The hair was flying in Paris yesterday as cosmetics giant L’Oreal came under scrutiny for a ‘questionable’ print advertisement. The ad at the center of all this commotion features the lovely, but ‘lighter skinned’ Beyonce Knowles promoting the Brands Feria Hair Color Line.

Speculation surrounds the intentions behind Beyonce’s lighter appearance in the ad – was is it the lighting used in the photo shoot or was it an intentional move to make Beyonce look less ethnic and more ‘white’?. “We highly value our relationship with [Beyonce]. It is categorically untrue that L’Oreal Paris altered [her] features or skin tone in the campaign for Feria hair color” remarked the Paris-based company on Thursday.

The ad will be published in the September issues of Elle, Allure and Essence Magazines. Surely not the last we’ll hear about this scandal, we hope that this has been an unintentional mishap involving the lighting used at the photo shoot and not the opposite.

Good God man, it doesn’t get any hotter than Beyonce – why would anyone want to change that natural beauty?