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By Shantanu Guha Ray in Delhi
It is being called "Snow White syndrome" in India, a market where sales of
whitening creams are far outstripping those of Coca-Cola and tea.
India also has the world's second most lucrative marriage industry - the first
being neighbouring China - that has grown to a whopping $40bn a year spent on
weddings, dowries, jewellery etc.
And demand for fair-complexioned brides and grooms to grace these occasions is
as high as ever
Fuelling this demand are the country's 75-odd reality TV shows where being
fair, lovely and handsome means instant stardom.
As a result, the Indian whitening cream market is expanding at a rate of nearly
18% a year. The country's largest research agency, AC Nielsen, estimates that
figure will rise to about 25% this year - and the market will be worth an
estimated $432m, an all-time high.
With the Indian middle class expected to increase 10-fold to 583 million people
by 2025, it looks as if things will only get better for the cream makers.
But there have been questions by medical experts about the effect of these
creams on the skin.
Brand ambassador
The implicit assumption by many is this: the whiter the skin, the more
attractive you are.
John Abraham, a top Indian actor and model, says: "Indian men want to look
better."
And he should know. The market is booming like never before. Launched way back
in 1978, Hindustan Unilever's Fair & Lovely is the leader in women's lightening
skincare, while Calcutta's Emami group leads the male equivalent with its
brand, Fair And Handsome.
The company calls this brand - launched in 2005 - the world's number one
fairness cream.
It achieved sales of $13m in 2008-09 and has Shah Rukh Khan, another Bollywood
superstar, as its brand ambassador.
And then there are female stars endorsing similar products. Katrina Kaif,
naturally fair, sells Olay's Natural White while Deepika Padukone sells
Neutrogena's Fine Fairness range.
Sonam Kapoor sells L'Oreal's White Perfect while Preity Zinta, once a top star,
endorsed Fem's Herbal Bleach.
If you apply anything on the skin, there will obviously be side effects
Rues VK Sharma, All India Institute of Medical Sciences
And there are many brands on the shelves to choose from: lightening,
brightening, clearing, whitening, anti-pigmentation, freshening, anti-dullness
and even illuminating.
"India is on a fairness hook, everyone wants to look fair," says Mohan Goenka,
director of the Calcutta-based Emami group, whose Fair and Handsome brand for
men was the first of its kind in the market.
A recent study by Hindustan Unilever showed how men in southern states like
Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka are fervent purchasers of
whitening creams.
For example, Tamil Nadu has been recording - for the past year - the highest
number of sales for Narayanan, a skin-whitening cream from the Unilever stable.
Another report in the daily Economic Times says sales of skin-whitening
cosmetic products were also high in tribal-dominated states like Jharkhand and
Chhattisgarh.
"The market in India is huge, really huge," says a Procter & Gamble spokesman.
Experts say that demand has boomed because of the tendency to discriminate
against a person's skin colour, a practice that is still widespread across
rural India.
Steroids
"But if your complexion is fair, you avoid that pinch. Everyone in India wants
to be fairer. At times it is repulsive, worse than chalking of geishas' faces
in Japan, but everyone wants to have a jar or tube of skin-whitening cream,"
says fashion designer Rohit Bal, who has dressed Bollywood actresses and
visited the sets of reality shows.
As a result, the products - priced between 50 cents and $150 a jar/tube - are
in great demand countrywide.
No study has ever been done to discover what "fairness in four weeks" achieves.
Worse, there are several controversies attached to such products.
"If you apply anything on the skin, there will obviously be side effects," says
Rues VK Sharma, head of the dermatology department at the All India Institute
of Medical Sciences.
"Very few know that many of these creams contain steroids. Whatever doctors say
will always be a drop in the ocean, as advertisements flooding the market have
a far larger impact on the minds of people."
But companies say otherwise.
"We are not selling steroids and to date the company has not been involved in a
single lawsuit where someone has blamed us for messing up their skin. Our
products are lab-tested and we vouch for it," says Mohan Goenka of the Emami
group.
The writer is business editor of Tehelka magazine
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/8546183.stm
Published: 2010/03/23 00:09:15 GMT