In a truly empowering new video, Kate Winslet is celebrating the brand’s 50th birthday by…taking off her make-up. Unlike most of the adverts we’ve seen in the past, this campaign puts emphasis on natural skin and celebrates natural beauty in a series of videos from the brand called ‘Lessons of Worth’.
In an age of make-up commercials that encourages us all to believe that perfection is possible with photoshopped and flawless skin, it is encouraging to see big brands like L’Oreal shifting gear and focusing instead on positive messaging around natural beauty.
Image via Youtube L’Oréal Paris Australia
The latest campaign re-enforces the brand’s well-known tagline ‘’Because you’re worth it’’.
Kate Winslet knows that natural beauty is best
Watching the video, it’s plain to see that Kate Winslet is a beautiful woman. At 46, Winslet has aged with grace and is well known for her views on plastic surgery and Botox, which she is staunchly against.
Image via Youtube L’Oréal Paris Australia
In fact, despite many tabloid stories suggesting that Winslet is secretly loading up her face with Botox, she isn’t shy about calling it out as nonsense.
Winslet told The Telegraph:
“It goes against my morals, the way that my parents brought me up and what I consider to be natural beauty. I will never give in”.
She went on to explain that, as an actress, she couldn’t imagine freezing her face and becoming unable to express herself.
She told People Magazine that she now has “the kind of wrinkles that are here to stay now… Not just the ones where you wake up in the morning, and you go, ‘Oh, that will go away in two hours’ time.’ No, they’re there. That’s the way that it is”.
At a time when airbrushing is as easy as the touch of a button and Instagram filters can change your entire face, it’s nice to see women like Winslet standing up for naturally beautiful skin. Of course, Winslet is open about the fact that she looks after her skin and admits that she regularly has facials.
This is what we need to be telling the next generation
At 27, looking at this campaign was a real wake-up call.
All too often, as Winslet says in the video,
“’When we’re younger, we all think that our worth is about our face, or our body shape, or how much attention we get, or how popular we are, or how many ‘likes’ you get compared to your friends”.
“I consider myself lucky that social media only really became a fixture in my life towards the end of my teens. Facebook of course was already a stalwart but personally, I feel that it was the curated feeds of Instagram that began to make us feel ‘less than’. “
Winslet really focuses on the fact that what we need to focus on is “owning the right to be you.” Perhaps the most important thing she said is “[you need] to stand in your truth with your body, your skin, and your face – which is going to change as the years pass – that’s just a fact”.
All too often, young women, myself included, feel that they should do anything and everything to reduce the signs of aging and even hide the fact that it’s happening. Personally, I know of many 20 somethings that are already filling their faces with Botox in an effort to stop the aging process before it even begins.
Winslet believes that we can help each other to unlearn the negative associations of aging
Winslet also makes the point that feeling brave enough to be truly and authentically you are vital, and it’s something that “we can all help each other to do”.
We all need to stand back and take a critical look at how we personally view the aging process, especially as women. There’s no doubt that you should be looking after your skin to the best of your abilities.
Image via Instagram
This includes things like making sure that you remove your makeup before bed, putting on sunscreen every day, and caring for your skin by moisturizing it and using a cleanser twice a day.
The really important thing though is to accept that, although you can look after your skin and care for it, it will undoubtedly change over time, and it will, at some point, begin to show the signs of aging as you get older.
The trick for us, like Winslet, is to learn to see the wrinkles and lines on our skin as part of a natural process that shows what we’ve been through and tells our stories.
The lines around your eyes and mouth when you laugh show that you have led a happy life. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, in fact, it’s something that we should be proud of.
Comparison is indeed the thief of joy
It’s a quote by Theodore Roosevelt or CS Lewis depending on who you believe, perhaps both of them said it, either way, it’s a great quote. No matter which one of them said it, it’s likely that they didn’t think that it would be quite as pertinent in 2022.
However, with social media apps like TikTok and Instagram (and the extensive array of filters) at the height of popularity, it couldn’t be more relevant.
Despite the fact that we know intellectually that most of the people we see on Instagram and TikTok are using filters and don’t actually look like that, we still tend to compare ourselves. Why isn’t my skin flawless like hers? Why don’t my eyelashes look that good?
A campaign like this from a big brand like L’Oréal with women like Kate Winslet and Helen Mirren showing what they truly look like beneath the perfectly applied makeup will hopefully encourage us all to see that, though make-up is fun and many of us enjoy wearing it, it shouldn’t be a crutch to use in order for us to make ourselves look ‘better’ or ‘younger’.
We need to appreciate that what is underneath is just as valuable, and authenticity is always better. Most people do not look like they do on Instagram, we do not live perfectly curated lives, our skin tells that story, our story and that is to be valued.
References
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/pink-kate-winslet-more-celebrities-150000002.html
https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/17541234/kate-winslet-make-up-loreal/
