Jezebel.com

I know airbrushing is a standard practice for magazine covers, and certainly we all can use a little help with our close ups! But I sometimes think we’ve gone too far. Half the time I can’t tell one blonde from another on the cover of Cosmopolitan, needing to look for the person’s name to identify them.

Faith Hill just did a cover shoot for Redbook, and looked fabulous. Tanned, blonde and healthy at 39. Then they airbrushed her, and she kind of turned into a Stepford Wife. I know all cover shots are airbrushed, but have we gone too far? Really, Faith was guilty of nothing more than looking ten years younger than her real age. Now she looks virtually unrecognisale.

The pictures have come about as the result of Gawker blog Jezebel offering a $10,000 prize to the person who could supply before-and-after airbrushing shots. Jezebel editor gives us the details on the airbrushing.

Jezebel editor Anna Holmes said that the site had received between five and 10 submissions, and that the Faith Hill shot had been chosen based on the fact that much of her body was both visible and radically altered. “Part of me was hoping for a Vogue cover,” Holmes admitted. Barring that, the contest “wasn’t about [Hill], it was about how magazines retouch women to make women look at times unrecognizable. The original photo — when I saw it I broke out into a big grin, not because I was having a gotcha moment, but because I said, ‘Here’s a woman who looks like a real woman.’” Holmes said the site was aware of the identity of the photo leaker but declined to discuss the “myriad” ways that Jezebel they had acquired the photos.

WWD.com

Actually, I think Faith Hill looks a little like Jessica Simpson on the cover.

Thanks to Jezebel.com for the photo header.