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  Fair & Lovely  

 

The Supreme Court of India had ruled that
     
    " the object is to bring honesty and truth in the relationship between the manufacturer and the consumer" and held that " if the general impression conveyed is false, the  most punctilious and scrupulous accuracy in immaterial minutiae will not render the representations true."  [in simple terms, a lie is a lie, however decorated or whoever says it]

 

Fair & Lovely Fairness Cream of Hindustan Unilever
     
    This page limits itself to a scathing attack on the so called shabby and shameless Market Survey done by Unilever for Fair & Lovely Cream and the deliberate, distorted messages blared by them on TV and other print media to fool the Public
     
fairness creams   Fairness Cream is a criminal joke on the public is what I say elsewhere in this site. Refer fairness creams. The functionality / efficacy is cheap - refer the end of the page for a Medical view

Just for fun, think / imagine, an Indian, with a White / European skin and a normal wheatish / brown body - such a comic looking person would have become a rarity and would be in news, with TV channels inventing every one hour some 'breaking news' to break the monotony of the stale news and retaining TRP. Despite 30 long years, Lever has not produced the proof even remotely

Please do not assume that other Fairness Cream peddlers are angels. Save your money in the prevailing world wide financial crisis started by reckless financial institutions in America

 

My answer to the empty rhetoric question of Lever
     
   

Question: 'Guess which leading International Cream is rated the best by Consumers in India' ?

   

Answer: As almost all are cheap, unethical gimmicks, there is really none

     
Major benefit !   The product does not deliver the results it loudmouths. Hence it is not a value for money product.  Fair & Lovely can be compared to an exquisite and beautiful mannequin. If probed, it is just a near zero value Plaster of Paris. Why buy it at all ?
     
Side effects   Laughter Challenge - Star One TV - 23-12-2008

The model in Fair & Lovely advertisement only utters the word 'Hai'. From that, I only infer that the side effect of the product could be 'dumbness' ! I hope she can speak and dispel my doubts

     
Expose  

I am exposing Hindustan Unilever, with their own words and actions, in this page.  As Lever spends more on TV, they catch my attention. Let us not assume that the others in this game are angels

 

Look who is talking ?  Self Certified Truth Sayer or a crafty, company duping the public ?
     
1993   19-5-93   to   1-6-93    Business World :        page 57    Caught in Camera:   

".... even Lever's own  Pears had high  alkaline  content".  And that was in front of the Press, called by Lever to promote Dove.  Has Lever changed and started speaking the Total Truth ? No

     
1998   Colgate and Lever: The fight between them shows that both are liars. Refer Toilet Soaps
     
2004    Anti Marks: The Fair & Lovely anti marks December 16, 2004 advertisement was packed with semi truths and lies. Lever attempted a distorted smear campaign for Anti Marks Cream, projecting themselves as Honest Truth Sayers and then beat a hasty retreat ? Why retreat if you are speaking the Truth ?  The advertisement was withdrawn - you did not speak the truth as claimed, is it ?
     
2008   July 2008: 'Total truth':  You and I did not choose the site name. Lever did.

Total Truth means total truth and not 99% Truth and 1% Lies

     
   

Does a Leopard change its spots ? No

   

The 4 instances from 1993 to 2008 is indicative of the level of Truth and Public concern

     
   

The past practices of Lever gives no basis for an assumption that it would be different now

   

Do you trust a proven liar, habitual offender or jailbird ?

 

Unwarranted Self certification ! 
     
    In a populous country like India 100 Crores can speak. Lever self certifies itself to be a truth sayer. Look at the name of the website ..'please visit www.totaltruth.in' '....That is what the wrapper says. Fine. No problem if they say the Truth.

If 10 drops of Gutter Water is mixed with 100 ml of pure water, that is 0.5%, it is impure water.  Let us be clear about that. Even if one word is false / questionable, the integrity of Lever and the product, Fair & Lovely, becomes questionable.

 

Fair & Lovely / Hindustan Unilever
     
    Hindustan Unilever is an inveterate, cheap liar, using all unfair means to dupe the Public, flaunting shamelessly despicable ethical standards. The disgusting reality is that all these liars, like Politicians, loaf about in public, without any sign of punishment.

Please bear in mind that a traffic policeman cannot catch all the offenders.

