<p>My first job out of college was in marketing for a very large, very french, very hip cosmetic company (and yes, I was worth it!).&#0160; Most people are fascinated by my past life and want to know how to get a job there.&#0160; &#0160;It makes me very popular!&#0160; But there are always the people who want to know if I feel guilty because I was promoting unattainable standards of beauty.&#0160; They want to know if I felt personally responsible for the lack of self-esteem in today&#39;s young women.</p>

<p>No I didn&#39;t and I still don&#39;t.</p>

<p>In fact, I LOVE the beautiful advertisements in women&#39;s magazines.&#0160; It was uplifting to come to work every morning and be surrounded by posters of gorgeous faces.&#0160; Really!&#0160; We would ooh and aah every time a beautiful ad was unveiled.&#0160; It was cool.&#0160; And I never compared myself to those images.&#0160; I did compare myself to the models pre-airbrushing.&#0160; I mean they&#39;re still gorgeous, but they get pimples and cellulite, just like us.&#0160; Really.</p>

<p>To me, these ads are works of art, not a to do list.&#0160; It has been said before, but it bears repeating:&#0160; PEOPLE DON&#39;T LOOK LIKE THAT.&#0160; I love the Cindy Crawford quote &quot;“Even I don&#39;t wake up looking like Cindy Crawford.”&#0160; No model or starlet does.&#0160; I saw it for myself.&#0160; Photoshop and airbrush artists are amazing.&#0160; Also, most of the models are 14.&#0160; I&#39;ll never forget the first time I saw and ad pre-completion.&#0160; It was for an eye cream.&#0160; The model was 14 and gorgeous.&#0160; She had a huge smile in the ad, and I thought it was beautiful.&#0160; Then a few weeks later I saw the <em>real </em>finished product.&#0160; The huge smile was still there, but you know those lines you get under your eyes when you smile?&#0160; (Yes you do.&#0160; We all get them.&#0160; The Boy gets them, and he&#39;s not even one.)&#0160; They were gone.&#0160; The shadows under her eyes were gone as well.&#0160; It was freaky.&#0160; I mean, the girl was 14, and she was selling eye cream to 40 year-olds!&#0160; It felt weird, but I was an idealistic 19 year old at the time.</p>

<p>I quickly grew to appreciate the images for what they are.&#0160; They&#39;re aspirational images meant to be beautiful and illustrate a fantasy.&#0160; I still like them, although I can see how people who haven&#39;t been exposed to the inner workings of the advertising industry could be misled.&#0160; &#0160;Don&#39;t be. </p>

<p>Photoshop isn&#39;t going away anytime soon (and thank God for that!&#0160; I just airbrushed a booger out of The Boy&#39;s nose in a photo for the grandparents.)&#0160; Enjoy the photos in ads and magazine covers, they can be breathtaking.&#0160; Just do it with a healthy dose of scepticism.</p>

<p>Here&#39;s a <a href="http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=14537">link</a> to a website that illustrates just what can be done to a photo of a real person (and a pretty one at that.)&#0160; You&#39;d think they&#39;re exaggerating, but the photo looks like any picture on the cover of Maxim or Cosmo.&#0160; &#0160;For the record, I think those are tacky as all hell.&#0160; &#0160;
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