Professional Makeup Tips - Airbrush to Perfection

Advice for Understanding the Controversy Over Magazines Retouching Photos

Advice Seeker: Dear April,

I get so angry whenever I pick up a magazine and see a celebrity on the cover. They're always so ridiculously airbrushed; they don't have a single flaw. Faith Hill, for instance, is so beautiful already; why can't Redbook just show her the way she is? Magazines are teaching kids and teenagers that women should look perfect. What do you think about everyone being airbrushed on magazine covers?

Sincerely,

Don't Airbrush Me!

April Masini's advice:

Dear Don't Airbrush Me!,

Nothing sparks controversy more than abortion, politics, and re-touched magazine photos. Seriously. Talk about a photo of Faith Hill being retouched for a cover and you'll get heated debate on the whys the rights and the wrongs (yes, there appear to be rights and wrongs!) and what should happen to photos and media.

Why all this controversy over re-touching?:

American women are still looking for leaders. Because the leaders we have are few and far between (I'm talking officials who actually lead and don't just collect a pay check and occupy a desk or a photo op), women look to the media for leaders and what better place than magazine covers that beckon from the express check out lane at the market?

When women find out that those women who so many ache to emulate are re-touched, they feel betrayed because they want to be just like those women, but how can they when the women are actually re-touched photos??

That's why the women who express outrage over retouched photos are so angry. There is a sense of betrayal. It feels like Faith Hill lied to us by appearing on a magazine, re-touched, and not honestly her whole self.

Of course purists can look in the mirror and measure the amount of hair coloring, makeup, slimming wardrobe, push up bras, etc., that we civilians seek out to look our best. I mean, who are we fooling? (Our husbands, our boyfriends, our colleagues, our children, etc.) Is Faith Hill's air brushing really the equivalent of Ashley Simpson lip syncing on SNL? If we were going to appear on a magazine cover like Redbook, would we want to be airbrushed to perfection (YESSSS!!!!)?

The answer to why magazines do this is a double edged sword -- magazines are in business because they sell magazines, so they need to keep selling them, and the reality is that we are attracted to beauty. Read Darwin if you don't believe me. Animals who preen and boast bright colored feathers and coats and loud squawks attract mates more readily and propagate the species. Wall flowers in biology, fade away, and become extinct. So when magazines make their cover models look great, it's in response to human desire to buy beauty. Magazines with beautiful people on the covers sell.

So, blame the magazines, if you must, but look in the mirror at the same time, and understand what you're all about. Beauty comes from within, and if it doesn't come all the way through, airbrushing helps!

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