Dove products? A truly toxic influence

As Dove prepares to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its "Real Beauty" campaign, new Greenpeace documentary strips away the brand's clean image to reveal two decades of environmental destruction

@Alice Russell/Greenpeace

A brand that has masqueraded as a champion of “real beauty”, confidence, and environmental care now conceals a dark, hidden side.

This comes through the revelation from a new Greenpeace documentary subverting Dove’s iconic commercials on the anniversary of the “Real Beauty” campaign. This will remind one that not all that glitters is gold. It has been two decades since the first Dove “Real Beauty” campaign, in which the Unilever-owned brand renewed its commitment to what the company calls “authentic beauty,” and tackled new challenges wrought by Artificial Intelligence. Turns out, this company uses mountains upon mountains of plastic. And few people know that.

In 2004, Dove introduced its campaign, which came right in the middle of only 2% of women finding themselves beautiful. The brand decided to make its objective the highlighting of the concept of uniqueness and became the first brand ever to show real women without any touch-up in the beauty industry. The campaign targets the young and their wellbeing through realistic concepts of beauty and body shaming issues.

Today, Unilever is selling $331 million dollars’ worth of Dove soap bars annually. And when it comes to plastic, the figures are gigantic.

The documentary

Just released by Greenpeace UK, this new powerful film targets the beauty brand Dove, an Anglo-Dutch multinational consumer goods company. It’s directed by BAFTA-nominated filmmaker Alice Russell (If the Street Were on Fire) and represents a subversion of Dove’s acclaimed 2022 video “Toxic Influence” produced by Ogilvy. A replication of the original, pairs of mothers and daughters discuss topics. First, they share their positive reactions to Dove’s marketing. Next, they are faced with the reality of the brand’s plastic waste and the devastating damage it causes. Reactions quickly turn to shock and repulsion.

Icelandic police kill polar bear near elderly woman’s home

He had arrived in Iceland from Greenland probably on a sheet of ice and apparently was approaching a house where an 83-year-old woman lives. The police killed him because they had no other means to reassure him

The Icelandic police killed a polar bear from Greenland that had been found near Höfðastrand, Jökulfjörður fjord, close to the cabin of 83-year-old Ásthildur Gunnarsdóttir. The bear had most likely been drifting on an ice floe until it reached land. According to reports by Gunnarsdóttir’s granddaughter Katrín Gyða Guðjónsdóttir, the polar bear was spotted near the cabin.

“She had just gone into the house and then spotted the bear outside the window, quite near, by the clothesline,” Guðjónsdóttir told the Icelandic news portal Visir. “I think it was about 10 feet away from the house. So when it was outside, the polar bear was very close.”

Understandably terrified, the elderly woman phoned police authorities. In what appears to be a regrettable case of all other means being equal in order to kill, police killed the bear: a member of a species already showing the impacts of climate change.

Police armed with rifles and the special operations team were sent out in the early morning hours,” said Police Chief Helgi Jensson of Vestfjörður. “The bear was located not far from where the sighting took place, just beside a small house in which one woman was inside. There was nothing else to do but shoot the animal.”

Was this the only avenue, or simply the easiest, as is usually the case?