Earlier this year, I was scrolling through TikTok when I paused to watch a video of Kendall Jenner demonstrating her daily gua sha routine for Vogue. But what stopped my thumb in its tracks wasn’t the model extolling the virtues of a morning facial massage: I’m ashamed to admit it was the fine lines and texture on her forehead, the visible pores and blackheads on her cheeks. In the comments, others had made similar observations – albeit expressed in crueller terms. “I’ve never felt this good about myself,” one comment reads. “If I had her money, my skin would not look that bad,” says another.
Jenner’s make-up-free skin in the Vogue video stood in stark contrast to the airbrushed, filtered, and Photoshopped images of the model that we usually see. But does her skin really look “bad” in the video? On reflection, Jenner’s skin just looks like… skin.
Evidently, largely thanks to the circulation of edited photos online, many of us have forgotten what real skin actually looks like: pores, pockmarks, pimples and all. And not only is this resulting in cruel jibes at celebrities like Jenner – it’s also making us harsher on ourselves. Social media is brimming with posts from people – usually young women – desperately seeking ‘solutions’ to perceived skin issues. On the r/Skincare_Addiction subreddit, which has over 1.7 million members, users regularly ask questions about how to improve their skin. “Is this skin texture normal for a 22 year old? I feel like it looks bad,” asks one young woman, attaching a photo of her (spotless) forehead. Similar queries are often posted on TikTok. “Is it normal to have wrinkles under your eyes at 20?” asks one user as she zooms in on her under eye area.
@kamilalunaxoxo I feel like my skin has 10000 wrinkles #beauty #foryoupage ♬ ladyfingers - chop
Kushie Amin, 30, often obsesses over perceived flaws with her skin. “I feel like I’ve had such a warped perception of my skin recently,” she says, explaining that she feels convinced she has uneven skin texture and hyperpigmentation – but others see things differently. “Whenever I’ve gone to beauty counters, the assistants say that my skin looks perfect. Then when I say that I’ve got hyperpigmentation, they just say they didn’t notice any.” She adds that she recently went into a shop to buy retinol, only to be told by the sales assistant that she didn’t need it. “These are people who should want to sell me products, and even they’re like, ‘I can’t really see what you’re seeing’.”
Amber Rawlings, 26, has had similar experiences. “This might sound like I’m blowing my own trumpet, but I often have people tell me my skin is amazing,” she says. “But I just can’t see it.” She adds that she has spent “an insane amount of money” on skincare products and has even seen a private dermatologist in the past after an acne flare-up. “But my friends were of the opinion that I never even needed to go to a dermatologist in the first place and that my acne, which I thought was absolutely awful, didn’t necessitate that kind of intervention.”
For years, magazines and advertisers have been manipulating photos of celebrities and models by airbrushing out imperfections and blurring away blackheads. But in recent years, ‘tweaking’ photos in this way has gone mainstream. Filters designed to smooth the appearance of skin have emerged on social media apps like Instagram and TikTok, allowing anyone to digitally enhance photos of themselves in one swift swipe. Notably, early last year, TikTok released a new beauty filter titled ‘Bold Glamour’; powered by AI which seamlessly moulds the filter to users’ faces, the filter – which blurs users’ skin – is remarkably, uncannily convincing.
“It is not possible to achieve the look of poreless, ageless, textureless, glowy skin in any meaningful, long-term way” – Jessica DeFino
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Technology is increasingly warping our perception of what skin looks like and subsequently pushing us to pursue a look – entirely poreless, perfectly smooth, perpetually glowy – which is ultimately impossible to achieve. “When the majority of your ‘inputs’ for what a human being looks like come from digital photographs and videos – many of which are edited, filtered, Facetuned, Photoshopped, or otherwise ‘blurred’ due to the nature of screens – you can start to see your own actual, human, non-filtered face as ‘less than,’” explains beauty reporter and critic Jessica DeFino. “From here, it’s easy to blow things out of proportion — to apply an internal magnifying mirror to your so-called flaws.”
There’s mounting evidence which proves filters are making us feel bad about ourselves too. Numerous studies have confirmed that there is a correlation between using these beauty filters and experiencing body dysmorphia or wanting to seek out cosmetic surgery. And as the skincare industry has continued to boom, many of us have shifted to focusing on pursuing pore-free, ultra-smooth skin, forgetting that our skin is an organ, and in reality ‘good skin’ is simply skin which performs its function: that is, protecting us from germs and helping regulate our body temperature.
It’s becoming increasingly common to regard normal facets of skin such as pores, hyperpigmentation, and wrinkles as glaring imperfections, and in some cases, imagine issues which aren’t there at all. “When a particular beauty trend or beauty standard becomes the norm, it can affect our perception of ourselves,” says DeFino. It’s a phenomenon known as ‘perception drift’. “We can begin to see our normal, non-product enhanced faces as abnormal, and an abnormal amount of product – whether blush, brow pencil, ‘glazing fluid’, or Botox – as ideal.” She adds that terms like ‘blush blindness’ can downplay the gravity of this issue. “It’s dysmorphia – an inability to see ourselves as we are.”
@myashay_ Don’t let these filters fool you😭 everyone has skin texture, spots, facial hair & imperfections no matter how perfect they look on their instas 🤍 #boldglamourfilter #realskintexture #instavsreality ♬ original sound - EX7STENCE™
Rawlings says she certainly feels she suffers from ‘skin dysmorphia’. “It kind of works in the same way that body dysmorphia works, where I’m hyper-fixated on my skin and I spend a lot of time looking at my spots,” she says. “Something which feels quite minor to others can feel all-encompassing to me.” Amin feels similarly. “I’ve bought loads of expensive skin peels in the hope that they will transform my skin, but I’m just never happy,” she says. “I feel like my skin doesn’t have that perfect smoothness that you see online.” She adds that she can often struggle to tell whether someone has used a filter on their photos. “Maybe that’s why I’ve got such a warped perception of my skin.”
DeFino stresses that “it is not possible to achieve the look of poreless, ageless, textureless, glowy skin in any meaningful, long-term way,” and that pursuing this ideal could actually damage your skin long-term. “Short-term, sure, there may be products that create this effect. Over time, many of these products and procedures can actually disturb the skin barrier and disrupt the skin microbiome, which can eventually lead to inflammation – AKA acne, dermatitis, eczema, psoriasis, rosacea and ‘premature’ ageing.”
As it stands, social media and insidious beauty filters aren’t going anywhere – so perhaps the best thing we can do is pause and question what it actually means to have ‘good’ skin and, crucially, whether we’re all pursuing an ideal that can only ever exist within the four corners of your phone. “I often question if my skin is bad because it doesn’t have that perfect ‘glassy’ look,” Amin surmises. “But then again, I don’t know anyone who does have skin like that – apart from on the internet.”
