On Thursday, Hindustan Unilever made the decision to finally drop the ‘fair’ from their product range ‘Fair & Lovely’. This decision came as a sigh of relief for everyone out there who was tired of living with discrimination.
One of them is a 22-year-old CA student, Chandana Hiran from Mumbai who filed a petition against the company’s ideology on Change.org and garnered nearly 15,000 signatures within just two weeks.
They tried to sell us the idea that ONLY Fair is ‘lovely’.
-Chandana Hiran
Chandana was inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and the support it was receiving. though she wasn’t credited by HUL as the reason behind the change, she is one of the thousands of women who stood up against this notion of beauty in India.
I filed a petition against Fair & Lovely, demanding they change their narrative after years of regressive advertisements and branding in order to sell a whitening cream.
-Chandana Hiran told News18
It is empowering to watch people from all walks of life come forward and talk about what is wrong with Indian society’s treatment towards the idea of beauty. Though this is a step in the positive direction, we hope to see other brands make changes as well, and get rid of their problematic products.