Dove's evolution of beauty?

I'm going to write about advertising this time, and my two paisa views on a current campaign. In case you haven't seen it yet, this is a Dove commercial from 2006.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U (here's the link if you don't see it playing below)


Dove for a while has been talking about real women and real beauty. In most of their advertisements globally, be it either print or television, they have successfully represented the majority of women ie, the non model ordinary looking, overweight, freckled, dark, black, anorexic.They have remained true to their idea of 'real inner beauty'.

But- why not in India? Out here Dove ads display beautiful milky white clear skinned models with flawlessly airbrushed faces. Take the current Dove Shampoo tv commercial for example, or the current print ads that contain testimonials of 'real' women in India who just ALL happen to be 'fair and lovely' as well? The farthermost they have gone is putting a pair of spectacles on one of their models, and that's as close to 'real' as they seem to get. These pale photo- shopped faces do not represent even a fraction of women in India. Not even close. Just the cream of the crop. Dusky can still be beautiful.Will they ever have the guts to show a fat and dark south Indian woman? Ever? Let's see for ourselves:

Dove's international 'Real beauty' campaign:

Dove India's 'Real beauty' campaign: See the difference? So why the double standards? Is it because India is still obsessed with the notion of fair= beautiful? I don't think so. I think the Indian audience is slowly evolving. And so should Dove in their advertising. Honestly right now Dove's perception of beauty in India is quite distorted.

My sunny balcony

Amidst this noisy polluted concrete- jungle city, four friends came together and decided to bring in a little sunshine into our lives. Thus was born - Mysunnybalcony.com, a project that brings us our own little garden right outside our window.

'Doing up' a balcony is a concept still alien to us urban professionals, we have just about gotten into the aesthetics of interior designing tiny apartments. Gone are the days of sprawling lawns, gardens maintained by 'maalis' with their watering cans, or plucking fresh ladyfingers and tomatoes from our backyard! Heck.. it's hard enough to maintain a potted orchid, a money plant is the only way to get a spot of green home for some of us.

Now you have a number you can call and watch your bare grilled waste of space transform to a sweet sunny balcony. So snuggle up in that cane chair with a book in your own private garden, a fountain gurgling away in the background. Sundays..lazy sundays...


Quoting from their website..."Any space that receives even a little bit of sunlight is a potential MySunnyBalcony space: A tiny unusable patch outside your front door, an ugly terrace on your roof, or even a back balcony in your your high rise apartment. It doesn’t matter how high up or small your space is, we’ll work with it. We’ll also tell you what you can do and what you can’t. You’ll be surprised at the immense number of green possibilities that even a tiny amount of space can hold!"

Take your pick...designer, zen, colorful or just a green veggie patch, or an idea of a cute terrace garden you've always had, but didn't know how or never had the time to go about executing it, mysunnybalcony is your one stop shop for custom made balconies home delivered! Kudos to Reena and her pals, and here's wishing them all the best on their new venture.


Make sure you check out their website for more pictures and ideas for your space. http://www.mysunnybalcony.com/

Home sweet home :D

We finally finished doing up the interiors of our new place, and if I may say so myself, it looks fab! Here's a sneak peek

http://www.flickr.com/photos/floydgal/sets/72157621816290971/

Loose Ends

I had heard and read a lot about this accessory shop in Bandra called 'Loose Ends', and been looking forward to making this trip for a while now. We set out on a wet Sunday afternoon, and after around twenty minutes of driving up and down looking for 'BEAS society' mentioned in the address, frustrated when our google map on the iphone that totally led us to the wrong place. But nevertheless, we found it, tucked away at the end of a narrow street, in a dilapidated garage.

I expected the shop to be a lot bigger but it was sweet and tiny, and they did have a delightful range of home accessories. I particularly loved the smaller things like matchboxes with kitschy indian pop designs, the plastic handbags, and wall clocks. Our new house was in desperate need of a clock, so we got a neat vintage looking one for the study. Along with it I picked up a tiny graphic- print handbag, just like that.


I'm a huge fan of the 'Happily Unmarried' range of products and I was delighted to see the whole stock. I have them all, the Gabbar shot glasses, the sardarji lassi tumbler, the wine bottle lamp, and now I have the tea- coffee- sugar tin box set to add to the collection. Winding up our trip nicely in time to get back home for some nice hot chai!


Hey I almost forgot about the fridge magnet we picked up. It reads 'I don't have an anger problem. I have an idiot problem'