Tamannaah's Mysore Sandal soap opera

Kannada cinema has plenty of worthy stars — Rachita Ram, Ashika Ranganath, even younger actors with genuine grassroots fan bases. This was a golden chance to turn a beauty campaign into a love letter to Kannada pride. Instead, it feels like Karnataka borrowed a prom queen to walk its heritage carpet. Pretty, yes. But personal? Not quite.

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Why is everybody frothing at the mouth over a bar of soap originating from South India, you ask.

Because this isn’t just any soap — it’s Mysore Sandal. A century-old cultural icon born under royal patronage, bathed in Kannada pride, and now scrubbed clean of local representation in favour of a pan-India celebrity endorsement.

The Karnataka government recently signed Tamannaah Bhatia — a glamorous, non-Kannadiga Bollywood actor — as the face of this heritage, state-owned brand in a Dh2.75 million deal, and social media has worked itself into a frenzy.

According to India Today, the move was meant to broaden the soap’s market appeal beyond Karnataka. But what it’s really done is ignite a conversation about regional pride, representation, and whether marketing has become too tone-deaf to read the room — or in this case, the bath.