     
Proof for  criticisms   This page will prove the above blunt statement and also expose the questionable product claim / sham market survey of Fair & Lovely - using Lever's own printed 'Msg in carton' and 'Msg in Parcel'

 

Sham Survey:  Proofs for Duping the Public
     
Msg in carton:   The 25 gms Fair & Lovely tube is packed in a cardboard carton, with Printed Messages on all the 6 sides. This public statement of Lever is mentioned hereafter in this page as 'Msg in carton'
     
Message

Msg in Parcel:

  Hindustan Lever has got conducted a sham Market Survey in Mumbai, for Fair & Lovely in March 2008. They neither probed or tried to prove conclusively anything with the survey. And they misused the subjective, meagre survey results to draw some unsupported and unwarranted inferences to promote the product. Lever has sent 25gms tube of Fair & Lovely free, to randomly selected females, in an attractively packaged parcel through Courier. The parcel was collected by me on 10-7-2008 - unlucky !.  My daughter says that she never contacted Lever. 

Lever has printed some messages on the the top side of the parcel as well as on the specially pasted, extra outer flap. Msg in Parcel refer to the  printed messages from this packaged parcel

 

5 sections more for the absolute shocker !  background information before the blast
     
   

Is Fair & Lovely, an ineffective Product ?

     
Msg in carton   At the outset, the Label gives the game away! Fair & Lovely is the caption at the top of the tube. 'multivitamin' is the prominent bold caption in the middle. The name, Total Fairness Cream is at the bottom of the tube and is in normal font. The shift is significant and raises doubts
     
Msg in carton   Usage instructions: Gently massage a generous quantity of the cream on your face and neck twice daily. Use in combination with other products of the range for Total Fairness - Face wash, Night Cream, Sunblock Lotion, Winter Cream and Home facial kit are the other products in the range, as specified on the carton.
     
   

It is not an use alone product. Got that ?

     
Diluted Product ?   For Fairness, it needs additional props. The carton say that. The major claim is diluted and undermined, not by you or I but by the makers of Fair & Lovely. No need to go into other points very minutely, if you have already got the message
     
One is a Bluff   15th August 2008: Lever's advertisement, perhaps in NDTV Imagine: Fair & Lovely is to be used for 4 weeks to become Fair and one can measure it by the Fairness Metre that they Supply. Does not this advertisement contradicts the message in the carton mentioned above - One is a deliberate bluff ?

 

Presenting incorrect / contradicting facts -  One Bluff or misguidance with facts - total truth in doubt ?
     
Msg in carton   New Fair & Lovely Multivitamin cream is enriched with a revolutionary Biovita complex - a combination of Vitamin B3, B6, C and E. See the results from its unique step-by-step process as fairness qualities build up week after week on your skin.
     
Msg in carton   Vitamins: Sodium Ascorbyl Phosphate [ provitamin C ], Tocopheryl Acetate [ Provitamin E ] and Pyridoxine hydrochloride [ provitamin B6 ] are used as per listed ingredients in the product.
     
    Provitamin is precursor to Vitamin and is not a Vitamin.

Biovita mentions of Vitamins but actually Pro Vitamins are used as per ingredients named

   

Even if functionality is assumed to be the same or nearly same, why use a wrong term ?

     
Pro V Shampoo?

New Doubt !

 

Lever rushed to claim that their Clinic Shampoo contains Pro V from 1991 onwards, before P & G settled down to introduce Head & Shoulders in 1992 or so - preempting a competitor, bigger than Lever, Worldwide as per my recollection of 2001 Sales figures.

Has Lever changed the Pro V in Clinic to the Present Biovita Pro V ? If not, why not ?

 

No Market Proof / Public figures to infer 'impact' of the product for 30 long years
     
Market view  

Fair & Lovely is in Indian Market since 1978. That is 30 years. If even a million packets were sold  per year, in these 30 years, nearly 30 Million Indians should be White / Fair ?  Seeing the impact, others would have rushed to Lever by 1980 and become Fair. Who gained ? Perhaps none !

So Lever  manufactures fresh bluffs to sell more of an ineffective product

     
Employees   Mr. Sundaram, Vice Chairman, HUL: He came on CNBC TV 18 on Friday, 24th October, to announce the 2nd Quarter results. He is black like a normal Tamilian. One of my seniors at IIM, Ahmedabad, left HUL to join Arvind Group. I saw him in 1993 after 25 years - he passed out in 1968. His colour had not changed even a fraction - leave alone 1 and 2 notches in a month that Lever advertises
     
Common Sense Plus - CSP   1 minute Clincher: Did any Indian prevent Hindustan Unilever in all these years from making a Fairness Soap so that Indians can become whiter. They do not yet make any such soap ! Why ? If the face can be whitened, so can the body. If not, not even the face.

