You may remember 24-year-old journalist Esther Honig who did the original beauty photoshop experiment which revealed the various ideals of beauty around the world. Honig sent her picture to people in over 25 countries and asked them to use photoshop to “make her beautiful.”
The goal of the experiment was to get people to reconsider the beauty standards and expectations that they hold themselves to. What is considered beautiful in one country doesn’t apply to all. Ultimately, she wanted to prove that beauty ideals are subjective and we shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves if we don’t fit just one standard of beauty. Proving her point, all her pictures came back looking drastically different.
But journalist Priscilla Yuki Willson was left with a lot of questions following Honig’s experiment. Most importantly, Wilson (who is half black, half Japanese) wondered how these standards would be implemented on a bi-racial woman of color. After all, the multi-race community is the fastest growing community in the United States. Following Honig’s footsteps, she decided to conduct the experiment herself.
“It’s a dialogue that specifically addresses race and ethic features in an industry where beauty standards are apparently euro centric,” she said.
The results? She discovered that countries who were more accustomed to diverse ethnicities, such as the United States, had very little to change from her original photo. Other countries, such as Vietnam, left her nearly unrecognizable.
To see more of the photoshop results, click here.
