Bath & Body Works was forced to remove one of their holiday candles from the shelf when reviewers compared the design to Ku Klux Klan hoods.
The “Snowed In” candle was adorned with a paper snowflake, but the design caused people to believe the merchant was striving for a different look.
“Out of all the ‘paper snowflake’ designs, they chose this one? “I used to make a lot of paper snowflakes as a kid, and none of them had two eye holes in the point,” one reviewer remarked on Reddit.
Some claimed to have seen miniature aliens, while others observed no problem with the candle.
“Stop your ignorance! That’s a paper cutout candle. “Just stop,” one Instagram user said.
“To be fair, guys, as a graphic artist, they probably didn’t notice after they cropped the image lol,” another person commented, defending the graphic designer.
However, enough people claimed they couldn’t get past the similarities between the hoods and robes worn by Klan members during a KKK meeting, prompting Bath & Body Works to withdraw the candle from their website and stores.
“This wasn’t an accident,” one Instagram user claimed.
“Reason number 100000000 why you need BIPOC people in business, at the table, in reviews and making decisions,” wrote an additional participant.
The corporation issued a response to CNN, claiming that the design was “unintentional.”
“At Bath and Body Works, we are committed to listening to our teams and customers, and committed to fixing any mistakes we make-even those that are unintentional like this one,” according to a representative. “We apologize to anyone we’ve offended and are swiftly working to have this item removed and are evaluating our process going forward.”
This is not the first time Bath & Body Works has been embroiled in controversy. The corporation was accused of cultural appropriation in 2022 after collaborating with the National Urban League to develop a product line for Black History Month.
The products’ packaging was influenced by traditional African art.
“A genuine effort to ‘promote economic empowerment’ would be to sponsor genuine African or African-American artists in their packaging or advertisements, or better yet, to sponsor actual African or African American artisans by selling or advertising their own products — oils, candles, lotions, and textiles in Bath & Body Works stores or on their website,” said Winifred Johnson, assistant professor of history at Bethune-Cookman University, to The News-Journal.
