The FT recently carried an article about Hindustan Lever (Unilever’s Indian operations) and its sales of Glow & Lovely (or rebranded Fair & Lovely).
How does Fair & Lovely work?
Fairly & Lovely (now Glow & Lovely) is a skin lightener using one of the safest skincare ingredients used in cosmetics today: Niacinamide. Apart from being excellent for barrier repair and balancing out the skin’s sebum production, Niacinamide is also a skin lightener. Niacinamide downregulates the transfer of melanosomes from melanocytes to keratinocytes by 35% – 68%. Melanosomes carry the skin pigment, eumelanin (which is primarily responsible for our skin colour).
Less melanin (skin pigment) transferred to the epidermis (topmost layer of the skin) means visibly lighter or fairer.
The FT article is so straight-laced and linear in its analysis, that I thought Mike Pence at Sunday School had written it.
For starters, if Unilever’s CEO were to dump the Glow & Lovely brand, it would cost its bottom line peanuts, and apparently, he would get brownie points for doing the right thing, as its not a “purpose-led” brand.
My twopence on this is as follows.
1) Glow & Lovely sales were c.US$ 500mn (FY2020). Assuming 80% sales in India, with an SKU price of US$ 1, that’s about (roughly) about 550 million units.
Or 2 out of 5 Indians bought a skin-lightening product in 2020.
Yup “aspirational” fairness (being a lighter skin tone than the one you are born with) should be a designated national past-time.
I don’t think anyone who is not a dark skinned Indian woman can even begin to appreciate or let alone fathom, the societal and professional consequences of having dark skin in India, let alone Unilever.
I live and breathe aspirational fairness. The dark colour of my skin affects my daily choices, from the food and drink I consume, the colours of my clothing and makeup to the time of day I choose to be outside. And it also affects my relationships: Indian men consistently marry fairer women.
As Georgina Lawton rightly points out, “Colourism is a feminist issue because black men are allowed to be dark-skinned where women are not.”
For me and many like me, this is an inescapable truth of our Indian identity.
I unapologetically use lightening products, and countless studies show that my social position, career and personal life are “brighter” when I have fairer skin.
My readers mirror my sentiment: I kept wondering why my readers were all of a sudden deeply interested in sunscreen. Well, on digging deeper, it appears that Indians are not interested in sunscreen other than to prevent themselves from becoming darker.
A lack of regulation of skin lighteners
A final complication takes the form of the lack of skin lightening regulation in India. So many ingredients (e.g,) Licorice extract, Vitamin C, Kojic Acid, Arbutin and Hyrodquinone are popular skin lighteners/whiteners in South-East Asia.
The EU, Japan and South Korea regulate to varying degrees skin lighteners. E.g, the EU, permits up to 2% Arbutin (a potent skin lightener and derivative of hydroquinone) in facial products in the EU.
One of the worst side-effects of hydroquinone is Ochronosis.
Never heard of it? Trust me; you’ll never forget it after clicking on this LINK).
What is my concern?
If Hindustan Lever withdraws Glow & Lovely from the market, this US$ 500mn gap will be quickly filled with products with less safe ingredients (such as Arbutin) because the one thing that India does not lack is a shortage of consumers who want to be fairer.
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2 thoughts on “How the West does not understand South Asian’s need for skin lighteners”
Hi,
I really appreciate you sharing your thoughts, so brutally honestly, and open to comments. It gives me a entirely new yet shocking perspective. As a skin care enthusiast myself, and as a woman of colour in India who has also been effected by colorism, I’m sure our experiences vary, but I too would like to share my thoughts.
Firstly, I was reading on another post of yours, I’m so sorry for what you’ve been subject to (the honcho aka id*ot who arrogantly and casually discriminated against your gender and complexion), it’s repulsive to hear that bigots like that honcho are in positions of power.
With all due respect, you are angry at the women who are promoting self love and self acceptance.
I believe the ones at fault are bigots in power who need to be fired immediately for such comments.
I believe the ones at fault are the years and years of promotion and epitomizing of “fairer” complexion in India including the Unilever, Bollywood. That’s where I direct my rage.
The ones not worth merit are people shallow enough to see skin colour as determining factor for discrimination!!! They do not deserve to live in our heads rent free.
I don’t mean to nit pick, and please correct me if I’m wrong, but this particularly stood out to me in your LinkedIn you mentioned ” You may think being obsessed with fairness is “wrong”, but as an Indian, I can tell you that fairness is part of our cultural identity and is like the air we breath.” I do hope you didn’t intend to speak for all Indians on our behalf while you share such a statement.
It would take courage and unlearning to recognize and call it what it is.
It’s not our “cultural identity” as much as it is decades of internalized colonialism and reinforcement white supremacy.
The very root of our country, the reason why white foreigners are worshipped here and us Indians as foreigners abroad are oppressed, bullied and racially discriminated against.
White privilege exists. 100%. And while what one does with their skin is ones own business, I’m all for doing whatever makes you feel beautiful and confident in your own skin. I’m not certain the solution is the promotion and reinforcement that un”fair” = less chance of success as a woman. The world is at turning point, where a small percentage the bigotry and racial discriminations/ hate crimes are being exposed. We could join the fight, or regress it.
I hope I didn’t overshare, looking forward to see where the growing skincare industry in India goes.
-Fellow FB student
Thanks for your comment Shraddha. When I write un”fair” = less chance of success as a women of colour, this is backed by decades of studies and research in the USA on the treatment of African American women vs White women. And even within their own communities, African American women who are darker bear the brunt of “less chance of success” than fairer African-American women. I wrote a thesis at university on the disadvantaged position of African American women so I believe I know what I am discussing. Furthermore, the parallels with India and the rest of South Asia are uncanny. Finally, there is so much research/data on darker skinned Indian women being at a disadvantage compared to fairer Indian women. I hope you are right, that we are at a turning point, but for now I am sorry I am not angry at anyone. I just speak from a position that is supported by data and studies. My personal experience is almost minor in the wider scale of prejudice faced by women of colour.