The Indian unit of the top consumer giant Unilever on Thursday said that it would rebrand its Fair & Lovely range of Products which has long been criticized for promoting negative stereotypes against people with dark skin.
“We’re committed to a skincare portfolio that’s inclusive of all skin tones, celebrating the diversity of beauty. That’s why we’re removing the words ‘fairness’, ‘whitening’ & ‘lightening’ from products, and changing the Fair & Lovely brand name,” Unilever said in a statement.
One of the company’s top leader said that the evolution of the Fair & Lovely brand is 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,” Sunny Jain, Unilever’s president of its beauty and personal care division, said
“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,” he added.
The company also claimed that it will unveil the new brand name of the Fair & Lovely product range within the next few months.
Unilever’s announcement came as rival Johnson & Johnson said this month that it would stop the sale of skin-whitening creams.