The Issue of Retouching

Yesterday the Marie Claire Australia cover was causing some interesting discussion online. If you're not familiar with the story they've put Australian model Jennifer Hawkins naked an un-airbrushed on the cover. The cover is supposed to make women feel good about themselves - but some questioned how a naked model is supposed to make regular women feel good about themselves, whether they're retouched or not.



To be honest the whole issue of weight/airbrushing/size zero bores me to death, so I wasn't going to post about this story (if you're bored too scroll down for a nice accessory report instead).
But then I saw this weeks Grazia cover (I haven't ventured out to buy it yet, but I will, I'm a Grazia addict) with the promise of 'naked!' Sadie Frost unretouched. And then annoyance set in.



I don't care if the models or celebrities in magazines are retouched or not, I just want a good picture. And I certainly don't like the way magazines are now bragging about the fact that they haven't airbrushed the images - as if they're doing us some great favour. Sure, airbrushing has got pretty ridiculous in the sense that sometimes you can't even tell who the person is any more, but that doesn't mean I want to hear every publication telling me they haven't retouched their images to make me feel better about myself.
I know I don't look like Jennifer Hawkins, I know I'm not a model, and I'm cool with that, and I'm sure most women are too. I am also not stupid enough to think what I see in a magazine is real life. So why is this still an issue?

I'm interested to know what you all think about this too, so leave a comment if you have time.

images from graziadaily.co.uk and thefashionspot.com