he old fair and lovely script is being rewritten - with men in mind. It's the age of the metrosexual male after all, and if beauty soaps can have male models, then why not fairness creams exclusively for men? Emami was first off the block to get closet male fairness cream user out into the open with its Fair & Handsome skin lightening cream, but HLL has now hit back with Fair & Lovely (FAL) MenzActive. Launched this month, the tag line for the product says, '3-way fairness treatment for rough & tough skin.'

Last summer, when Emami launched its men's fairness cream, all the big players in the Rs 700 crore fairness products market in India admitted that at least 25 per cent of their users were male. Recent surveys put the figure at 32 per cent. ... more