Fair & Lovely is a skin-lightening cosmetic product of Hindustan Unilever introduced to the market in India in 1975. Fair & Lovely is available in India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and other parts of Asia and is also exported to other parts of the world such as the West, where they are sold in Asian supermarkets.
Unilever patented the brand Fair & Lovely in 1971 after the patenting of niacinamide, a melanin suppressor, which is the cream's main active ingredient. As of 2012 the brand occupied 80% of the fairness cream market in India, and is one of Hindustan Unilever's most successful cosmetics lines.
The target consumer profile for Fair & Lovely is the 18 and above age group, and the bulk of the users are in the age 21-35 category, though there is evidence that girls as young as 12-14 also use the cream. Hindustan Unilever Limited research claims that “90 percent of Indian women want to use whiteners because it is aspirational, like losing weight. A fair skin is like education, regarded as a social and economic step up."