MUMBAI: Mirror, mirror on the wall — who is the fairest of them all?
The one with the palest skin, of course.
Or that’s the idea behind India’s multibillion-dollar skin lightening industry, with a host of ‘fairness’ products appearing to offer dark-skinned Indians a lighter, fairer, better version of themselves.
Now the industry has come under fire after a popular Bollywood actor lashed out at India’s obsession with fair skin and highlighted a persistent bias against darker faces.
“You have to stop buying into the idea that a particular shade is better than others,” Abhay Deol, an actor known for playing offbeat roles, said on his Facebook page this month.
Deol lambasted his Bollywood peers — including Shah Rukh Khan, John Abraham, Shahid Kapur and Deepika Padukone — for endorsing so-called fairness brands and urged them to stop using their popularity to peddle products he called racist.
“(These) campaigns are blatantly, and sometimes subtly, selling you the idea that whiter skin is better than darker skin,” said Deol.
NOT FAIR
Controversy around ‘fairness’ products has raged for decades, with darker skin shades variously described as “dusky” and “wheatish,” and lighter tones sold as more attractive.
The market — which includes creams, face washes, deodorants, even a vaginal whitener — is estimated to be worth about 270 billion rupees ($4 billion) and is growing at a steady clip.
Unilever Plc’s Hindustan Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Nivea, Garnier and Emami are among those making fairness products.
Hindustan Unilever’s Fair & Lovely, launched in 1975, is India’s best known fairness brand, and claims to be the world’s first of very many skin-lightening cream.
Scientists say some contain harmful bleaching ingredients.
The World Health Organization banned the active ingredients – hydroquinone and mercury – from unregulated skin products.
Research firm Center for Science and Environment said in a 2014 study that nearly half the creams it tested in India contained mercury, which is “completely illegal and unlawful.”
A spokeswoman for Hindustan Unilever declined comment on the controversy.
CASTE AT ROOT OF RACISM
Some activists link the bias to an entrenched caste system, where higher-caste Brahmins generally have lighter skin.
In a country where arranged marriages are still the norm, matrimonial ads consistently describe a woman’s complexion, and dark-skinned women often pay a higher dowry, activists say.
Bullying and taunting of dark-skinned girls and women is common, while dark-skinned actors complain of fewer roles.
Advertising campaigns for various brands have typically depicted women — and increasingly men — as winning better jobs and partners, thanks to the fairness creams.
But Kiran Khalap, co-founder of brand consultancy Chlorophyll in Mumbai, said the adverts were not to blame.
“Our obsession with fair skin didn’t come from HUL or Emami: it’s a deep-seated cultural bias that equates being fair with being superior,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“When a demand for a product exists, a manufacturer will cater to that demand. And people will buy that product, even without a Shah Rukh or a John Abraham telling them to buy.”
DARK IS BEAUTIFUL
Nor is India alone in buying into the ‘fairness’ dream.
Similar products are on sale in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and in parts of Africa, although India, with its population of 1.3 billion people, is a prized consumer market.
Ivory Coast and Ghana have banned cosmetics containing hydroquinone, which critics say can cause cancer. A similar ban exists in Japan, South Africa and the European Union.
Nivea recently pulled an ad in the Middle East with the tagline ‘White is Purity’ after it was slammed as racist.
Advocacy group Women of Worth launched a ‘Dark is Beautiful’ campaign in 2009 with the tagline ‘Stay unfair, stay beautiful,’ to fight the “toxic belief that a person’s worth is measured by the fairness of their skin.”
Members of India’s upper house have called for a ban on advertisements for fairness products.
There has also been legal action.
A Delhi consumer court said in 2015 said Emami’s advertisements for Fair and Handsome were a misrepresentation of the product’s effectiveness.
Emami has appealed the verdict. A spokeswoman for the company declined comment.
Just last week, Times of India, the country’s biggest English-language daily, ran a message about its popular matrimonial ads.
“Don’t you think it’s unfair to ask a girl to be fair and beautiful?” the message read. “Henceforth, we hope that matrimonial ads will inspire people to choose girls based on their education rather than only their looks.”
