I appreciate all your comments about my “How Do You Really Erase Wrinkles” blog . Thank you. They helped me frame my thoughts which were just all over the place. Mostly I just find this issue completely frustrating and I have for years.

I’ve been struggling against cosmetic advertising my entire career and I know this regulation from England is going to be completely worthless and ineffective. It can’t and won’t change a thing. It’s very much like all the other useless and meaningless cosmetic regulations Europe has been spewing about over the past several years (PAO symbols, anyone?) that hasn’t helped one consumer anywhere.

Here’s what it boils down to: every single beauty ad or infomercial we see is nothing more than mirages, but we willingly drink from the sand thinking it tastes like sweet wine. It is our own foolishness and gullibility that drives us to a trough filled with nothing more then lies and deceit. Even when we think we know better we just end up looking for a different mirage or a more enticing trough to drink from. If the lie is packaged to meet our sensibility and beliefs (think natural or organic products) then we believe it as a child believes in Santa Claus.

As maddening as our faith in cosmetic mirages is, where would we be without the smoke and mirrors the beauty industry crafts for us? Very few of us want to see the world as it really exists and most every woman wants to believe she can achieve some amount of the unachievable. Who wants that taken away?

When you think about it, we don’t even want to see ourselves as we really exist or why would we dye our hair, use nail polish, wear makeup, care about the clothes we put on, worry about breaking out, and on and on. If we can’t tolerate our own reality why would we want to see someone else’s?

Each of us, to one degree or another, has our own personal level of misrepresentation so why shouldn’t the cosmetic industry? (I certainly don’t leave the house looking like I do when I get out of bed, that’s for sure! And I wouldn’t want that flashed about on television or magazines). Most of us create a false facade of some kind and while it may not be Photoshop, it can often come damn close. (Do you want someone regulating how you show up looking on a date?)

Don’t misunderstand, I am thrilled Olay got caught. Their flagrant, gross alteration of Twiggy’s face was almost a bad joke. But what about the other countless companies that didn’t get caught who are getting away with murdering reality? Olay is hardly the only one or even the worst offender. Twiggy’s smoothed-over, digitally induced face reconstruction does not take the prize, Olay is just the company that got caught and had to deal with unfavorable publicity.

As for the claims, don’t get me started. Digitally altered pictures pale in comparison to the lies about a products potential performance when it is actually being used by consumers swayed by such duplicitous advertising.

Now that this story has made headlines and a new European regulation is most likely going to be instituted, I’ve been asking myself, what happens next? Is England or other European countries going to stop all misleading cosmetic or fashion advertising pictures? Would fashion magazines be empty? Would we go back to 16-year-old girls appearing in ads for wrinkle creams as they did in the past or would Europe make that illegal too (an age appropriate law for ads)? What amount of lighting, makeup, or skilled photography is going to be controlled? Should Twiggy have just gotten up in the morning, not brushed her teeth or hair and had her picture taken?

What about the covers of magazines? Those images sell the magazines and they are Photoshopped to the hilt. Should that be illegal as well? I can’t imagine what model or celebrity could fit the expectation of a fashion magazine cover.

One comment to my blog post about the Twiggy fiasco mentioned using some sort of disclosure on the ads but who would notice the fine print that says this is merely an enhanced picture, the real Twiggy doesn’t look anything like this? We would still want the fantasy.

From my perspective, trying to regulate cosmetic advertising in this manner is just a waste of time. Cosmetic companies will simply find a way around it and the result in this regard will be a detriment to older (meaning over 40) actresses and models who will find themselves out of jobs. Trying to regulate images of beauty doesn’t get women what they need or what they want. What does? Ignoring the glossy photos and unsupported claims and learning what really works and what doesn’t when it comes to looking one’s best. That’s where I hope my work has made some small dent in the almost impenetrable shroud of lies most of the cosmetic industry feeds women month after month.