“Mitti ke 100 Rung hein. Aik rung main, aik rung tu. Har rung mein tera wajood.”
So many young girls in our country have been told not to stay outside in the sun for too long when all they wanted was to have a normal teenage life. They were made to believe that dark skin was something that needed to be fixed or else they would not be worthy of love or it could even jeopardize their career prospects. For years, fairness creams have capitalized on these stereotypical notions of beauty and the insecurities of these young girls and it is time for them to go.
Unilever is one of the biggest multinationals in the world and their CSR policies are studied and benchmarked by firms across the globe. Around 45 years ago the company launched its infamous skincare brand “Fair & Lovely”. After significant backlash on social media and in the wake of the BLM movement they recently decided to rename it to “Glow & Lovely”. Firstly, it is so disappointing that it took a public outcry for a brand like Unilever to realize what sort of unrealistic beauty standards their brand and its advertisements were perpetuating. Secondly, the new title does not even make sense grammatically. I don’t mean to sound like a Grammar Nazi but glow is a noun/verb and lovely is an adjective, they don’t even go together! In my opinion, this should go down in history as one of the poorest forms of damage control attempted by any brand.
The advertisement features some famous, inspiring women having different skin tones, including the Pakistani female football team captain, Hajra Khan, the first Pakistani female tabla player, Sumaira Waris, YouTube sensation, Natalia Gul, and a female boxer, Naina. The underlying theme in this was that all of these women use Glow & Lovely in order to shine in their respective fields. For me, the idea that your confidence should be vested in a cream or any beauty product is still hugely problematic. Moreover, the anthem sung by Aima Baig for the advertisement has been widely celebrated for its message of inclusivity and diversity (the chorus of the song has been posted at the start of the blog). Even though the ad tries to convince you otherwise, it must not be forgotten that the product itself is still the same. The only thing they got rid of was the shade card and the word “whitening” from all their products. This was just a cosmetic Band-Aid to protect their own image. For multiple reasons, it seems as if the brand has undermined the intelligence of the consumer.
It would only be fair to acknowledge that this is a step towards reforming standards of beauty and it shows us what the power of dialogue can do. This advertisement is one of those rare media products which has given spotlight to some female Pakistani heroes and young girls should know that they do exist. In my opinion, Unilever should not be let off the hook this easy. They have been socially irresponsible with the making and marketing of this product. They either need to revamp the product completely by making it a healthier and non-discriminatory alternative or it should be discontinued altogether. Let us keep the discourse going and work towards democratizing beauty standards. Colorism should end with us.
Thank you for sharing this. While I agree that changing the name will not make any significant change, I believe that it is the step in the right direction. However, it is definitely not enough, and it can never undo the damage it has done by socializing women into believing that fair complexion is better. Colorism is the most prominent form of racism in both India and Pakistan. Equally problematic is the advertising strategy of Unilever; these advertisements associate success, love, and intelligence of women with their complexion.
This is one of the most pathetic attempts at rebranding ive come across yet. The need to SPECIFY how fair and lovely IS NOW glow and lovely implies how they want the same target audience to know how their product is the same. The formula is the same, the dangers are the same. What do they even mean by glow!?! (Sorry for the rant, i find it infuriating). This makes absolutely no attempt to end colorism, and they are doing their absolute best to keep the same fonts, color scheme, bottles etc. This zabardasti ki branding is solely to keep up appearances internationally, and its nauseating.
It definitely is the first step towards the end of colorism. Even if Unilever has not changed what's inside the cream, i believe that after this campaign, at least other companies will not think of making whitening products because now they know the consequences and such brands will not be promoted openly. Of course it will take time to change people's mindsets, so they might keep on using the product for now but at least the advertising and marketing of it as a "whitening" cream is now stopped which is big i guess.
They* If not** Sorry for the typos, I got carried away while I was ranting.
Oh it's definitely the latter, thfey have changed nothing in their campaigns and it's all still very much rooted in colorism. Just because they changed fair to glow doesn't mean that they actually did something, the formula is the same and so is the marketing campaign. Despite this, this was actually a pretty big step, getting a massive corporation to amend of not entirely change their stance on such a prevalent issue but we still have a long way to go. Loved reading your post tho!!!