Examining regional beauty standards through Photoshop

Buzzfeed's content has been going downhill lately, but this post is a refreshing exception. It tells the story of Esther Honig, a self-described "human interest reporter" based in Kansas City.

Ms. Honig sent her raw portrait (above) to 40 people in 25 different countries with one simple request: "make me beautiful."

Here a few results:

Germany (via Buzzfeed)

Morocco (Via Buzzfeed)

India (1 of 3, via Buzzfeed)

USA (1 of 2, via Buzzfeed)

It's interesting to note that while several PSers lightened her skin, few darkened it much. The participants were not all professionals. Hired through Fiverr, an international freelancing website, they were each paid a maximum of $30 for the work. Some of the results are quite weird. And there is no indication whether the "artist" was male or female.

What are we to take from this? Ms. Honig leaves it up to the viewer, simply stating that "each one is a reflection of both the personal and cultural concepts of beauty that pertain to their creator." But cycling through all the images at her site is both fascinating and disturbing.

Check out the whole project, "Before and After," here.

Rubenesque beauties in need of cosmetic surgery?

Neither does cynicism, apparently. At least when it comes to surgically imposing beauty standards.

Ad by Brandbox Branding & Creative, Uzbekistan.

Via Ads of The World

Dove provides yet another new perspective on beauty

Dove Canada would like you to think twice about your perception of beauty. 

According to their Newswire release, the ads "spark a conversation around how extreme re-touching of images can go unnoticed and can distort a woman's perception of beauty." 

It also adds, "ATTENTION PHOTO EDITORS:  Image provided should be run upside down to deliver full impact of campaign."

But since turning non-mobile computers upside down to decode a print ad is rather awkward, here it is:

Her eyes and mouth had been digitally flipped so that they looked normal when you saw them upside down, but when you turned... yikes!

Inversion illusions are not new to advertising, and were once even used to make dirty jokes:

Here's an example of the same trick: (You may recognize the smile)

Dove's campaign leads to  their Canadian Facebook page, where they hope to engage girls in a more positive discussion about beauty. "The Real Truth About Beauty Research",  conducted by Dove, found that only 9% of Canadian girls (10-17) and 3% of women are comfortable calling themselves beautiful.

And to add a little cross-mojination to my blog, here's that ad run through the Ugly Meter I blogged about earlier:

Oh, my!

Tip via Because I Am A Girl Canada

Beauty and the beastly business of quantifying it

The speed and temporary nature of social media feeds lead to some interesting contrasts.

In my Facebook newsfeed yesterday, I first took note of a Design Taxi link posted by Marc from Osocio about "The World’s Scientifically Most Beautiful Woman".

Here she is:

18-year-old student Florence Colgate has the most naturally perfect face, according to a British lifestyle show's nationwide search.

“Florence has all the classic signs of beauty,” Carmen Lefèvre, of The Perception Lab at the University of St Andrews’ School of Psychology, told The Daily Mail. “She has large eyes, high cheekbones, full lips and a fair complexion. Symmetry appears to be a very important cue to attractiveness.”

Along with — apparently — blonde hair, blue eyes and light, unblemished skin.

I won't even get into the Nordicism of all this. (The Mail actually called her "'Britain's most beautiful face".) There have been enough blogposts about that issue already. I'm more interested in the parts that sociobiologists have tried to rationalize.

For example, symmetry is seen as a sign of good genes and good health. Maladaptive mutations, as well as childhood disease and injury, can affect symmetry. It's seen as a way to advertise good health and disease resistance — in other words, that person is a good source of healthy babies.

The other features are ethnically specific. Blonde hair and big blue eyes are what are known as "neoteny" — that is, babylike features kept into adulthood. All humans are very neotenic apes, retaining our round-headed juvenile chimp features throughout our lives.

Via pbase

The loss of pigment that gave northern people lighter skin is also an adaptive mutation to absorb more vitamin D from less sun exposure. I personally believe that lightening of skin and eyes in parts of those populations came along for the ride, then got amplified by sexual selection because youth is attractive.

But Darwin I ain't.

The other link I was going to mention was actually directly above Marc's "beauty" link. It was a CBC story titled, "Ugly Meter app worries cyber bullying activists"

A smartphone app allows users to assess their own symmetry based on some unknown standards. It's like "Hot or Not", but without the subjectivity of human feedback.

According to uglymeter.net:

"How ugly are you? For over 3 million users, Ugly Meter has been the go-to iPhone App that won’t lie when it comes to determining how attractive or ugly you are. Just snap a picture of yourself (or someone else) in the app and hit the scan button. The Ugly Meter will scan your face and determine just how ugly you are and dispense advice accordingly. Ugly Meter then allows you to post the results to Facebook or Twitter."