 

Survey is a Sham - questionable validity
     
Msg in Parcel   ..'4 leading international creams selling the Indian market were rated by consumers in the study. To remove any bias, an independent laboratory based in Mumbai purchased all these creams from the market, and transferred the contents into unbranded white jars. Each cream was given unique code by the lab. The lab sent these samples to the field offices of a leading international market research firm. 

These field personnel gave each of these 4 creams to 200 Randomly selected female consumers selected from across socio economic groups and between the age of 18-40 years'.....

     
sample

size

  India is a country with 100 Crores plus Population. It must be above 20 Crores for the above age group. So, sample size of 200 is insignificant and statistically invalid. To extrapolate that results to the whole of the population is an exercise an imagination
     
    They chose to do that so clumsily, after 30 years, raises further doubts. Why they did not do it in the last 25 years and or with a large sample even now, is not clear. Is there something suspect ?

 

Sample size is also contradicted         'deliberately confusing the public'
     
Msg in Parcel   The  next paragraph says...'The study was conducted with 800 female consumers across socio economic groups, in the age group 18-40 yrs in India. The study was conducted in March 2008'
     
   

 Is it 200 or 800 ?  A self professed total truth Sayer starts with a lie / wrong statement !

 

Now to the shocking and despicable standard of Hindustan Unilever

 

They do not even remotely test 'Fairness Impact'. They are short changing the Public.

 

 Recheck below the features that they claim to have checked !   It is unfair

     
Msg in Parcel  
Parameters / Creams Cream 1  Fair & Lovely Cream 2  Cream 4
Overall Opinion 5.3 5.7 about 5.7 near 5.7
Purchase intention above 4.05 4.4 about 4.05 4.0
Gives me glowing skin near 4.1 above 4.3 near 4.1 4.0
suitable for my skin near 4.07 above 4.3 near 4.07 near 4.2
     
    some decimal points could be close approximations from the histograms, if not stated by Lever
     
You are Duped !  

 And they are providing to the public / buyers of Fair & Lovely, fairness meter. Can we trust them ?

 

Impact of Fair & Lovely / Product Test  - They are  joking at your cost and Time !
     
Msg in Parcel   'Each consumer used the cream placed with her for a period of 10 days. After 10 days, the field research personnel asked the product rating on a set of predefined parameters. These parameters included overall ones, as well as specific skincare attributes'
     
msg in carton   The Final Result: Total Fairness.  week 1- Fresh feel, Sun Protected bright look; week 2 - Soft and Smooth Glowing skin: week 3 - even toned radiance
     
   

Do you spot the cheap joke ? 

     
msg in carton   There is contradiction between the 2 sources of printed messages. The usage details in the carton mentions of likely benefits with 3 weeks use of the product - with others, if you read it

What can an user get in 10 days / One and Half weeks is not clear. Even the sham test should have been for a week or 2 and certainly not 10 days. It is a very innovative blunder. 

To my line of thinking, there is no honesty and ethics at all.  The Presentation does not seem to be worded to aid in decision making. Instead it lacks clarity and confuses the public / buyer - is it not a form of cheating ? They take the public for a ride brazenly

     
safety ?  

Are 10 days,  sufficient to assess the safety and suitability ?  Does it mean that a product which makes the skin fair / lighter in colour is more effective ? 

Perhaps in December 1996, Hindustan Lever / New Organics shampoo, hosted a Beauty Parlour owners meet. It was inaugurated by Ms Mrinilini Sarabhai. [ I wrote a letter to her against lending her name / presence to questionable products - refer below ]

There were stalls / counters to sell products to the public. I watched with dismay and shock, one company person applying a Fairness Cream on 25 years old lady's hand and demonstrating the 'fairness effect' in about 3 minutes. Bleaching agents can do that too

     
White wash

Simple fairness cream

  About 5% Titantium Dioxide is used in the Cream. And it is the strongest white pigment - over 5 times stronger than lime white wash, as per my recollection. Will not Titanium give whiteness ? 

Make a water washable dilute white paint. Garnish it with Vitamins and what have you. Spice it with Medical Terms. Shout from the Roof Top like Viru did in Sholay. Some will buy first, as you can note in any roadside show. Others will follow. Simple, is it not ?

 

Skewed Presentation -  deliberately misleading !
     
