FAIR & LOVELY: The brand from HUL

History:

The fairness cream brand was developed by Hindustan Lever Ltd (now Hindustan Unilever Ltd) in 1975.The product was then
marketed nationally in 1978.

Status:
According to industry estimates, Fair and Lovely holds 80% market share in the at least Rs1,000 crore by sales Indian fairness
cream market

Brand story:

Made to cater to the Indian market, where beauty is equated with fair skin, the launch of Fair and Lovely was met with much
enthusiasm. In 1988, the brand went international, and is now available in 40 countries.

Brand Evolution:

The brand has had its share of negative publicity, with women’s groups calling the ad regressive. The ads, which focused on the
mass aspiration of “marrying well”, soon moved to more progressive ones in the 1980s.
The early 1990s saw the brand take on the role of enabler of the dreams. In the late 1990s, the brand message was that a woman
could make her own destiny—a thought that was carried forward in all its campaigns. In 2007, the brand tweaked its approach to the
Power of Beauty platform. With the fairness cream business accounting for the lion’s share of the skincare products industry here,
several companies have launched fairness creams in the hope of securing a piece of the growing pie.

While none were able to challenge HUL in terms of numbers, they did start eating into the company’s market share with unique
offerings.

In Sri Lanka Fair & Lovely was launched in 1992, which became the leading fairness cream in
the market within a very short period of time that has led to the growth of the fairness segment in
skin care. 

Fair and Lovely was quick to take on competition—with variants. So, whether it was unique offerings such as ayurvedic formulations
with saffron (to combat Fairever by CavinKare Pvt. Ltd) or those that claimed to erase marks (to fight No Marks by Ozone
Ayurvedics), Fair and Lovely managed to launch variants that matched, and in some cases even topped, the promise touted by the
competitor. To tap the premium segment of the market, Fair and Lovely also launched Perfect Radiance. The popularity of the brand
and category can be gauged from the fact that today, it even has a variant for men.

Fair & Lovely - skin care cream for Asian skin 

Today Fair & Lovely has reached a high ground of science and efficacy and remains non-
chemical and easily comprehensible.
The new fairness proposition has been brought alive through multi-vitamins, a mix of four
essential vitamins each of which help in giving fairness + nourishment, resulting in the re-
launched FAL Pink being henceforth known as FAL multi-vitamin fairness cream. 

Multi-vitamin is the breakthrough new fairness invention that has four essential skin vitamins (A,
B, C, E) which give you the four signs of beauty parlour fairness, but with total fairness +
nourishment

The four signs of beauty parlour fairness in the new Multi-vitamin formula:

Vitamin B3 – radiance but without bleach

Vitamin C – Even-tone like derma-brasion

Vitamin A – Skin elasticity of chemical peel

Vitamin E – Deep hydration like fruit facials            

And much more - Vitamin B3+C give glowing fairness in four weeks, Vitamin A+E give
genuine skin nourishment from within and triple sunscreens protect your fairness!
Fairness that changes your destiny

Fair & Lovely is one of Unilever SriLanka’s key brands offering skin lightening benefits to
thousands of Sri-lankan women. 

In line with the essence of the Fair & Lovely brand- ‘fairness that changes your destiny’ in 2003,
Unilever decided to provide more than skin lightening benefits to the brand’s consumers. 

Thus the Fair & Lovely Foundation was formed with the objective of initiating programmes to
provide economic empowerment and greater prosperity to women in Sri-lanka. Now more than
ever before, the Fair & Lovely brand is set on delivering on its promise of changing destinies,
giving wings to the dreams of many a Sri-lankan woman.