Don't Retouch Me
Don’t Retouch Me

I’m absolutely loving The Body Shop Instablur Campaign – all ages, all colours, all nations. And no retouching. It’s a simple fact that until we stop retouchimg we will always have a skewed view of what real beauty looks like.

Body Shop Campaign
Body Shop Campaign

The Body Shop’s campaign is pro-age, pro-ethnicity and pro-real women – and (sorry Body Shop), I have a feeling that these women would look pretty much the same without Instablur. Maybe a little less softened, because that’s what Instablur does – gives a temporary softness to the look of the skin – but other than that, they’re just natural, radiant women not photo-shopped versions of themselves.

Boots also did a campaign using ‘real women’ although the ‘real women’ term is ridiculous, and Superdrug too, have dispensed with air-brushing, so little by little, we’re getting there. It’s these little drops in the ocean, if they’re kept up, that will gradually change the shape – and look – of what beauty means for generations ahead. That’s not to say there isn’t a long way to go – there is – look at what Lancome did to Lupita Nyong’o – airbrushed more or less into plastic, but you know, baby steps. 

The lure of the filter is often just too hard to resist – I use Instagram and almost always put a ‘kindly’ filter on it before I send out a selfie (which isn’t often I must admit) and I can’t, in all honesty, swear I won’t use filters in the future. I take a rotten photograph on every level so they’re more of an attempt to make it look like a better picture than to eradicate any lines. But if we can fast-forward to a future where filters and photo-shop looks weird, not desirable, then campaigns like Boots, Superdrug and The Body Shop will have changed the game entirely.

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