We live our lives on Instagram these days and the slew of perfectly made-up faces can be tough to see every day – mostly because it's just so unrealistic.
While there are many beauty bloggers, influencers and MUA's generously using photoshopping and facetuning apps to re-shape and overhaul their entire appearances, it's refreshing to have those who are lifting the lid and showing us exactly how much they can edit the snaps you see.
Irish beauty influencer TooDollyMakeUp aka Jen Morris took to her Instagram Stories to get real about the FaceTuning app – and we were all ears.
She made interesting points – all of which she assured was not to upset anyone, but show how easily an image can be edited.
She said, ''I use FaceTune full disclosure FYI but never to this extent…''
Then she went on to show us exactly how she used the app – firstly, by changing the tone of her skin slightly, then by making her cheekbones appear sharper before smoothing out the skin on her cheeks.
Jen is aware that FaceTune is normalised in the influencing industry and thinks is down to the fact that it's free and easy to use.
She told SHEmazing, ''I really don't think it's going anywhere soon. I mean, look at someone like James Charles who is massively successful and is a very talented marketer and influencer openly using FT and even has tutorials on how he completely changes his facial features in the majority of his images.''
On her Stories, she continues to show us the extent in which people edit their images – she enhances the size of her lips before doing the usual Instagram stuff of altering the warmth and lighting.
Phew – that's a hell of a lot of work, isn't it?
When asked what she thinks of a small amount of FaceTune for aesthetic reasoning, she is a fan but only because a lot of her content is makeup-related.
She said, ''Sometimes the camera just does not capture colour or texture the way it looks to the naked eye so I like to use FaceTune for that reason. I use it to make details pop, to make the texture of glitter show. At the end of the day 'Do you boo boo' if you want to FaceTune the life and soul out of your pictures do it but people are going to see you in person so just be aware!''
So why did she open up about the app on her Stories?
She said, ''I just wanted to show people that not everything you see online is what it seems. I feel sorry for younger girls looking at these hyper-real IG MUAs with no pores or texture to their skin sitting at home wondering why they don’t look like this no matter what they try!''
She added, ''I don’t think FT is bad, I just think people aren’t aware of it so that can be quite damaging to their self esteem similar to the effect that magazines have had in the past and to some extent still have!''
Jen's words of wisdom are ones to take away from all of this – ''Don't beat yourself up if you don't look like people on IG, half the time we don't look like ourselves either.''
And to that we say – amen.
