Media is fueled exclusively by the desire to make money. As consumers, it is important to be aware of what we are exposing our minds to whenever we watch an advertisement, play a video game, or scroll through social media. Our goal is to raise awareness about advertisements regarding beauty products including skincare, makeup, and hair products. These advertisements are everywhere and in so many different forms including appealing packaging. 

It is a well known fact that women are constantly trying to make themselves appear beautiful, young, and flawless by adopting the latest beauty secret or buying a skin care product that has proven to take a couple of years off their age. However, this desire did not just randomly become what it is today, it is caused by the exhaustive amount of exposure to the unrealistic beauty standard.

We want the Federal Trade Commission to better monitor practices skincare companies use in their advertisements and hold companies accountable for deceptive practices in their advertisements such as excessive use of Photoshop to unrealistically enhance the results of their products on women's skin. These brands should instead advertise skin health instead of marketing false beauty standards.

The exposure to unrealistic beauty standards by airbrushing/photoshopping and casting models that fit western idealistic beauty standards cultivate unhealthy expectations about body image. Young women are constantly influenced and forced to socially compare themselves to media role models and limit their day by day successes due to unattainable beauty standards. Ads and marketing techniques that show perfect skin and thin models reflect on body dissatisfaction and mental health, and women are developing eating disorders and are considering cosmetic surgery and overall a victim of a Corporation's marketing technique that benefits the insecurities.

Research conducted by the Journal of Global Fashion Marketing, found that cosmetic and skincare brands that advertise their products as being “clinically proven” or “inspired by DNA research” are complete lies. Only 18% of the claims made in commercials and advertisements are true. Time Magazine reported in 2014 that the skincare and makeup brand L’Oréal released a new skincare product claiming that the product provided anti-aging benefits while targeting the consumer’s genes. Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection stated in a press release that “It would be nice if cosmetics could alter our genes and turn back time, but L’Oréal couldn’t support these claims.”

Petitioning the FTC to stop skincare companies from falsely advertising how their products affect people’s skin and perpetuating unrealistic beauty standards would have significant positive impacts on women’s mental health. Women who strive for the beauty standards shown in these ads are trying to achieve impossible levels of skincare that can only be achieved through these misleading alterations. Forcing skincare advertisers to adhere to realistic standards for beauty and skincare, as well as accurately depicting how their products affected people’s skin, would help women feel more comfortable in their own skin and let them choose products based on their particular health and race rather than to achieve the look of models they see in advertisements.