Fair & Lovely: a skin lightening cream first introduced in India in 1975 created by Hindustan Unilever (HUL) . A product that continues to perpetuate the raging problem of colorism in India. The desire for lighter skin started during the British Colonial Rule when the British equated lighter skin with wealth, success, intelligence, and beauty. This idea was then used in the caste system, which favors lighter skinned individuals over darker skinned individuals.
Fair & Lovely advertises that you must have light skin in order to be well liked in society. This is simply just untrue. It is now 2021 and South Asian society still thinks skin color should impact success in life? What kind of disgusting standards are we promoting to future generations?
Every young girl and boy growing up in South Asia watching Fair & Lovely advertisements will be influenced and taught to think that their dark skin isn’t beautiful. This is not okay. Skin color should not negatively impact someone’s confidence and their desire to pursue their dreams. Although, Fair & Lovely doesn’t state this directly, by promoting lighter skin and all of the “perks” that come with it, they are implying that darker skin makes someone undesirable and unable to be successful.
At the height of the Black Lives Matter movement for racial justice, many people started to criticize the skin lightening product industry for promoting unrealistic beauty standards and colorism. On June 25, 2020 HUL said they will remove the terms “fair”, “whitening” and “lightening” from their packaging and marketing material and feature women of all skin tones in future advertising campaigns. They also renamed the female range of products to “Glow & Lovely” and the men’s range of products to “Glow & Handsome”.
Changing the name of the product does not stop colorism. In fact, it is a weak attempt to move forward without criticism while still trying to sell the same idea that lighter skin or glowy skin is superior. Glow & Lovely does not erase the history behind Fair & Lovely and its original purpose.
According to Feminism India, an article that appeared on The Drum stated that, Fair & Lovely which currently holds a 50-70% share of the skin whitening market in India, a market that is valued at over $200m. Fair & Lovely recently entered the INR 2000 crore club, which emphasizes the fact that the fairness appeal cuts across regions and cultures in India.
According to The Economic Times, HUL’s Fair and Lovely, which has an annual revenue of over 3,000 crore, is sold in more than a dozen markets, primarily in Asian countries such as Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Pakistan, but India remains its biggest market.
Although HUL rebranded to Glow & Lovely in an effort to be more inclusive, we anticipate that they will continue to earn the same profit because they are still promoting the same idea. Additionally, salons and spas themselves continue to offer skin lightening treatments,masks, and services. When society itself hasn’t changed in its standards on colorism, a small name change will have no impact.
In 2014, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), a self-regulated advertiser group, issued a new set of guidelines that banned all ads that depict those with darker skin as being inferior in any way. “Advertising should not communicate any discrimination as a result of skin color,” read the new ASCI guidelines, and the expression of the model in the ads should not be “negative in a way which is widely seen as unattractive, unhappy, depressed, or concerned.”
Based on these regulations there were certain Fair & Lovely ads that were banned, but most of them continued to air on TV. This is because a lot of the time in Fair & Lovely ads, the model does not say “darker skin is bad”: she or he just wishes to have lighter skin.
The new Glow & Lovely advertisements tend to put emphasis on the fact that Fair & Lovely is now gone and the product is now Glow & Lovely, but this does not change the purpose behind the product. The main difference between Glow & Lovely ads and Fair & Lovely ads is that the new ads no longer include a shade difference from darker to lighter skin tones that Fair & Lovely previously claimed would occur if the product was used.
Fair & Lovely has been around since 1975. In 2025, it will have been 50 years since the introduction of these fairness cream products. The point is, our grandparents and parents have grown up with this product. Rebranding is insignificant to the general population. Without a doubt, a woman will walk into a store and ask the shopkeeper where the Fair & Lovely is, not Glow & Lovely.
Just like how no one calls the Sears Tower the Willis Tower, no one will call Fair & Lovely its new name of Glow & Lovely.
The brand has been ingrained into South Asian culture for almost half a century, and rebranding has absolutely no meaning behind it.
Before Fair & Lovely officially changed its name, it was trying to slowly push away from the whitening stereotype. However, in this advertisement that aired soon before the official rebranding, all of the women are light skinned. Not a single woman is even considered as “wheatish”. If the brand truly cared about combatting colorism, wouldn’t they have included at least a few darker skinned women in the video?
Before Glow & Lovely was around, the company’s marketing intentions were obvious. Fair & Lovely was especially marketed towards younger girls. This is clearly evident, as many endorsers are big, Bollywood actors, such as Genelia D’Souza, and the infamous Yami Gautum. Young girls want to do whatever their favorite celebrities are doing.
For example, when I (Shreya) was younger, I absolutely loved the actress Peyton List. Once I found out that she was a model for the brand Justice, I wanted my entire closet to be filled with clothes from the store, simply because List was an endorser of the brand.
Same goes for young South Asian girls, and how they want to use the same products that their favorite actors or celebrities are using.
Something that may go over your head when shopping is the physical placement of
items. The most popular name brands, or attractive items are usually at eye-level on shelves. In fact, some companies may pay extra to stores in order for their items to be the most visibly seen. Fair & Lovely strategically places all of their products on the middle-to-top shelves at convenience stores so that this tube is the first product that catches a consumer’s eyes.
And as mentioned in our Unrealistic Beauty Standards post, Fair & Lovely’s color scheme altogether is eye candy for the younger generation of girls.
One thing that we continue to question is:
The name has now changed to Glow & Lovely; so how come on all the new packaging, the old name of Fair & Lovely is still listed?
The brand has not switched to Glow & Lovely, but it has rather switched to “Fair & Lovely is now Glow & Lovely.” The Fair & Lovely regime has gone on for decades, and HUL clearly does not want to lose the original name. In their minds, they want consumers to still think of the brand as the original name.
You may be thinking “Okay, well maybe they are sticking to this catchphrase for a while until finally changing the brand over to Glow & Lovely.” But, let’s take a minute to look at the brand’s new packaging.
At the top where it says, “Fair & Lovely is now Glow & Lovely,” the font size on both names are exactly the same size. If the brand were truly trying to emphasize that they changed the name, they wouldn’t even include the old name on the new packaging. But, the least they could’ve done is make the font size of Glow & Lovely bigger.
Clearly, HUL is trying to work its way around to keep its colorist roots.
In February we will be doing a post scientifically debunking Fair & Lovely and describing how the product does not actually lighten one’s skin. For more details and timing of when the post will be out follow our instagram account @thepasupublog!
Thanks for reading and come back next week for our new series all around South Asia and to learn all about Telugu culture!