Bipasha Basu Pens a Powerful Note On ‘Dusky’ Actor Journey

As Hindustan Unilever, on Thursday, said that it will drop the word "fair" from its skin-lightening cream Fair & Lovely, Bipasha Basu penned a powerful note to Instagram on Friday as she spoke about the adjective ‘dusky’ that has been used to describe her since childhood. She also congratulated the brand Fair and Lovely for their new approach of being more inclusive and dropping ‘Fair’ from the product.

The actress, who has entertained fans for nearly two decades, revealed how she was referred to as a dusky beauty but was proud and confident since childhood.

Bipasha Basu shared a Post:

Bipasha detailed her journey from being a model to being a successful film actor but said that the colour of her skin was always a topic of discussion. The actor began her Instagram note by saying that even as a child, her distant relatives discussed her ‘dusky’ complexion. As she won the supermodel contest, newspapers described her as the ‘dusky girl from Kolkata’. She wrote, “I wondered again, why dusky is my first adjective? (sic)” Upon her travels to New York and Paris for modelling assignments, Basu said her “skin colour was exotic there” and she “got more work and attention because of it.”

My skin colour didn’t define me:

Even when she made her debut in Bollywood with the 2001 film Ajnabee, she was loved and accepted by the masses, but she was still labelled as the “dusky girl”. “But the adjective stayed which I started liking and loving by then. Dusky girl wows the audiences in her debut film (sic),” she shared. The Raaz actor said that as her career progressed, her “duskiness seemed to be the main discussion,” which apparently attributed to her “sex appeal.” “I never really understood this. To me, sexy is the personality, not just the colour of your skin. Why my skin colour only sets me apart from the conventional actresses at that time? But that’s the way it was. I didn’t really see much of difference but I guess people did (sic),” she wrote. Bipasha added, “My skin colour didn’t define me, even though I love it and wouldn’t want it to be any different ever.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/CB4iGuCjjlE/?utm_source=ig_embed

Bipasha Basu then said that through her almost two-decade career, she has been offered various endorsements for skincare products, but she always stuck to her principles. She concluded, “Many skin care endorsements with loads of money were offered to me in the last 18 years (some were very tempting), but I stuck to my principle always. All this needs to stop.

This wrong dream that we are selling, that only fair is lovely and beautiful when the majority of the country is brown skinned. It’s a deep-rooted stigma. It’s a mammoth step from the brand, and other brands should follow in the same footsteps soon.”

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