When Shilpa Shetty, the Bollywood actress, was verbally abused in Big Brother this year she provoked taunts from housemates for bleaching her face.

Using skin-whitening cream is a daily routine for millions of Indian women. The market for such products in India is the world’s largest, worth £142 million a year. For most, it is an introduction to cosmetics. Many go no further. Make-up is still frowned upon in traditional families, in which highlighting one’s physical attributes is deemed inappropriate.

But economic liberalisation and an influx of foreign ideas mean attitudes towards beautification are changing. With more disposable income and independence, Indian women want, and can buy, the best Western cosmetic brands.

India’s newfound economic confidence has also led to a greater sense of cultural pride. White no longer equals beautiful, as the advertising industry in India, until recently, would have had consumers believe.

In 2003 Hindustan Lever, part of the Unilever group, was forced — under pressure from women’s rights groups — to withdraw its advertisements that urged young women to wash away their dark skin to land a boyfriend and be happy.

Now it focuses on female empowerment and education to market its Fair & Lovely bleaching cream, bought by 60 million people. It is this “Indianness”, strengthened by women returning from the West, that cosmetics firms hope to tap into by offering products that accentuate natural skin tone rather than trying to hide it.

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