I wonder about the ethnic standards of beauty behind this, too. Although my own northern Euro ancestry doesn't seem to have helped much:

I blame the lighting.

I tried a few more times, and found that the insults got pretty creative.

To test the baseline, I tried scanning a screenshot of Miss Colgate:

Clearly, the creators of this app and the people behind the British talent search read the same books. Or something.

But then what happens when I scan a head-on glamour pic of Iman, a woman so ethereally beautiful, she got David Bowie to settle down:

I must have held the camera funny. I'll try again:

Ummm...

But hey, there was nothing scientific about this (mostly because I don't have all day to fart around with my iPhone). If you don't mind giving them your 99¢, you can find out for yourself what "beautiful" really means.

(I'll update this post with more scans, as I get a chance.)

Adriana Lima

Grace Park

George Clooney (a reader request by Rachel)

Barbie

Sometimes, it just seems random. Watch what happens when I scanned the face of late-'70s David Bowie, two different times.

Was it the misplaced cursor that made all the difference? (Good thing I didn't shoot him in full Aladdin Sane makeup.)

Dove gives "feel-bad" Facebook ads a makeover

Dove has introduced a new Facebook app (created by Ogilvy Australia) that lets you replace "feel bad" weight loss, cosmetic and body enhancement ads with positive messages about body acceptance, and then share them with other women:



I'm not quite sure how it works, but I would guess that it has permission to game the Facebook social ad system to re-target women who would otherwise be served up the "negative" ad with Dove messages.

But if that's the case, how does it affect Facebook's contract with its other advertisers? Ethics aside, if you had paid media money to have your nasty old muffin top ads served to a certain profile of woman, wouldn't you be pissed if they were subverted by Dove?

Or maybe, just maybe, the "bad" ads are actually decoys placed by Dove to provoke interaction with the brand? Hmmm...

I have no way to test this theory, however, as it is only available in Australia.

What do you think of this campaign? Is it real? Or is it a trick?

F'd Ad Fridays: Return of the merkin

Fanny Hill probably rocked one. Why wouldn't you?

If you've never heard the word "merkin" before, make it your word of the day. Dating back to the 1600s or earlier, the term describes a pubic wig worn by prostitutes who had denuded their pudenda as a precaution against catching and spreading crabs.

Well, in a time when women are messing with pubic perfection like never before, Real Housewife of New York Cindy Barshop is offering fantasy merkin installation at her spa:



Made of dyed fox fur and feathers, these things are the next logical step in the whole "vajazzling" trend. Whatever.

Via Spa Week

F'd Ad Fridays: It's like Cronenberg meets ad spam, on acid

Gah!

Thanks to @interacter for the tip (and the Cronenberg reference).

Casting without seeing

Here's an interesting marketing stunt: BareEscentuals, a premium cosmetics company, cast its latest campaign by evaluating models from an open call based first on their written words, then by their voices and interview responses. The client and agency never saw a face until they made their final selections.



Here are the winners:

What, you expected them not to be this beautiful? Perhaps a little older, in some cases, than the average cosmetics models. Perhaps brainer. (Andrea is an environmental scientist and entrepreneur, Melanie has an engineering degree, and all are very accomplished.) But wouldn't you have expected a "blind" casting call to have at least turned up someone more average looking? Or older? Or larger?

Only the client, or perhaps TBWA\Chiat\Day, LA can answer those questions.

Nevertheless, a good marketing tactic. I'll bet Dove wishes they had thought of it first.

Via IBIA

F'd Ad Fridays: Japanese women with frickin' lasers in their armpits

Via Copyranter

The Miss of Sisyphus

I'm not sure the endless struggle against pubic hair is what Camus had in mind, but I suppose the constant battle to keep the carpet off the hardwood is worth it to give in to Generation Y's strange obsession with denuded pudenda.  Right?



Right???

Via Ads of the World

F'd Ad Fridays: Worst homemade sign in history

Chucky get his hair done here.

Via Copyranter.

Photoshop in a Bottle

AdFreak just posted this campaign from Make Up For Ever that purports to be the first of its kind.

Created for their HD Not Retouched (get it?) foundation, the campaign promises a makeover that is HD-smartphone-MySpace*-angle-friendly. And to prove it, they show beautiful models who have had their makeup professionally applied, apparently sharing their glam with the world.

There's also an interactive campaign site that includes the following video, making fun of retouching and beauty ads in general:



So, what do you think? Empowering? Clever? Cool? Or just amusing?

*I know MySpace is old hat. But that's what it's called.