Rochester company partners with Vaseline on ‘See My Skin’ website

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WHEC) — Vaseline has developed a new website for people of color using technology developed right here in Rochester that allows you to search skin conditions and connect with dermatologists more experienced in treating black and brown skin.

If you develop a skin rash, you might go straight to the internet to see if you can figure out what it might be.

“In internet searches, only 6% of the images of rashes on the skin is in dark skin, 94% is in white skin so if you’re a patient of color, you’re not going to find what you need,” explained Dr. Art Papier, the CEO of VisualDx.

VisualDx, based in Rochester, has developed one of the largest collections of medical images in the world.

“It’s both light-skinned, Asian skin, dark skin, African American skin… images come in from around the world,” explained Dr. Papier.

Typically, hospitals and doctor’s offices license the technology to use as a reference in the exam room but, “we created software now that allows our technology to be embedded in other websites or other applications so, Vaseline has taken our technology and used it to create this new website,” Dr. Papier said.

SeeMySkin.com launched this week and in addition to its partnership with VisualDx to show skin conditions on black and brown skin, Vaseline is also connecting users to culturally competent dermatologists.

Dr. Nana Duffy is a dermatologist in Rochester that is part of that network.

“I feel grateful that I was trained to recognize different conditions and little nuances about skin of color but not everyone has that luxury,” she told News10NBC.

Dr. Duffy said this is really full circle too because she often pulls up the VisualDx database when talking with her patients.

“When you can show them not just one but five, 10, 15, 25 images of a skin condition on skin of color, then the anxiety goes down because they understand they are not alone.”