Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are fending off backlash for a partnership they engaged in with a beauty care line that peddles skin-whitening creams – which many have raised their eyebrows at considering the pair are stout anti-racism advocates, reports said on Monday.

After the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced final week that they landed a deal with Procter & Gamble (P&Yard), the manufacturer of the pop and frequently-controversial Olay line of skin management and lightening creams a former executive with the visitor criticized the motion in an interview with The Mirror.

"Meghan has talked a lot about the event of race and racism, and so this does stick out like a sore thumb," Alex Malouf, a onetime Procter & Adventure executive, told the publication.

The "global partnership" with P&G was established to "build more compassionate communities," and according to the Daily Mail service, the Olay brand currently sells the "White Radiance" moisturizer in India, Singapore and Malaysia.

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Many skin-lightening creams tout the product's ability to mitigate the production of natural melanin, which gives pare its diverse levels of pigmentation.

Throughout the years, loud critics have called for such products to be removed from shelves, arguing that the creams promote the colorist notion that pigmented skin is in some way in need of lightening.

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An investigation into Johnson & Johnson'south Neutrogena Fine Fairness Overnight Brightening Cream conducted by Buzzfeed concluding yr forced the company to drop the skincare line which was readily bachelor in Asia and the Middle East.

The foam includes "white lily extract" to accomplish "long lasting fairness" and according to the make's website, "restores skin'due south natural whitening power," the outlet reported at the fourth dimension.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle'due south Archewell Foundation has launched a partnership with Procter & Gamble. (Getty Images)

After much pushback the company elected to discontinue the Fine Fairness line "based on conversations with retailers" only added that that the product "uses a retinol formula to lighten stubborn night spots — information technology does not bleach the skin."

The brand further announced on Instagram in June 2020 that it would donate $200,000 to the NAACP and Blackness Lives Thing and maintained, "Nosotros accept a responsibility to use our voice to speak upward confronting systemic racism."

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Meanwhile, L'Oreal Grouping has also appear plans to remove the terms "white/whitening," "off-white/fairness" and "light/lightening" from its product names and other companies similar Unilever said they program to rename its "Fair & Lovely" product taglines.

P&Chiliad is also known for owning brands such equally Crest, Oral B, Gillette, Pampers and Tampax.

Nina Davuluri, who was the first Indian American to win Miss America, has argued that the creams promote a "racist" credo "that you lot need white skin to be beautiful, you need white skin to be successful."

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Furthermore, Joanne Rondilla, a professor at San Jose State University, pressed that the Sussexes should accept used their "responsibleness" to address the concerns about the production with the company.

"It was of import for [Meghan} to bring upward these issues of colorism," she told the Daily Mail of the Sussex's bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey in which they raised racism concerns within the royal palace. "I don't think this partnership advances that conversation," she added.