ESC

Julia Roberts’ Face is Illegal

When you choose a face for your product line, it’s always best to find a celebrity who doesn’t need an elite unit of the world’s top Photoshoppers to be assembled. L’Oréal would have been wise to follow that rule of thumb because they’re now forced to pull their ad campaigns featuring Julia Roberts and Christy Turlington. This after complaints made by Liberal Democrat MP Jo Swinson who called the ads “fake and gay.”

Actually, Swinson said the images of the two celebrities have been so digitally manipulated that they were “not representative of the results the product could achieve.”

Swinson, who has waged a long-running campaign against “overly perfected and unrealistic images” of women in adverts, lodged complaints with the Advertising Standards Authority about the magazine campaigns for L’Oréal-owned brands Lancôme and Maybelline. The ASA ruled that both ads breached the advertising standards code for exaggeration and being misleading and banned them from future publication.

L’Oréal’s two-page ad featuring Roberts, who is the face of Lancôme, promoted a foundation called Teint Miracle, which it claims creates a “natural light” that emanates from beautiful skin. It was shot by renowned fashion photographer Mario Testino. The ad for Maybelline featured Turlington promoting a foundation called The Eraser, which is claimed to be an “anti-ageing” product. In the ad, parts of Turlington’s face are shown covered by the foundation while other parts are not, in order to show the effects of the product. [The Guardian]

L’Oréal admitted to altering the pictures in post-production but argued the changes were not “directly relevant” and that the ad was an “aspirational picture.” They then argued that the two were naturally beautiful and gave the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) pictures of the women on the red carpet as proof.

L’Oréal wouldn’t provide the pre-production photos of Julia Roberts because of contractual agreements. And because she looked like hell in those. Whatever the case, the red carpet photos are no doubt just as good. It’s not like they went through hours of hair and makeup beforehand or anything.

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