Vaseline Skin-Lightening Facebook Application Sparks Debate

Vaseline is making it easier to make yourself fairer on Facebook. However, the brand’s new face-whitening application in India has sparked an online controversy and pushed the issue of skin color out into the spotlight.

Vaseline has made a new application for users on Facebook to promote its fairness cream for men. What is more interesting is what the application actually does. It enables users to digitally whiten their profile pictures and remove dark spots — an idea that has evoked a largely negative response in the blogosphere since news of the app and Vaseline’s new lightening line broke this week. Using the app, users can make the skin tone on their profile pics a few shades lighter so that they can “preview” their look should they become fairer after using the cream. The page already has 500 plus fans.

“Vaseline’s latest marketing campaign, largely targeted at south Asia but accessible globally, will probably make you uncomfortable,” The Atlantic columnist Alexis Madrigal wrote. “Modern humans’ desire to make their skin darker or lighter is a rather icky reminder of the pigment-o-cracy that exists in many countries.”

Colorism remains a pivotal issue in India and many major US companies marke lines of skin-lightening creams to residents dedicated to this goal. In fact, the skin-lightening market in India takes in an estimated $500 million annually. Sales of products for men grew by 25 percent last year and by 17 percent for women. Vaseline has roped in popular Bollywood actor Shahid Kapoor — a far cry from being dark-skinned — to promote the cream, to the outrage of some Indians.

“The adverts play with the minds of men,” Radhakrishnan Nair, editor of Indian men’s magazine MW told AFP Thursday. “The message they send is: ‘If you have fair skin, you will get a good job, a promotion and a beautiful and faithful wife,” he explained.