It's great that Unilever etc are doing away with fairness creams, but there's a catch. A thread:

Commercial fairness creams have always been targeted towards middle, lower middle & lower class women & girls. From Fair & Lovely to Stillman's Bleach Cream to Faiza Beauty Cream: you won't find these in elite households. Those using these religiously want white skin cheaply.

And that's what they get, either through harsh bleaching agents that pump toxins into their system, leave their skin ruined over the years, or through temporary white sheen that makes them LOOK like they have fairer skin. The price is affordable, so these creams are staple.

But what about all the facials & skin treatment procedures women of a higher class enjoy regularly? The same celebrities who advertise these creams use regular beauty & spa treatments, as well as cosmeceuticals & dermatological enhancement procedures to maintain their skin tone.

Most celebrities have naturally fair skin; many use costly procedures to enhance their skin tone and maintain it over the years. Same is the case with many women who want Fair & Lovely banned, but wouldn't cancel their own whitening facial treatment. If we talk about --

-- removing stigma from darker skin colour and defeating colourism, we need to go beyond class lines and address these extremely privileged procedures that women sit for so casually in air-conditioned salons & cosmetologist/dermatologist's practices.

You can't just ban creams used by less privileged women use and this: done! Remember, someone somewhere saw there was a need in the market for such a product & made it. Colourism created the product, the product did not create colourism, although the product does propogate it now

I feel bad for the women who rely on these creams for self-confidence. Of course, they shouldn't, but remember not everyone exists in a privileged bubble where they can just wake up one morning & all stigma and anxiety related to skin colour will be gone.

The change needs to happen in society, slowly but surely, and it has to be an education and an understanding of class differences, of history, of religion, of ethnic & racial lines.

It needs to happen with rich, highly educated women laughing that a maid doesn't look like a maid because she has a fairer skin tone. It needs to happen with people not questioning someone's religion or ethnic identity based on skin colour.

And it needs to happen with honesty and equality. You want Fair & Lovely banned? Great. How about you also fight to get all the whitening and brightening facials banned in big salons? Look into dermatological & cosmetological procedures offering skin whitening?

And at home, stop encouraging the trend of finding "gori bhabi" and "gori bahu". Stop saying "rang kharab ho gya tau kaun shadi karey ga".

Just these things.

And before anyone brings this up, women suffer from colourism more than men in a Pakistani context because a man's skin colour is hardly ever an issue when it comes to work, matrimony, social interactions. For women, there is a direct and constant impact. So the two aren't equal.

And in conclusion: great, ban all the creams! But also work to ban the mentality that compels even supporters of the fairness cream ban to revert to their own methods of "maintaining" their skin tone through other means available to them.

Thx. Have a great day.