The Advertising Standards Authority has banned two L’Oreal ads for being so retouched they no longer reflected reality: one for Lancome with Julia Roberts and the other for Maybelline with model Christy Turlington, it has been confirmed. Liberal Democrat MP Jo Swinson, who continues to state that retouched ads and images in magazines should come with a “legend” on the changes made on the original photo in post-production, filed complaints to the ASA about the aforementioned ads, one of which you can also see attached to this article.
L’Oreal UK admitted that some changes were made to the photos of the two stars using the products, but refused to show the images from before they went into post-production,
The Guardian reports.
The company claimed a contract with the two stars forbade them to show said images. At the same time, L’Oreal maintained before the ASA that neither ad was altered in a significant way.
The ASA was clearly not convinced.
“The company, which provided the ASA with pictures of both women ‘on the red carpet’ to show that they were naturally beautiful, admitted that digital post-production techniques had been used on Roberts but maintained that the changes were not ‘directly relevant’ and that the ad was an ‘aspirational picture’,” the aforementioned media outlet writes.
Even if the ASA did not have access to the unaltered photos of the two stars, it still ruled that the ads were too retouched, hence misleading, to be allowed in print anymore.
“On the basis of the evidence we had received we could not conclude that the ad image accurately illustrated what effect the product could achieve, and that the image had been exaggerated by digital post-production techniques,” the ASA says in a statement.
Both ads will no longer be printed in magazines in the UK.
Swinson is using this not-at-all-insignificant win to point out that it’s a shame when the practice of over-airbrushing photos makes two women as naturally beautiful as Roberts and Turlington practically unrecognizable.
“Pictures of flawless skin and super-slim bodies are all around, but they don’t reflect reality,” the MP says in a statement.
“Excessive airbrushing and digital manipulation techniques have become the norm, but both Christy Turlington and Julia Roberts are naturally beautiful women who don’t need retouching to look great. This ban sends a powerful message to advertisers – let’s get back to reality,” she adds.
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