Beauty News

Is Photoshopping bad for your health?

The French Parliament have just tabled a bill that would require a “photo retouched” label on every improved picture that appears in advertising, the media or product-wrapping, with a hefty €37,500 fine for anyone failing to do so. This would make France the first country to impose health-warnings on all published photographs that have been retouched.

While unlikely that a bill like this will make it to legislation, as policing it would be impossible, it does put a spotlight on the the fat, wrinkly elephant in the room, beautifully illustrated by images of Andie Macdowell (51), Liz Hurley (44), Linda Evangelista (44), Claudia Schiffer (39) and Penelope Cruz (35).

These are all beautiful women in their own right who don’t need to be airbrushed into Manga Cartoons of themselves to prove a point. The beauty industry has always been about selling artifice, you might as well complain about them using young/pretty/thin models in the campaigns for all the use it would do. It is consumers voting with their wallets, not government intervention, that will quash this trend. If you don’t like the advertising don’t buy the product.



Verity Douglas

Verity Douglas

Content Editor

Cult Beauty’s Content Editor and a Cult Beauty OG, Verity loves nothing more than the marriage of language and lip balm. A quintessential Libran, she’s a self-professed magpie for luxury ‘must-haves' and always pursuing the new and the niche — from the boujee-est skin care to cutting-edge tech. Balancing an urge to stop the clock with her desire to embrace the ageing process (and set a positive example for her daughter), Verity's a retinol obsessive and will gladly share her thoughts about the time-defying gadgets, masks and treatments worth the splurge...