The British-Dutch company also faced major flak for an advertising campaign attacking the Hindu pilgrimage site at Kumbh Mela, calling it a "place where old people get abandoned,"[5][6] a move that was termed racist and insensitive.

[3] In December 2018 HUL announced its acquisition of GlaxoSmithKline India's consumer business for US$3.8 billion in an all-equity merger deal with a 1:4.39 ratio.

[14]In 2001 a thermometer factory in Kodaikanal run by Hindustan Unilever dumped glass contaminated with mercury in C. Raj Kumar, and selling it on to scrap merchants unable to deal with it appropriately.

[17] After protest by activists led by Deepak Malghan of the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore Hindustan Unilever admitted before court to being guilty in the case in 2010.

Advertisements depicted depressed, dark-complexioned women, who had been ignored by employers and men, suddenly finding new boyfriends and glamorous careers after the cream had lightened their skin.

[21] In 2008, Hindustan Unilever made former Miss World Priyanka Chopra a brand ambassador for Pond's,[22] and she then appeared in a mini-series of television commercials for another skin lightening product, 'White Beauty', alongside Saif Ali Khan and Neha Dhupia; these advertisements, showing Priyanka's face with a clearly darker complexion against the visibly fairer Neha Dhupia, were widely criticised for perpetuating racism[23] and lowering the self-esteem of women and girls throughout India who were misled by HUL to believe that they needed to be white to be beautiful.

Several academic papers have pointed out the firm's continued use of the antibacterial agent Triclosan ('Active B') in India because it is under review by the American Food and Drug Administration (US FDA).

[27] The Institute of Competitiveness, India, recognized Hindustan Unilever Limited's Project Shakti for ‘Creating Shared Value’ and gave the company the Porter Prize for 2014.

[30] In a 2015 Nielsen campus track-business school survey, Hindustan Unilever was among the top employers of choice for B-school students graduating that year.