1977 — Ramesh Kumar Arora, Rakesh Hooja, & Shashi Mathur, Jaipur: Profile of a Changing City, Indian Institute of Public Administration, Rajasthan Branch (1977), page 126:
The Council has been instrumental in clearing the city roads of hundreds of encroachments, initiating a massive cleanliness campaign, invigorating beautification drive and pinkwashing the walled city.
1986 — Susan Lardner, "Lotus Blossum", The New Yorker, 29 December 1986:
[…] I see, twenty yards away, workmen pinkwashing the newly laid, badly stained, cheap-looking brick cladding of a newly built apartment house called — well, something ridiculous: Nepal, let's say.
1989 — Andrew Robinson, Sanjit Ray: The Inner Eye, University of California Press (1989), →ISBN, page 288:
(The Birlas were responsible, to the disgust of Ray and especially of his friend David McCutchion, for renovating and pinkwashing many old ruined temples in Bengal at this time, and they influenced Ray's characterization of Bajoria.)
Verb: "to promote consumer goods and services using support of breast cancer-related charities"[edit]
Instead, too often we are pinkwashing everything and ignoring what lies beneath.
2008 — Penelope Williams, Breast Cancer: Biography of an Illness, BPS Books (2008), →ISBN, page 162:
They see such corporate involvement as exploitation, making profits on the backs of ill women. […] They claim these campaigns trivialize the disease, "pinkwashing" its real nature.
2010 — Nancy G. Brinker (with Joni Rodgers), Promise Me: How a Sister's Love Launched the Global Movement to End Breast Cancer, Three Rivers Press (2010), →ISBN, page 132:
Over the years, as breast cancer pink gained more and more exposure, the movement began to experience a backlash. […] I have no retort to the accusation that we're "pinkwashing the world," because that's exactly what we're trying to do.
Verb: "(LGBT) to tout the gay-friendliness of something in an attempt to downplay or soften aspects of it considered negative"[edit]
Palestinian activists claim that by highlighting the progressive conditions for LGBT Christian, Arab and Jewish Israelis, Israel is pinkwashing Palestinian human rights violations.
Some members of the gay and lesbian community are raising concerns about privacy issues after they were sent an email from the office of the immigration minister that extols the [Canadian] government's handling of cases of lesbian and gay refugees from Iran.
[…]
Green, who is a health researcher, is also upset that the government is trying to "pinkwash" its activities — making them sound more gay and lesbian friendly than they really are.