Can We Talk Retouching?

I am a fierce advocate of the beauty business and I hate it when manufacturers come under fire for making false advertising claims or are criticised for airbrushing the models in their ads. Just recently beauty giants Olay and Lancôme have been attacked in newspapers for retouching the famous faces in their print advertisements. First the media pounced upon the gorgeous age defying Kim Cattrall when she appeared in US ads for Olay saying that she didn’t look like she does in real life, then just last week they did the same with ads that Kate Winslet featured in for Lancôme.

 

But can we get a couple of things straight here. The beauty business is not the only industry to retouch. What about the iconic pictures of Annie Lebowiz or Rankin, or the celebrity campaigns for Louis Vuitton with an unrecognisable JLO, Madonna and January Jones for Versace and fresh faced Emma Watson in Burberry? Images have been retouched since the Hollywood heyday back in the 1940’s. And today every single ad, fashion magazine spread and even food editorial is airbrushed to some extent, so why is it just the beauty biz that comes under fire?

 

Somehow retouching is seen as a wicked collusion between a celebrity and the cosmetics company. But it isn’t. First no celebrity ever had a ‘Do not airbrush me’ clause put into their contract; I mean who would want the hairs up their nose, blood shots eyes, flyaway hair, spider veins and occasional break out seen on a twenty foot billboard or spread in Vogue? If they have great agents instead they will insist on final image approval. So I wonder if Kate got to see her ads before they were released?

 

Done sensitively airbrushing should simply clean up the minor flaws that stand out like a major disaster when seen in print, although I admit it is often heavy handed to the point that skin becomes so surreally perfect it looks obviously fake. Secondly research shows time and time again that, although as consumers we might gawp at unretouched pictures of celebrities when they are leaked on websites or in gossip mags, we do not want to see them in our glossy magazines. We want escapism; a serene picture of supposed perfection even though we know it isn’t real.

 

The problem is never highlighted when models are retouched, so why celebrities? Because we can compare the before and after that’s why? We know what Kate Winslet looked like in The Reader and, trust me, it wasn’t anything like the perfectly coiffured and made up goddess in the Lancôme ads. But that is a good thing. It speaks of the power of make-up, lighting, hair styling and soft focus camera work to transform. It allows us, just for a moment, to believe that we too could be transformed from school run to runway in the same way. And aren’t we all airbrush savvy, intelligent consumers? When we buy a Burberry Mac we know that we won’t suddenly look like lithe Emma Watson in it. Just as when we buy makeup or skin care we know we won’t end up with the skin of Kate or Kim. The power of the celebrity sell is that we hope that a little of their je ne sais quoi will rub off on us.

 

And the good news is that airbrushing and retouching is out in the open. Britney Spears leaked unretouched pictures of herself in a Candies ad last year and Kate Winslet has spoken openly about her anger at having her body made to appear thinner on a magazine cover. This is important as it allows women everywhere to realise that they will never look like a retouched image.

 

So congratulations to MakeUp Forever a US makeup company beloved by professional makeup artists, who have just released their first unretouched ad. What do you think? It looks like a picture from a great night out with girlfriends, and might just start a new trend for unretouched advertising to make a comeback. But, as I look at the image, my eye goes not to her face but to her outstretched arm and the skin pulled in an unflattering way. I can’t help it, all of our brains are wired that way, to scan an image and then focus on uneven textures and tones. Does this detract from the makeup? I wonder, can we really face up to the reality of the way our icons look, flaws and all?