We have bad news for our color-obsessed society! Yesterday Shaadi.com removed a feature – skin color filter, which allowed people to look for potential matches based on their skin tones.
And, now HUL plans to drop ‘Fair’ from ‘Fair & Lovely’
As per Business Standard, the country’s largest consumer goods company, Hindustan Unilever, (HUL) said it would rebrand Fair & Lovely, its Rs 2,000-crore fairness cream.
HUL said that it would drop ‘fair’ from the trademark and that the new change would happen in the next few months.
Sanjiv Mehta, chairman, and managing director, HUL said,
“We are making our skin care portfolio more inclusive and want to lead the celebration of a more diverse portrayal of beauty. In 2019, we removed the cameo with two faces as well as the shade guides from the packaging of Fair & Lovely and the brand communication progressed from fairness to glow which is a more holistic and inclusive measure of healthy skin. These changes were very well received by our consumers.”
As the global #BlackLivesMatter movement picked up pace, many brands are facing the backlash for promoting colorism across the world.
One such brand, that recently faced the online backlash was a popular matrimonial website – Shaadi.com.
After the online backlash from many users, the popular Indian matrimonial website, Shaadi.com removed a feature – skin color filter. This feature allowed people to look for potential matches based on their skin tones.
As per NDTV, this all happened when Hetal Lakhani from Dallas, USA, started an online petition to take down the complexion filter on a matrimony portal. She wrote:
“Shaadi.com has a colour filter that asks users to indicate the colour of their skin using descriptors like ‘Fair’, ‘Wheatish’, and ‘Dark’ and allows users the ability to search for potential partners on the basis of their skin colour. We demand that Shaadi.com must permanently remove its skin colour filter to prevent users from selectively searching for matches based on their preferred skin colour.”
As per BBC, the petition received over 1,500 signatures within 14 hours. Post which, the matrimonial website Shaadi.com took down the filter. They were quoted saying it “was not serving any purpose” and was a “product debris we missed removing”.
Recently as per Insider, Johnson & Johnson has confirmed that they will be discontinuing their Neutrogena Fine Fairness line and Clean & Clear’s Clear Fairness line by saying,
“Conversations over the past few weeks highlighted that some product names or claims on our dark spot reducer products represent fairness or white as better than your own unique skin tone. This was never our intention – healthy skin is beautiful skin.”
Though the fight against colorism is an ongoing battle in India, we still want to celebrate these small wins as they make us hopeful about the future. Don’t you think?