Airbrushed Julia Roberts L’Oreal campaign banned
An ad campaign masterminded by French cosmetics firm L’Oreal has been banned by the Advertising Standards Agency for overly airbrushing the features of actress Julia Roberts and supermodel Christy Turlington.
Both stars featured in a series of long running magazine ads promoting the firms Maybelline and Lancome brands.
Roberts, the face of Lancome, had been promoting the firms foundation treatment whilst Turlington had been enlisted to tout an “anti-ageing” product.
The ban was enforced after the ASA upheld complaints made by Liberal Democrat MP Jo Swinson, who averred that the campaign carried “overly perfected and unrealistic images.”
They agreed with Swinson’s assertion that the digitally manipulated pics were “not representative of the results the product could achieve.”
In a statement L’Oreal conceded that Turlington’s image had been: “digitally retouched to lighten the skin, clean up makeup, reduce dark shadows and shading around the eyes, smooth the lips and darken the eyebrows.”
The unairbrushed original photo of Roberts has not been released to the ASA owing to contractual agreements with the Hollywood actress.