“We are taught that beauty is narrow, white, and far from us. We are not born hating our skin, our hair, our scent. We are trained.”
The Gaze That Colonized Our Skin
During colonial rule in North Africa, French institutions actively promoted European features as superior. This rewired beauty inside Moroccan households. Traits such as straight hair, light skin, and sharp noses have been normalized as aspirational, while features associated with Black, Arab, Asian, Amazigh, Indigenous, and other non-European bodies have been pushed to the margins — labeled unruly, unattractive, or in need of correction.
This colonial gaze was not just an aesthetic preference. It was a tool of domination. In North Africa, colonial powers regulated every aspect of life (language, land, dress) and this included our bodies. In Morocco, for example, tattoos that once carried spiritual and communal meaning, especially among Amazigh women, were stigmatized under French influence.
When the body becomes colonized, beauty becomes political. And for women of color, beauty becomes both a battleground and a burden.
Internalized Colonization: How We See Ourselves
This legacy continues to live in our mirrors.
From a young age, many of us are taught to see our features as problems. We are told that curly hair is messy, that darker skin needs to be bleached, that stretch marks must be hidden, that softness is weakness. These messages don’t just come from media, they’re often reinforced in families, communities, and classrooms shaped by the trauma of colonization.
Psychological studies show that internalized racism and colonial beauty standards can impact self-esteem, self-worth, and even career opportunities. The infamous “doll test,” first conducted by psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark in the 1940s and replicated many times since, showed that Black children preferred white dolls, describing them as “good” and “pretty,” while rejecting those who looked like them.
In Morocco, a more subtle version of this persists. Children are teased for dark skin. Women with “European” features are praised. Cosmetic products advertise skin-lightening as a virtue. The gaze has changed forms but it’s still here.
Moroccan Rituals Before the Mirror Was Colonized
But before this violence, we had our own mirrors. Mirrors of steam, scent, and presence.
In the Moroccan hammam, women have gathered for generations to tend to themselves and one another. The goal is to return. Return to skin. Return to slowness. Return to warmth. In that space, the body is not a project. It is a presence.
Clay (Rhassoul) is drawn from the Atlas Mountains. Rose, cloves, and chamomille are added to water and steam. Argan oil is massaged in with care. These rituals are not just effective, they are sacred.
They carry memory. They are ancestral technologies of wellbeing.
What It Means to Decolonize Beauty
To decolonize beauty is not simply to “love yourself.” It is to remember who you were before your reflection was altered by conquest.
It means asking:
Where did I learn to see myself this way?
Whose standards am I still performing for?
Which rituals were taken from me? and which can I reclaim?
Decolonizing beauty is not aesthetic rebellion. It is emotional and spiritual reclamation. It is slowing down enough to choose softness, not performance. It is oiling your body like your grandmother did, because that’s you return home to yourself.
From Self-Care to Self-Reclamation
Here are some grounded ways to begin the process — not in theory, but in practice:
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Restore Your Rituals
Build a simple skin ritual using natural ingredients, here are some Moroccan ingredients for inspiration: rose water from Kalaat M'gouna, rhassoul clay sourced from the Atlas mountains, argan oil from the Souss Valley. Let it be sensory. Let it be slow. -
Cleanse Not to Correct, but to Come Back
Enter the bath or hammam as a homecoming. Instead of scrubbing to shrink or erase yourself, scrub to remember. -
Study Your Reflection Like an Archive
Trace your mother’s hands in yours. Your grandmother’s eyes. Let the mirror be a portal, not a punishment. -
Protect Your Softness as Power
Set boundaries. Say no. Rest. These too are rituals of decolonized beauty.
Akal Skin doesn’t reinvent Moroccan ritual. It preserves it. Each product is built from ingredients that predate colonial influence.
Ritual as Resistance
Our bodies are not broken. They have simply been spoken over for too long.
When we return to traditional rituals, we don’t just nourish the skin, we nourish the lineage. Every time we layer oil, press in moisture, or inhale the scent of thyme, we disrupt centuries of erasure. We remind ourselves that beauty is not something we must buy into but something we remember.
Decolonizing beauty is a slow return.
Back to skin.
Back to land.
Back to ourselves.
Decolonize beauty. Remember ritual.