Unilever's India unit to rebrand 'Fair & Lovely' cream to 'Glow & Lovely'

(Reuters) - The Indian arm of global consumer giant Unilever <ULVR.L> said on Thursday it would rebrand its skin-lightening cream 'Fair & Lovely' to 'Glow & Lovely,' after facing backlash that the name promoted negative stereotypes towards darker skin tones.

The move comes a week after the maker of Lipton Tea and Dove soap announced that it would drop words such as "fair," "fairness," "white,", "whitening" from its marketing in a push to move away from a single ideal of beauty.

Its skin cream for men will be called 'Glow & Handsome', Hindustan Unilever <HLL.NS> said, and the products with the new brand name will appear on shelves over the next few months.

Skin-whitening creams have a huge market in South Asia, but the way their makers promote the products have come under question, at a time of worldwide focus on racial injustice following weeks of protests sparked by the May death of George Floyd, a Black man, in police custody in the United States.

HUL's move last week to drop the word "fair" from its "Fair & Lovely" products was considered significant, as it came after years of calls to drop the branding or stop selling the creams, which dominate the skin-lightening cream market in India and have been endorsed by Bollywood celebrities, as well as other youth icons.

Garnier maker L'oreal <OREP.PA> earlier this week said it too would gradually replace "white" or "fair" with "glow" or "even" for some products designed to help even out skin tones, while Johnson & Johnson <JNJ.N> said it would stop selling skin-whitening creams altogether.

(Reporting by Siddharth Cavale and Philip George in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Maju Samuel)