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Beauty products brand Dove is calling on its global community to stop using the trending Bold Glamour filter. The company is adding its voice to content creators who have called it ‘harmful’ and potentially damaging to people’s mental health.
“The Bold Glamour filter has now been used over 15 million times, and its popularity certainly doesn’t seem to be waning. What might seem like a harmless filter has the potential to cause damage to our mental health and affect our self-esteem,” explains content creator and body confidence advocate, Alex Light.
“Filters like this create a brand new and unrealistic comparison that blurs the lines of reality and sets a new standard for how we think we should look. It’s vital that we push back against these increasingly toxic beauty standards and show young girls that it’s OK to be their authentic, beautiful selves” Light said.
“I’ve worked with Dove for a long time, and I am so proud to work with a brand who not only pledge no digital distortion in their imagery, but continually work to dismantle beauty standards and champion self-esteem in women and girls. I am fully behind their new campaign,” Light said.
While social media filters can be a source of creativity and self-expression, effects like Bold Glamour dramatically distort reality and reinforce narrow and unattainable beauty standards. 32% of girls say they can’t live up to the beauty standards that influencers project on social media, and 80% say they have already applied a filter or used a retouching app to change the way they look in their photos by age 13.
As a result, 36% of girls who distort their photos regularly have lower body esteem compared to 18% of girls who don’t.
“Academic studies find that the use of filters and selfie editing are associated with low body confidence, mood, and self-esteem,” explains Dr. Phillippa Diedrichs, Research Psychologist at the Centre of Appearance Research at the University of West England and body image expert.
“Research from Dove found that over 1 in three girls with lower body esteem feel they don’t look good enough without photo editing. Moreover, filters have become part of everyday life for 43% of girls, and 67% try to change or hide at least one part of their body before posting a photo of themselves,” Diedrichs said.
This suggests that the cumulative effect of filters and digital distortion over time is creating appearance pressures and low self-worth among girls and young women,” Diedrichs said.
For years, Dove has championed wider definitions of beauty and has taken action towards making social media a more positive place with campaigns like #SpeakBeautiful, #NoDigitalDistortion, Reverse Selfie, and #DetoxYourFeed. However, the rise of the new Bold Glamour filter effect is dangerous and reinforces the damaging beauty stereotypes Dove has been working to shatter.
“While social media filters can be a source of creativity and self-expression, Bold Glamour goes beyond ‘play.’ Tools once only available to professionals can now be accessed by young girls at the touch of a button and without regulation,” says Firdaous El Honsali, Global Vice President, External Communications at Dove.
“At Dove, we are committed to #NoDigitalDistortion in any of our marketing and advertising so that we can support a more positive environment on social media that is representative of real, authentic beauty. When young people distort their images, they distort their minds too. We are calling on our community to join us to turn their backs to the toxic Bold Glamour filter and stand up for real beauty. Because real beauty is bold,” they said.
Paulo Rizal is a content producer for Comms Room. He writes content around popular media, journalism, social media, and more.