But filmmaker Ram Subramanian wants action, not words, and his video on the topic has been viewed almost 3 million times.
“Once upon a time slavery was acceptable, the caste system was acceptable, until someone said they were not,” he said.
“I want the government to ban these products because they cause so much damage,” he said.
($1 = 64.1126 Indian rupees)
Skin lightening under fire as Indians seek whiter shade of pale
Skin lightening under fire as Indians seek whiter shade of pale
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Israa Allaf on her Saudi fashion brand The Untitled Project
- ‘It’s a fusion culture that really represents Saudi,’ creative director and founder tells Arab News
DUBAI: In 2018, when Israa Allaf launched her Saudi fashion brand The Untitled Project, “it was really hard to find something that really represented individuality,” she tells Arab News. “I really wanted to create something unique — something that felt Westernized yet at the same time felt Arab, and that you could wear as a cover-up.”
At the time, modest fashion often left little room for self-expression. “The abaya, for example, was always worn closed, and we wanted to showcase how you can incorporate it and style it within your own clothing and have something that’s really unique to you, that you really won't find anywhere else,” Allaf says.
In a Saudi fashion scene that has become increasingly polished and trend-driven, The Untitled Project stands out for its flowing cover-ups, richly layered prints and experimental silhouettes.
Allaf, who studied marketing, began by designing the pieces herself before stepping into the role of creative director and building a team around her.
“That’s why you can also see with the designs that we have many different themes. We have different artists from all around the world creating something — it’s a bit more of a fusion culture that really represents Saudi, but shows a different type of craft,” she explains.
That idea of fluidity is also built into the brand’s name. “I actually came up with the name before even (thinking about starting the company),” Allaf says, adding that she wanted to avoid the rigid associations that come with most labels. “Brand names really put you in a box… and we didn’t want that. A woman has layers. She’s not one thing.”
That philosophy shapes who she designs for: two main types of women. One who leans into statement pieces, another who dresses according to the occasion.
Though Allaf is now based in Riyadh, her company’s soul remains deeply tied to Jeddah, especially the city’s beach culture and relaxed aesthetic.
“In Riyadh, they like to wear their abayas long. In Jeddah, they like to wear them short. They like their slippers. They like their ankle-length pieces, or even shorter pieces, and we really embody the Jeddah girl brand,” Allaf says. “We’d say we’re more colorful — having, like, seven-plus colors in one piece and making it still look beautiful on a woman.”
Behind every item of The Untitled Project’s clothing — all of which are produced in Saudi Arabia — is a meticulous process that can stretch over months, sometimes focusing on just a single print or a single abaya, Allaf says. Her goal is always to ensure each design reaches its strongest possible version before it is ever released.
The clothes are created using only silk, linen and cotton, chosen for their natural feel and their ability to showcase the brand’s intricate prints.
Sustainability is also central to the brand’s identity, with organic materials and a strong focus on reusing fabric. Leftover textiles, embroidery and archived materials from previous collections are redesigned and reworked into new garments, allowing older pieces to take on a new life instead of being discarded.
Small-batch production supports that approach. “Why make hundreds of a piece when we don’t know the demand? We’ll create a smaller batch and test it out on the market,” says Allaf, adding that doing so leaves “room for experimentation.”
Even the brand’s packaging is designed with reuse in mind. After customers began repurposing the original boxes — often as makeshift homes for their cats — the brand leaned into the idea, redesigning the packaging to encourage customers to reuse it for storage and everyday needs rather than throwing it away.
“We intentionally wrote on the backs that they can be cat-house boxes. We wanted the customers to also reuse,” Allaf says.
One of The Untitled Project’s most meaningful designs is “Scene Leaving the Corniche.”
“I love it so much. It just looks great on all skin tones. It has symmetry and it has asymmetry as well,” says Allaf. With butterflies, flowers and palm motifs, it captures the brand’s identity.
“That is going to be the new brand staple print,” she says. “It represents the brand’s personality the best.”
Through fabric, form and community projects, Allaf continues to push the idea that fashion can be thoughtful, expressive and adaptable — just like the women she designs for.
