It is L’Oreal after “Fair and Lovely”

Amid the ongoing protest over the killing of George Floyd in the hands of police, many cosmetic and pharmaceutical giants are changing the names of their products which signals to racial discrimination. In a similar move, Unilever had recently announced that Fair and Lovely would not have Fair word as it poses a threat to the eradication of racial justice in the world. Now, L’Oreal has announced that they’ll be removing words like “whitening” and “lightening” from their products. 

In a statement confirming the news, the company said, “The L’Oreal Group has decided to remove the words white/whitening, fair/fairness, light/lightning from all its skin evening products.” 

Well, the racial stereotyping has been very popular in Asian countries like India and creams like “Fair and Lovely” have received very minimal backlash from the public in recent years. Sunny Jain, the head of Unilever’s Beauty & Personal CareSunny Jain, the head of Unilever’s Beauty & Personal Care said, “We are fully committed to having a global portfolio of skincare brands that is inclusive and cares for all skin tones, celebrating greater diversity of beauty. We recognize that the use of the words ‘fair’, ‘white’ and ‘light’ suggest a singular ideal of beauty that we don’t think is right, and we want to address this.”

Meanwhile, even after the company had faced criticism on being used as a method to provoke stereotype thinking among the mass and to encourage people about skin bleaching products, the company stands firm on its statement that “Fair and Lovely” could never be a bleaching product and claims that it never was. 

Also, many big companies like Johnson and Johnson had also done their part in promoting racial equality. In recent times, various actors from the film fraternity have also broached the topic and supported the cause of the “Black Lives Matter” movement.