Skin Care Co. Vaseline Launches Skin Lightening Facebook Application for India

Skin care giant Vaseline launched a new application for Facebook India that automatically lightens the skin color of users' profile pictures. The application is to promote their new face lightening cream for men called Vaseline Be Prepared.

Counteracting another skin care company's mantra from Olay which says, "Love the skin you're in," Vaseline asserts that you should and can "Transform Your Face on Facebook with Vaseline Men."

The ad features Bollywood actor Shahid Kapur with his face halved; one side is five shades lighter than the other and the slogan next to it reads, "People see your face first."

Apparently the ad campaign has been a success according to Pankaj Parihar of ad conglomerate Omnicom who designed the ad.

"We started campaign advertising (for the application) from the second week of June and the response has been pretty phenomenal," he said.

Their campaign works on the premise that lighter skin is sexier, tapping into the Indian cultural stigma that a lighter skin tone reflects a higher caste.

"More and more, there's an anxiety in the mind of men about having fair skin," said sociology professor T. K. Oommen from the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. "Indians believe that if you have fair skin you belong to the higher caste, the Brahmins."

This may be attributed to the fact that India has been colonized by foreign rule -- all with light skin including the Aryans, the French and the British, which could have reinforced the negative stigma of darker skin. Proof: In 2009, an online dating site called Shaadi.com released a poll taken of nearly 12,000 people in the northern Indian states who said skin tone was the most important criteria in choosing a spouse.

Vaseline for women doesn't stop at just lightening the face, but the body too. Promoting the product, Vaseline Healthy White Body Milk, the Vaseline India homepage asks women, "Four out of 5 women believe their body is darker than their face. Are you one of them?"

Whether the Vaseline Facebook application is controversial or not, it has garnered over 500 fans creating both a fan base with users proclaiming, "My face looks like Shahid" and those calling the company "racist." A counteract Facebook group called "India against fairness creams!" asks the Indian government to ban skin-whitening products saying that they perpetuate racism and negative ideologies by asserting that Indians need these products to be beautiful.

In another Facebook status update, Vaseline wrote, "VASELINE MEN doesn't transform you. It unleashes what is hidden under your skin."

Whatever the word choice, lighter skin has been a global obsession for centuries -- seen in our own country with Michael Jackson as its unfortunate poster boy and skin bleaching becoming a cause for public outcry. However, the fact of the matter is that skin care companies would only make what consumers would purchase. Vaseline isn't the only company jumping onto this skin-whitening gold mine with L'Oreal, Garnier and Nivea all boasting skin-lightening products of their own. The negative perception of darker skin tones is a battle fought in all cultures including ours. What do you think, should these skin-whitening products be banned?

By Sharon J. Yi