Photoshop beauty experiment produces surprising results

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but a recent experiment shows that eyes don’t just vary from person to person – they vary from culture to culture.

Journalist Esther Honig of Kansas City, Missouri sent an unedited image of herself to roughly 40 photoshoppers in different countries. The 24 year-old accompanied the photo with a simple request: “Make me beautiful.”

With varying degrees of skill, some artists changed her skin color while others added a face full of makeup and defined eyebrows. Others left her virtually untouched. While her face structure remained largely unaltered, some cultures saw fit to add clothing – namely Morocco, who added a hijab.

Honig’s test further elucidates the difficulty of finding a universal standard of beauty: “Photoshop allows us to achieve our unobtainable standard of beauty, but when we compare those standards on a global scale, achieving the ideal remains all the more elusive.”

Check out the interpretations of several cultures below and visit Honig’s website for more of her Before & After collection.

Bangladesh

USA

Philippines

Morocco

Argentina

Vietnam

Israel

Greece

India

Serbia

Ukraine

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Stacey Kole

Stacey Kole is a freelance writer and former magazine editor. When she’s not crafting copy or chasing after her two little boys, Stacey can be found drinking coffee, tea, or anything else with caffeine. You can connect with her on LinkedIn or follow her on Twitter.