Fairness Creams

Fairness products or fairness creams are a term used to describe skin lighteners and brighteners in the Asian market. If you actually examine the ingredients of a skin fairness cream, you will notice that it is either just a regular skin brightener, antioxidant treatment or sunscreen. If you don't know the distinction between skin brighteners and skin lighteners, you can read my blog post on the subject matter.

Some of the most popular fairness creams/products are Fair & Lovely, Fair Glow cream, Fairever and Neutrogena Fine Fairness. There are definitley more, but those are the well known and most established ones. A lot of times, these fairness creams are best known for their silly and ridiculous commercials.

Fair & Lovely is actually a brand that has several product lines within it. There is a Fair & Lovely Ayurvedic blend (herbal, botanical formula) which has a host of ingredients that are supposed to be ancient melanin inhibitors (...that's what they claim lol). There is also a Fair & Lovely specifically designed for male skin. The Fair & Lovely Multi-Vitamin Formula seems to be their most well-known, and it's basically just a mild niacinamide (Vitamin B3) topical with Vitamin E and a few derivatives of Vitamin A and C. It also has built-in sun protection, which I assume has quite low PPD (UVA protection). Most of these fairness creams like Fair & Lovey utilize zinc oxide or titanium dioxide, which are great physical sun block ingredients, but they are definitley lower in the PPD scale in comparison to mexoyrl or tinsorb.

Fairever is another fairness cream that has licorice extract (botanical lightener), niacinamide and saffron milk (not a skin lightening agent). They also carry a new fruit cream with some mild concentrations of AHA and papaya extract.

Probably out of all the fairness creams, Neutrogena Fine Fairness (Asian exclusive, however can be found at most Asian beauty stores, or online) is the best.  You can learn more about Fine Fairness by checking out their official weblink. It utilizes stabilized Vitamin C (though not L-ascorbic acid), soy, portulaca (anti-inflammatory) and ofcourse niacinamide. What I like most about Fine Fairness is their added sun protection is actually quite good and stable (has Helioplex, which is stabilized avobenzone). The niacinamide content of Neutrogena Fine Fairness is supposed to be around 4% or 5% (have read two different statements, though I don't know the actual number. It's somewhere between that range).

Neutrogena Fine Fairness has a cleanser, toner and a Brightening UV WaterLight Lotion SPF50 (actually pretty solid sunscreen), and a skin whitening mask. They don't have a serum like most fairness products, but the mask is pre-soaked in a concentrated amount of niacinamide. I've read some pretty good reviews about this mask, and definitley looks worth it. Like with most Asian masks, it comes in the sheet-style mask much like the one I discussed in my DIY Vitamin C Lightening Mask.

My verdict on these fairness creams are that they are usually nothing more than sunscreens with some added benefit in skin brightening, with the exception of Neutrogena Fine Fairness. Though that itself is in essence just a skin brightening line, the niacinamide content in that line is pretty impressive. Their mask and sunscreen are inexpensive compared to US brand or European brand skin brightening products, so there is a greater incentive to purchase this than those ones.

The antioxidant element in them is really low, and they never carry the correct form of Vitamin C, or Vitamin E - and even if they did it probably would become unstable very quickly due to the packaging of these creams and serums.

With Fair & Lovely and Fairever, a lot of times their 'results' are a result of high amounts of mica or titanium dioxide which gives the illusion of a brighter, lighter appearence but really it's just the uncoated minerals.

Neutrogena Fine Fairness is probably the only decent 'skin fairness' treatment option in my opinion. Their sunscreen is good for everyday use, and their mask is worth looking into solely for the niacinamide content.
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