If any of you happen to follow my Instagram Account you may have noticed an increase in selfies the past few days, firstly I shall apologise for the amount of selfies posted, and secondly because I was actually doing somewhat of a social experiment on you all....!
With celebrities galore on Instagram, plus instacelebs who seem to have the perfect skin, life, surroundings etc, and also the full time bloggers who seem to share with you their lives but such perfect lives they are, and without a blemish in sight.
Can anyone look so flawlessly perfect, even with the front camera?!
In short.....no.
Just like models on the pages of pretty much every magazine, advertisement, online store etc, photoshopping has had a key element to hiding those unsightly pores, any wrinkle of laughter line, and even in some cases, waist slimming and butt enhancing...!
I tried it out myself to see what the big fuss was about, and also to post some up to see if it made a difference, or if anyone actually noticed how flawless my skin had suddenly become overnight.
I used the FaceTune app for these photos, seemingly the most popular app for quick and easy anyone could do it photo editing.
On the app it gives you an option to see the photo before and after any edits you may have done to that point, the difference however is actually quite shocking when you can see them flitter between flawless poreless to swamp monster from the deep.
It's quick and easy to wipe away any pores, hide spots, melt away any bags and wrinkles and as it's pretty much idiot proof, it's quite hard to make a mess of making yourself look less a....well....mess.
These shots were taken at 3AM after a night of drinking and partying for a friends birthday, most of my make up had been danced off due to the various cheesy hits being played, and also I looked a bit poop cos I kinda always look a bit that way...!
Me and Edd are now too old to have 0 wrinkles, bags or smile lines, but we can recapture our youths by simply just wiping them away.
Usually I wouldn't really post a selfie like this, I wasn't feeling massively confident or dressed up but I wondered the response to the edited photograph for what I would consider myself as a pretty boring shot.
It to this point (8 hours later) has 23 likes, not loads but more than the usual boring selfie would, the thing that surprised me tho was comments asking what foundation I use which made me wonder when I saw other peoples flawless looking skin on posts, and wondered what they use to get such a flawless look with a front camera, how many may have actually been edited and no magical foundation can really cause your skin to look this great up close.
Another comment via twitter was asking if they could have my face, as I looked beautiful (aw shucks) but yes I would also like my face to actually look this good.
The reality is on the left, laughter lines, pores, less than perfect make up and the occasional mole or blemish.
The ultimate test, I took a terrible front camera photo from an awful angle, doing something I rarely do which is fully smile in photo's because I hate my teeth and crooked smile.
You can see that as well as making the skin look flawless, I was also able to whiten the showing teeth, cover the faded red lipstick, and even slim down my face so I look less hamster cheeked.
The original photo is so bad it's one I'd usually delete straight away, and then feel pretty crap about myself for a while for being so bad at this selfie thing, and also just for looking as bad as I do.
The second shot however is almost postable (if you're into that sort of thing) but I'm not really able to look past how fake it is.
I can now see from using this app that so many people are secretly doing this, everyone has pores and lines, it's just part of being a person and there isn't really a way around it.
We've all known about photoshopping for celebrities and models for a long time, it's just become part of the everyday for us, so much so that tabloids and magazines that run so called 'body shaming' articles are very popular, there we can laugh at how those celebrities really do look like real people with their cellulite and pores, hahaha how disgusting of them.
Now that everyone feels the need to adjust their real looks before posting a photo they took of their own face to share with their friends, in case anyone had the misconception that we were also indeed a human.
Just in case he felt left out I have also helped Jake to look his most flawless self while asleep on the sofa, we can't have that messy haired look, instead he now looks like a doggy supermodel with his flawless fur.
Photoshop, not just for humans.
I've learned a few things from this experiment, that many many people are already using the app, from celebrities, to bloggers who will share their lives with you but not their pore size, to just your regular seemingly flawless friends.
I have also learned that as much as I wanted to be the anti-photoshopping blogger, I don't edit my skin etc for outfit posts etc, I liked the look of my flawless skin in these photos, they did give me a little boost although I was aware of it being all fake, and yes I may be terrible for saying this tho I'm not sure if I will yet or not, but I may continue to use it on the occasional selfie....
Please don't judge me, would you ever do it too??
