Hindustan Unilever To Remove ‘Fair’ From ‘Fair & Lovely’, Twitter Calls It A ‘Welcome Move’

In recent years, skin-lightening products have received a lot of flak on social media for feeding an unhealthy obsession with fairness that is prevalent in our country. Brands have been held accountable for their lack of inclusivity and in a way stigmatising people with darker skin tones. Recently, in a move to eradicate skin-colour based discrimination, arrange marriage portal Shaadi.com removed their ‘skin colour’ filter.

And now, in a welcome move, Hindustan Unilever has decided to drop the word ‘Fair’ from their brand ‘Fair & Lovely’, reports TOI.

Representational Image

Chairman and Managing Director of Hindustan Unilever, Sanjiv Mehta said:

“We are making our skin-care portfolio more inclusive and want to lead the celebration of a more diverse portrayal of beauty. We will remove the word ‘Fair’ from our brand name ‘Fair & Lovely’.”

According to Hindustan Unilever’s official statement, words indicating fairness led transformation like whitening, lightening, fairness, etc. no longer will be used on the packaging, advertisements showing two-face shade transformation and shade cards from packages are to be removed. They will further be working towards evolving their advertising to feature women of different skin-tones.

People on the internet are celebrating HUL’s move and said it was a long-awaited decision. While many said that we, as a country, have miles to go before fully eradicating skin-tone based discrimination, this is a good start.

This might be a small step, but at least it is a step in the right direction.

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