Products   ..'The 4 leading international creams included Fair & Lovely Multivitamin Total Fairness cream, Loreal Relightening Whitening Moisturising Day cream SPF 15, Olay Total Effects cream Normal SPF 15 and Olay White Radiance Day Cream SPF 24'... Are they
     
Results   Refer to the table above for assessment figures on the 4 parameters. There is only marginal difference between one product and another in each parameter and in the overall opinion
     
Misleading

Msg in Parcel

  The Histograms / pictorial rectangles for Fair & Lovely is presented in a steep slanting angle. The picture would show that Fair & Lovely is rated 50% better than other creams by the users, whereas the above figures confirm that the difference is just marginal. That is deliberate and intentional misguidance
     
conclusion

unbridled imagination

no support

  Average consumer panel rating on some of the key parameters of beautiful skin where Fair & Lovely was rated superior 99 out of 100 * times are shown below

* Interpretation of superiority at 99% significance of Fair & Lovely Multivitamin compared to leading international creams on overall opinion ....Interpretation methodology is not made clear. As the results do not show anything spectacular to me about Fair & Lovely, I think the interpretation is whimsical

     
    'for complete explanations and results on all cream,.........'please visit www.totaltruth.in' '....
    Is there any need ? Lever and Colgate are shameless liars, if you refer to Unfair practices

 

Comparative analysis - even that is a lie
     
Msg in Parcel:   ..'conducted in March 2008: These field personnel gave each of these 4 creams to 200 Randomly'..

If 200 persons were to use 4 creams, one after another, with a gap of 10 to 15 days, between one product and another, it would take 80 plus days.

And the survey was conducted in March / 31 days and not concluded in March 2008. That is too short a period to assess anything much

if each of these 4 creams were given 200 randomly and is meant 800 people, it is not a comparative analysis by them  as different people have used different samples

 

Other flaws / other views,  if you wish to know

 
Duping the Public - deliberate misinterpretations / misguidance / distortions / lies
     
Msg in Parcel   Neither Lever nor the Agency which conducted the Survey wanted any convenient or inconvenient answers about Fairness - they chose to avoid the issue of Fairness, even before the start. Why ?
     
    Every week, there is some benefit ?. The benefit gained in the first week is not stated to be wiped off in the second or third week.  Fresh feel, Sun Protected bright look that one gets in the first week itself, should get reinforced in 2nd, 3rd, 4th...10 week, nth week

 

Google results on 25-6-2008 at 1835 hours for Fair and Lovely
     
    The Hindustan Lever Research Centre (it is among the largest research establishments in India's private sector, including pharmaceutical companies, ... www.hul.co.in/brands/fairnlovely.asp - 36k 

Given this background, not trying to establish the product / claim scientifically, means that the product is basically weak. 

In Google or Yahoo search results, you can also find a link to another site critical of Fairness creams. That site by perhaps a Doctor / scientist mentions about the misuse of hydroquinone, the skin lightening material, side effects and long term safety

 

Special comments:   based on details just collected from browsing the net and needs editing / integration
    All details / quotes below are from an article by a Michigan University Professor
     
efficacy   Fair & Lovely is not a pharmaceutical product:  HUL has not been required to prove efficacy !
     
A Doctor's view   Dr R K Pandhi, head, Department of Dermatology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, says that he "has never come across a medical study that substantiated such claims [of whitening] -
     
safety   "Actually, these are drugs that are sold as cosmetics, to avoid legal control."  - view of  Anil Gangoo, president of Indian Association of Dermatologists, Venereologists and Leprologists
     
C.K.

Prahalad

  He seems to have concurred with HUL's contention that  "choice and economic empowerment for women" and that it is a product that is targeted at those at the "bottom of the pyramid". The justification of 'economic empowerment' does not seem logical. Say, if a poor person is fed for a day in a 5 star Hotel, does it empower / elevate him ? What about the next meal ?
     
skewed vision   Orators / men in positions of either influence, authority, power or all, get marooned in their own islands and suffer conclave vision - as most others keep mum,  as usual or by practice to be herds
     
The Counter   I wish that he had the guts to test out the product on himself [ he is a brownie ] and then certified it or asked Lever, whether they have collected any such proof of whitening. He does not seem to have done any such thing. And if he is a Director, he has the means / right to seek such a detail.

Instead he loudmouths a hyperbolic meaningless statement. Pinching the limited income of people at the bottom of the pyramid with a non functional / questionable product is disgusting cheapness.

I recollect the guts of a friend of mine, who is also a Professor in America, who threw away the Directorship of a family owned group, when an act of theirs clashed with ethical Corporate Governance. In IIMA parlance, Prahalad gabs a lot - practicse I am yet to see

 
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Last Modified: Dec 26, 2008:     Personal website of R. Ranganathan M.Sc., [ MBA - IIMA]