Fans Come To aespa Winter’s Defense Over “Too-White” Makeup

It’s not the first time.

During a recent airport appearance on the group’s way to Japan, it was rumored that aespa‘s Winter had done her own styling rather than depending on the group’s stylists. She went with a more minimalistic style for her makeup, giving her a more bare-faced and natural look.

While she looked as pretty as always, though, some netizens couldn’t help but notice how pale she looked, and wondered if she had intentionally worn some kind of skin-lightening product to make herself look whiter. Skin color is a highly controversial and heated topic in the K-Pop industry and Korean culture in general, as paler skin tends to conform more to their beauty standards.

Considering that Winter is already naturally on the paler side, and that this was an airport appearance rather than a performance, people couldn’t help but wonder why the aespa member might go to the effort to make herself look even lighter.

They also compared her face and arms to the back of her neck, which some claimed was a more accurate representation of her natural skin tone.

This isn’t the first time that Winter has been accused of wearing makeup to lighten her skin. Earlier this year, netizens suspected that her stylists had even used makeup on her arms to give her a paler complexion.

However, with her airport appearance, fans came to Winter’s defense, suggesting that the tone of her skin in these pictures might be caused from a mixture of her wearing sunscreen or some other kind of mattifying powder paired with the flash of the cameras.

Regardless of the reason, Winter never fails to look stunning, and this appearance was no exception! We just hope that she doesn’t feel the need to make herself paler than she is just to conform to strict beauty standards.