As collegiettes™, I think we can all agree that beauty ads are not exactly realistic. But one celebrity’s voluminous lashes with a certain CoverGirl’s product is making her the focus of an ad that was pulled from distribution for being too unrealistic.
As a CoverGirl spokeswoman, America’s country star sweetheart Taylor Swift has already appeared in a series of print and commercial ads for the makeup brand. Now, she is the target of a new inquiry by the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus Claims.
In a print ad for the CoverGirl NatureLuxe Mousse Mascara, she appears “milky-skinned, eyes aflutter” as described by Yahoo. The ad promises “2X more volume,” but if you search the fine print, her lashes were “enhanced in post production.”
This prompted the NAD to ask the makeup company to substantiate its claims (double the volume, 20 percent lighter than other mascaras). Instead, parent company Proctor and Gamble decided to just pull the whole campaign.
“Upon receiving the inquiry from the NAD, P&G discontinued the advertisement in question,” a P&G spokesperon wrote in an emailed statement. “The NAD has deemed our intervention as accurate and proper. We have always been committed, and we continue to be committed, to featuring visuals and claims that accurately represent our products’ benefits.”
In an interview with Business Insider, NAD director Andrea Levine, was a little more blunt. “You can’t use a photograph to demonstrate how a cosmetic will look after it is applied to a woman’s face and then – in the mice type – have a disclosure that says ‘okay, not really.'”
This year, the UK media have been pushing to keep beauty ads honest. Last year an ad for Rimmel Mascara was banned after the model was found to be wearing fake lashes and as recently as this summer, the Advertising Standards Authority banned two L’Oreal print ads featuring airbrushed versions of Julia Roberts and Christy Turlington. It seems that the U.S. is pushing to be as equally socially responsible in regulating false advertising as well as realizing our unrealistic standards of beauty. What do you think, collegiettes™?