Hindustan Unilever Limited has announced that they will refrain from using words like fair/fairness, White/whitening and light/lightening. The consumer product giant released a statement in which it stated that as the next step in the evolution of their skincare portfolio to a more inclusive vision of beauty, the brand will stop using the aforementioned words on its products packs and advertisements.
Many products like fairness creams have been facing criticism for glorifying a sense of racism towards people with other skin tones. President of beauty and personal care of Hindustan Unilever, Sunny Jain said, “We are fully committed to having a global portfolio of skincare brands that is inclusive and cares for all skin tones, celebrating greater diversity of beauty.”
He further stated, “We recognize the use of words ‘fair’, ‘white’ and ‘light’ suggest a singular ideal of beauty that we don’t think is right and we want to address this. As we’re evolving the way that we communicate the skin benefits of our products that deliver radiant and even tone skin, it’s also important to change the language we use.”
Jain further announced, “We have been working on the evolution of our Fair & Lovely brand, which is sold across Asia, progressively moving to a more inclusive vision of beauty that celebrates skin glow. We have changed the advertising, communication and – more recently – the packaging in South Asia, and we think it’s important that we now share the next step that we have been working on: changing the brand name. We will also continue to evolve our advertising, to feature women of different skin tones, representative of the variety of beauty across India and other countries. We want Fair & Lovely to become a brand that celebrates glowing and radiant skin, regardless of skin tone.”
The release from the company asserted that the brand’s advertisement has been changing since 2014 to give a message of women empowerment. It stated that Fair & lovely upholds principles that no association should be made between skin tone and a person’s achievement, potential, or worth.
The statement also clarified that that the historic advertising is available on the internet are not aligned with the current values of the brand.
