The Sunday Times - UK (2022-02-13

It all began with dog ears. Remember

those cute little puppy ears that poked up

and flopped down every time we moved

our eyebrows? For a while it was comedy

gold as Instagrammers and Snapchatters

morphed into bunnies! Kittens! Doggies!

For the uninitiated, the idea is that you

can easily layer a filter over a regular

picture to do anything from enhancing

how you look to turning yourself into a cute pet or

wicked witch.

But something else happened when filter-dom began.

Social media companies started tweaking with the minu-

tiae. In between the whiskers and the paws, they began

giving us a taster of what life would be like if we had

smaller noses, bigger lips — and smoother skin.

Yes, it’s the smoother skin that has been playing on my

mind, and here’s why.

The other week I put on a full face of make-up and was

quite proud of the results, so I did what any thirtysome-

thing who is on Instagram would do. I took a selfie and

uploaded it. (After all, if I didn’t show my followers the

make-up, did it even happen?)

“Nice!” I thought. “Good angles, good blush.” For the

fun of it I swiped across the image to add the Paris filter

— aka the smoother, blurrer and perfector — and in

seconds I was admiring my new and improved perfect

skin, whiter teeth and lighter eyes. I quickly swiped back

to reality and that’s when I noticed the problem. I no

longer liked the original selfie. I suddenly

had hang-ups that didn’t exist pre-Paris.

My pores looked more pronounced, the

textured skin around my jawline was

more noticeable, and questions like

“Were my teeth always this yellow?”

raced through my head.

With one swipe, the Paris filter had

managed to make me feel self-conscious

about my real skin, and I can’t help but

think that if it did that to me — a beauty

expert who is well versed in the ways of

the skincare industry — what is it doing

to everyone else?

I decided to post both images side-by-

side on Instagram to show the difference

(right) and the responses were over-

whelming. People thanked me for my

honesty and bravery — it was as though

Cat Garcia I had done something important enough

Sarah Jossel

Social media blurring filters have given me a complex about my

skin – I hate to think what they’re doing to the next generation

to be awarded an MBE. There were

grown-ups marvelling at how small but

mighty the difference a filter can make to

skin. And the comments kept coming: “I

wish more people would do this. I feel so

down about my skin when I look in the

mirror”, and “I spend days on end

comparing my complexion to filtered

faces, so that I’ve lost touch with what

good skin looks like and what is achievable.”

In that moment I saw the darker world of social

media filters. What used to be a playful gimmick is

leaving people with serious insecurities.

Most of us will have grown up with airbrushed celebri-

ties, which is one thing — they were always seen as the

elite and the untouchable — but comparing ourselves

daily with airbrushed peers and, worse, airbrushed

versions of ourselves, can surely only have a negative effect.

We are beating ourselves up for features like “pores”,

which are 100 per cent normal. For the record, if you

didn’t have pores you’d be a Barbie doll or a mannequin.

Supermodels have pores, the Queen has pores. We all

have pores. There are skincare products that can help to

unclog pores or prevent enlarged pores from getting

larger, but you will never be poreless — and you should

never strive to be poreless.

Today’s Skincare Special is about busting myths, so here

is one more very important one. Perfect skin is not real

skin. Life chapters like puberty, pregnancy, the meno-

pause, along with emotions such as stress

and grief will affect your skin. The time of

the month and lack of sleep will show on

your face. Bad skin days followed by good

skin days then great skin days are all part of

day-to-day living. And the role of good

skincare? It’s to give you the best version

of your skin at the stage of life you’re at.

My advice? For those of you on social

media, don’t be afraid to quietly message

— or even unfollow — peers and experts

and celebrities and brands who use

filters when showing you their beauty

regimens. We need to break the cycle

and start championing our real complex-

ions, especially now that we are

emerging from behind our screens and

into the real world. Yes, for the love of

filters, it’s time to start seeing fewer

paws and more pores. ■ @sarahjossel

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The Sunday Times Style • 47