Our clients are surrounded with deceptive beauty imagery almost everywhere they look. Not only do they see unrealistic photos and digital creations in ads and beauty retail websites, with a click of a button, they can filter and perfect their own skin and even their bodies. How do we support our clients in a time when popular media is feeding them distorted images of beauty? How do we normalize the very conditions we are trained to treat: pores, acne, texture and pigmentation, when clients think that healthy skin cannot and should not contain them?
Keep reading to find out what exactly our clients are facing before learning what you can do to combat it.
Social Media Bias
We spend hours per day scrolling through our social media feeds consuming images of people that we know and don’t know. The one thing these people have in common is that most people show their best selves online. We compare our normal daily lives to social media content that is someone’s best moment, and this can have us feeling inadequate, less than beautiful and shakes our confidence. It’s human nature to compare ourselves to others and wonder how we size up to them. This can be jarring, especially in terms of aging and beauty standards. Not to mention, most social media platforms offer tons of image filtering options that can deceive the eye into thinking that someone is completely flawless.
Celebrity Dishonesty
We’ve all seen the commercials featuring A-list female celebrities raving about how a certain at-home boxed hair color rivals an expensive treatment at the salon and how a drugstore lotion they’ve used magically erases wrinkles and sunspots. As a professional skin care practitioner, it’s infuriating. We know very well that these celebrities have almost uncapped budgets for glam squads, the best dermatologists and any esthetic procedure money can buy. It’s upsetting that consumers are led to believe that a product available in the grocery store substantially contributed to their amazing results. And what’s more upsetting is how this advertising informs our clients about the beauty industry. These celebrity endorsements lead us to believe that the boxed hair color and the over-the-counter moisturizer are the reasons that they look so ravishing and young. However, we all know that this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Continue reading about artificial beauty in our Digital Magazine...