Unilever Builds a Facebook App To Help Indians Whiten Their Skin

by Te-Ping Chen · 2010-07-13 12:39:00 UTC
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If this was a joke, it'd be a pretty sick one. But yes, it turns out that the skin care company Vaseline (owned by multinational Unilever) has actually launched a Facebook application that will help India's social media mavens whiten their skin. In profile photos, that is.

The Facebook app — which helps users fade out any offending pigmentation in their complexions — advertises the bleached-white features of Bollywood actor Shahid Kapur. It's designed to promote Vaseline's skin-lightening creams for men, and so far, according to the advertisement's architects, response has been "pretty phenomenal."

This isn't the first time Unilever has drawn serious controversy for its less-than-discreet attempts to market the virtues of white skin in India. Back in 2008, for example, the multinational tried to hawk a skin-whitening product called "White Beauty." In India, skin-whitening creams are extremely popular, accounting for fully 60% of nationwide cosmetic sales.

But while Unilever's aggressive advertising has attracted extra scrutiny, it's hardly the only company to peddle skin-bleaching creams in India — other foreign brands selling such products include Garnier, L'Oreal and Nivea.

Skin-whitening cream manufacturers may be selling a particularly dubious vision of beauty, but the effects of their products can be still more damaging than that. As Caitlin's blogged here before, in many developing world countries where these creams are in vogue, such products are nearly unregulated. Even in the U.S. and the U.K., tests have found that commonly sold skin-lightening creams contain enough mercury to cause serious kidney damage, as well as the thinning of the skin and heightened risk of cancer.

And that's not even getting into the financial burden such ideals of beauty impose, often on those who can least afford them: in China alone, the skin-lightening industry is valued at some $7 billion.

Vaseline touts the motto, "Keeping Skin Amazing." That's a fine corporate motto, but apparently for Unilever, one that's applied only to selective colors of skin.

Photo Credit: nickgraywfu

Te-Ping Chen Te-Ping Chen is a freelance writer and U.S. Truman Scholar whose writing has appeared in the Nation Magazine, the South China Morning Post magazine, Le Soir, and Slate.com.

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