CVS is a fairly magical place filled with amenities of every kind imaginable, but it's not exactly the place you'd expect a radical statement on unattainable beauty standards to stem from. Well, color me bald, as CVS has announced that, beginning in April, it will no longer digitally alter its in-house beauty ads.
The company says that the ubiquity of photoshopped beauty images is actually a health issue. Executive vice president o CVS Health and the president of CVS Pharmacy Helena B. Foulkes told Women's Wear Daily, "It really is a health-care issue and part of what we want to stand for in beauty."
She added, "The connection between the propagation of unrealistic body images and negative health effects, especially in girls and young women, has been established. As a purpose-led company, we strive to do our best to assure all of the messages we are sending to our customers reflect our purpose of helping people on their path to better health."
Come April, CVS Beauty images will bear a special watermark to show the image hasn't been touched up to remove wrinkles or blemishes from a model's skin or to alter the size, shape, or color of the model pictured. According to WWD, CVS' goal is to have all images be Photoshop-free by 2020.
CVS isn't the only brand to recently alter its Photoshop policy. French ads must now carry a disclaimer if they've been altered, and last year, Getty Images created a policy that photographers couldn't retouch images to make models appear thinner.
Image via Getty