Women Are Posting Their Unfiltered Selfies Online To Fight Unrealistic Beauty Standards

Instagram is not a reflection of reality. It's a false little social media world that, while beautiful, is not exactly representative of how we actually live.

Makeup artist Sasha Louise Pallari decided that enough was enough, and decided to started a hashtag showing off her real skin. It went viral immediately.

The movement was created by makeup artist Sasha Louise Pallari.

"#FILTERDROP was created as an extension of everything I believe in for beauty. I’ve worked in this industry for almost ten years and with this campaign, I’ve changed how it will be seen online," she said.

The trend highlights how unreal filters are.

"Comparing ourselves to others is normal. Comparing ourselves to the perfect, online version of ourself IS NOT. This is not a before and after. I could not achieve this “look” in real life," @beautifulbybreakfast said.

It just kills our self esteem.

"Slimming my nose, changing my eye colour or making my lips fuller. Changing the tone of my skin, clearing out every imperfection, line, bump, spot, red patch on my skin. Is there any wonder that we all have a complex about the way we look?!" @the.big.girl.sweat wrote.

Filters can totally change your face, including your bone structure.

"We all love a good filter selfie don't we! But [expletive], they're getting ridiculous!! That doesn't even look like me!" @tashaw800 wrote. I can't believe how much it changed her face!

No one looks like a filter in real life.

"It’s so easy to compare yourself to others on here, what they look like and question why you don’t look like them but the chances are they probably don’t look like that in real life anyway," @melissacowellfitness wrote.

Comparing ourselves to something fake just doesn't make sense.

"Filters do nothing but damage your self esteem and fall further victim of comparing yourself to something that you can’t achieve because it doesn’t exist," @ketrina_teresa wrote.

Thanks to the trend, Sasha petitioned the UK Advertising Standards Authority to outlaw false, over-edited advertisements.

And she was successful. In February 2021, the ASA said:

"... the outcome of the rulings chosen mean it is now advised that brands/influencers/celebrities are not to apply filters to photos which promote beauty products if such filters are likely to exaggerate the effect the product is capable of achieving, even if the name of the filter is referenced in the Instagram story."

Things are changing.

"Going forward this means that every single time somebody promotes a skincare or beauty product online, we have the highest chance of seeing real skin, real texture, real nose shapes, different lip sizes, the true product colour," Sasha noted.

Hopefully, we're going to see a different Instagram.

" The amount of people that will no longer compare themselves to an advert that isn’t achievable without a filter is going to be prolific. We did it. I’m so proud."