Fairness Cream for 'Lightning' Women's 'Patchy' Inner Thighs Draws Ire on Twitter

In yet another example of exacerbating colorism and bias against darker skin tones in India, a beauty product came under attack for claiming to ‘brighten’ women’s ‘patchy’ inner thighs and pits. The product called ‘Sanfe’ intimate lightening cream has drawn ire on social media from women, who emphasised how these amount to the pressure of meeting up to Indian beauty standards, and the weight of being ridiculed and mocked for having dark skin.

The product was shared by a certain Twitter user called, Shreemi Verma, who expressed her displeasure and said, “I don’t have the energy to write about how ridiculous this product is but tbh it’s the placement of it that’s sending me."

The post immediately caught the attention of desis, who soon came together to crusade against the fallacy of such products, that is meant to profit from what appears to be normal around a woman’s inner thighs.

Last year in a similar incident, a fairness product, ‘Glow and Lovely’ (formerly known as Fair and Lovely) came under attack after it decided to drop ‘fair’ from its name. The Indian branch of the top consumer giant said it would drop the word ‘Fair’ from the product and added that a fresh name for the cream was awaiting regulatory clearances. The move, however, was being slammed for being rather symbolic than effective in reducing colourism and bias against darker skin tones in India. Unilever’s announcement followed that of Johnson & Johnson which previously said it would stop the sale of skin lightening products altogether

While the name change drew cheers from social media, the move to drop the word “fair" from the product while continuing the sell the skin-lightening cream had appeared to be rather counter-intuitive, much like the topical effectiveness of the skin lightening product itself which for years attempted to mask racism and colourism in the name of beauty and skincare.

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