Johnson & Johnson’s Band-Aid brand announced last June that it would be producing adhesive bandages that will match more skin tones. Most of the current alternatives are for people with lighter skin tones and people have yearned for more options. The time for Band-Aid to unveil the Ourtone adhesive bandages line in brown shades has come.
According to Band-Aid, the bandages are in three shades and they range from lighter brown to dark brown: BR45, BR55, and BR65. Each product comes in 30-count boxes with different sizes, are produced with flexible fabric, and can stay on for up to 24 hours. The Ourtone line is available on Amazon and other e-commerce platforms.
While talking about the Ourtone on Instagram, Band-Aid wrote: “OURTONE embraces the beauty of brown skin, with bandages designed to better blend with a range of skin tones. Made with our most comfortable fabric, OURTONE provides protection that stretches and flexes as you move.”
While talking to Essence, Vice President, Marketing and Consumer Experience Organization, Dawn Hampton, said: “When we first talked about it nine months ago, it was in response to [the fact] that we didn’t feel we were moving enough.
“This collection at its core is so important to us because we really always have been anchored in care and we strive to be inclusive.”
Apart from Ourtone, Band-Aid is making effort for the brand to gain more inclusiveness through many initiatives, which include collaborating with HERO COLLECTIVE, a Black-owned digital outfit to help in supporting this launch and creating a long-term commitment with the National Black Nurses Association to offer scholarships and membership support.
Band-Aid rolled out bandages in a variety of skin tones in 2005, but stopped its production over lack of interest. It is expected that what happened then will not repeat itself this time around.
