Many Indian beauty brands openly promote fair skin to sell their products. One such brand is “Fair and Lovely” that has been selling skin-lightening cream for years now. The recent #blackLivesMatter movement has impacted millions of lives around the world and has motivated many people to bring a change in society. In the wake of this, Hindustan Unilever has decided to drop words like “fairness” , “whitening” and “lightening” from their line of products, and even remove the word “Fair” from “Fair and Lovely.”
“We’re committed to a skin care portfolio that’s inclusive of all skin tones, celebrating the diversity of beauty. That’s why we’re removing the words ‘fairness’ , ‘whitening’ and ‘lightening’ from products, and changing the Fair and Lovely brand name,” the company posted on their social media accounts.
This is a big step towards changing people’s mindsets. For years, these creams have sold the idea to the general public that ‘Fair is Lovely’. It was high time to break this stereotype. This is a step forward in the right direction.
Some celebrities like Richa Chadha, Kangana Ranaut, Bipasha Basu, and Abhay Deol are praising this decision on social media.
Bipasha Basu took to her Instagram to share her thoughts on the rebranding of Fair and Lovely. She hailed the decision and wrote, “Well you see I was confident and proud of who I was from childhood. My skin colour didn’t define me … even though I love it and wouldn’t want it to be any different ever. Many skin care endorsements with loads of money were offered to me in the last 18 years ( some were very tempting)… but I stuck to my principle always. All this needs to stop. This wrong dream that we are selling … that only fair is lovely and beautiful when the majority of the country is brown skinned. It’s a deep rooted stigma. It’s a mammoth step from the brand… and other brands should follow in the same footsteps soon.”
Kangana Ranaut, who has rejected many fairness cream endorsement deals in the past, also hailed the decision. She wrote on twitter, “It has been a long and and sometimes a very lonely battle but results only happen when the whole nation participates in the movement.”
It has been a long and sometimes a very lonely battle but results only happen when whole nation participates in the movement 👏👏👏👏https://t.co/9xv1nkQm5P
— Team Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) June 25, 2020
Richa chadha shared a photo on her Instagram in which she is wearing a T-shirt with ‘NOT fair BUT lovely’ written on it. In the caption she wrote, “”Yesterday, the brand and I were finally in agreement! Yesterday, they dropped the word “fair” from their product name… Before you attack the brand for only paying ‘lip service’, please remember, it takes many generations for ideas to change. There is demand and hence there is supply… We must continuously and without any influence of the West, define our own idea of beauty. Beauty must be inclusive! Bravo.”
She also wrote, “We have been told since we were children, that fairness is the only definition of beauty. It is also another unfortunate by-product of colonialism and casteism! But it is 2020 and a lot of BS is getting dismantled! It took me many years of unlearning to gain confidence and start loving my complexion.”
Abhay Deol also shared a post in which he wrote, “It took a world backlash and the #BlackLivesMatter movement to give us a push in this direction. But make no mistake, all of you who have been vocal about the need for a cultural shift in regard to the sale and endorsement of fairness creams in our country contributed to this victory. We have a long way to go in breaking our conditioning of what constitutes beauty, but this is a small step in the right direction. It’s the starting point to a long road ahead. What a beautiful beginning.”
