Hindustan Unilever to stop using 'Fair' in 'Fair & Lovely' brand; HUL issues statement

Hindustan Unilever, on Thursday, announced that it would be dropping the name of its long-standing 'Fair & Lovely' product in order to be more inclusive and would remove the words ‘fair/fairness’, ‘white/whitening’, and ‘light/lightening’ from its products’ packs and communication. The change in its name comes in the aftermath of the protests against racial discrimination that expressed outrage on the discrimination based on skin colour. Unilever further revealed that it would come up with a new name for the product in the coming months in order to create a more inclusive version of the product. 

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Fair & Lovely has been marketed by Hindustan Unilever over the years as a gateway to skin lightening or whitening. Despite the company's claim that it ad changed its branding approach from 2014, the product was continued to be marketed as a tool to getting a lighter skin, aimed at the skin colour of Indians. However, in the aftermath of the protests against discrimination based on colour and Hindustan Unilever ocnstantly needled to change the name of the product, HUI has announced that it would drop the word 'Fair' in its product in order to create a more inclusive version of the same, not based on skin colour. 

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'Fair & Lovely's' new name

According to a statement from Hindustan Unilever, the company is awaiting the approval of the regulatory authorities to change the name of the product and said that it will be dropping the word 'Fair' from the product. HUI said that the brand has moved away, since 2019, from 'benefits of fairness, whitening towards glow, tone, skin clarity and glow. HUI also claimed that Fair & Lovely's advertising had changed over the years to communicate women empowerement and that it was committed to celebrating all skin tones, according to a statement released by the company. HUI also said that along with the change to Fair & Lovely, other products of its skin portfolipo would also see a change.   

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