This product took the world by storm. Every woman/man wanted it, especially in countries such as India and those in Africa. The coveted Fairness products. 67% of South Asians use or have used skin whitening products. Up to 75% of women in Nigeria (Dadzie and Petit, 2009, Dlova et al., 2015), 60% in Senegal (Blay, 2011), 50% in Mali (Baxter, 2000), and 30% in Ghana are estimated to use bleaching creams regularly, with similar rates in other African countries (Lartey et al., 2017, Mckinley, 2001). The users are not just women but men too are strong targets for marketing such products. (Owusu-Agyei et al., 2020I remember my British friend’s comment on one of his visits to India: ” Why are all your billboard models caucasian? Why are your mannequins white in blonde or red wigs”? Why indeed? Perhaps because all things white/fair are automatically perceived as superior, and beautiful. 

In Bengali it is common to address dark skin as “Moyla Rong”; Moyla meaning dirty. I have lived in England for quite a while. Never have I ever been called ugly for the colour of my skin. People may have their experiences of having lived in a European country. I can only speak about mine. In India however, skin tone is always under scrutiny, whether you are an adult or a child. 

Our obsession with fairness has created a huge market for products such as Hindustan Unilever’s Fair & Lovely. These industries are minting billions every year just by feeding our obsession for fairness. According to the study at Boston College under the Programme India: Public Health, Gender, and Community Action (Publication: Spring 2019), the media has propagated the normalization of fairness creams among women as well as society’s attitudes towards female beauty. Today not just women, but men have also boarded the bandwagon. There are multiple men’s skin whitening kits available in the market. The question that begs to be answered is whether the need creates the products, or the products create the need. 

Our Bollywood films and advertisements openly promote colourism and racism in the name of beauty. In 2021 CNN did a study and revealed how the need for fairness has created a dangerous drug dependence among women in India. Both Times of India and CNN confirm that we Indians are heavy users of bleach and steroids such as Betamethasone. More women than men of course fall victim to these harmful chemicals. Just look at the marriage ads in newspapers and matrimony sites, and you would see hundreds stating “fair-skinned bride wanted”. 

In a country such as ours, where brown is the norm, we have products such as Loreal depicting an almost white woman playing with blonde strands, or auburn hair and clever one-liner “L’Oreal for that Natural You”! This is a ridiculous shtick that works thanks to our overt prejudice that lighter skin means a more capable, successful, and beautiful being. This perception has spread across the country and beyond socio-economic borders like a disease. So much so that we have lost the ability to look without bias. So much so that we subject newborns to this discrimination. The fairness craze is such a plague that it made Indian Express ask around the year 2016, “Like the ban on liquor and cigarette ads, hate speech and child pornography, should there also be a complete ban on skin-whitening creams and other products that promote fairness, and hence prejudice“?

Where is the root of this madness? Is it the deep-seated inferiority fostered by colonialism? Is this the residual effect of those long years of being subjugated by the British and by other European countries? Did we forget our history? Have we forgotten that we were dominated not because of our skin tone, but because we were divided? We are still divided. This time it’s us creating the divide with cruelty and judgement based not on a person’s acts but on what they were born with and have no control over!

My 5-year-old asked me if she would become “peach” coloured if she washed her hands enough when she was supposed to be asking me why the sky is blue and why the ocean changes colour so. Although it seems like we are standing at the brink of an era of body positivity, I am not yet sure if this is a fad or if we are edging towards a world where the “body” comes second and the “mind” comes first; a world where our children have their individual, unbiased definition of beauty. 

All beautiful things of nature, trees, flowers, birds, pebbles, crystals, fish, leaves and sand come in different colours. So why shouldn’t we?