society’s standards of beauty are racist.
  • 52% of women agree that “anyone can be beautiful,” with only 11% of women agreeing that society makes them feel beautiful.

“We are in a position, as industry leaders, to drive the necessary change within the aesthetics industry. We need to create a candid dialogue about racial representation and perceptions within our aesthetics community. We hope that the Forces of Beauty Report will contribute to moving us all in the right direction,” says Jonah Shacknai, executive chairman of skinbetter science.

Forces of Beauty continues the exploration of the unique relationship between racial/ethnic diversity and beauty for women. The companies are raising awareness about the need for inclusive and representative beauty, providing education, and driving action among medical and consumer audiences. 

“Historically, the industry hasn’t included all women in its definition of beauty,” says Carrie Strom, senior vice president at AbbVie and president of Global Allergan Aesthetics. “Our goal is to create a more equitable beauty and aesthetics industry that focuses on diversity, representation, and inclusion. That is what Forces of Beauty is about, impacting change and creating a space where the origins of beauty are honored, the definition of beauty is vastly expanded upon, and where uniqueness is the standard.”

As part of its multimedia launch, Forces of Beauty will be brought to life through a video series, produced by Shutterstock Studios, Shutterstock’s end-to-end custom creative shop. The series, directed by Tiffany Frances, will feature four women as they share their stories and experiences linking directly to dedicated chapters within the report: defining beauty, empowering uniqueness, the history of beauty standards, and appropriation. 

Each chapter will support the report’s overall findings which include that women of all races strongly believe that “one of us cannot represent all of us;” that the standard of beauty should not be defined by only one group; and, that the origins of beauty and cultural practices be celebrated without being exploited. 

Coinciding with the launch of Forces of Beauty, the DREAM Initiative will also unveil a first-of-its-kind partnership in the aesthetics category with Shutterstock Studios and introduce a royalty free, gallery of diverse images available to the public. The thousands of images will showcase beauty across race, culture, gender, age, ability level, and body type and will bring to life a key takeaway from the Forces of Beauty report that “one of us is not the face of all of us.” 

A driving force behind the gallery is the goal to encourage industry peers to leverage these assets within their own efforts, creating a first step towards collective change to a more equitable industry. All-inclusive marketing materials will be easily accessible on https://www.shutterstock.com/explore/dream.

“The DREAM Initiative brought us this incredible idea to create a more diverse royalty-free image set. And through our partnership on the Forces of Beauty report it helped us all recognized an important gap in the market. Most of the visuals used in advertising and branding do not reflect the diversity we see around us every day, and an online search of imagery reveals just how underrepresented many groups are in this space,” says Aiden Darné, vice president and global head of Shutterstock Studios.

“Shutterstock interviewed over 2,700 marketers around the world last year and found that 74% of them wished they had access to more diverse content. This realization was the catalyst for a unified pledge to close that gap, and we are excited to partner with the DREAM initiative® on this journey to put authentic representation at the center of all creative content,” adds Darné.