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Artist Challenges Societal Beauty Standards By Removing Dolls’ Makeup
Tess Duncan
Apr 15, 2013

"Photoshop is often used to exaggerate and warp women's bodies into looking unnatural and adhering to impossibly high standards of beauty. Artist Nickolay Lamm and collaborating artist Nikolett Mérész decided to use photoshop to do good instead. After seeing the viral photo of Barbie without makeup by Eddi Aguirre, Lamm wanted to create more realistic versions of the more popular dolls. He deemed the Aguirre version too excessive, stating that it "completely exaggerates."

Lamm simply removed the mascara, lipstick, and eye shadow from the dolls, revealing that the faces are still very attractive. Rather than emphasizing the fact that, yes, women do wake up with frizzy hair and bags under their eyes, the illustrator focuses on the natural beauty women possess. He wants to show young girls that makeup is not a necessity for looking beautiful. While it is completely acceptable for anyone to choose to wear makeup, Lamm want toy companies to help cultivate young girls’ healthy body image. Lamm commented, “Dolls heavily influence the way that young girls want to look. And so, in my opinion, less is more. I hope that my work inspires toy companies to give dolls a more natural look. If the dolls look good without makeup, what's the point of putting makeup on them in the first place?"

Recognizing that Barbie is currently an unrealistic role model, Lamm doesn’t plan to stop here. He’s now working on the production of a Barbie doll with normal body proportions using one of those amazingly awesome 3-D printers. Too cool!"
http://www.bust.com/artist-challenges-societal-beauty-standards-by-removing-dollsa-makeup.html
(click the link to see the pictures)