Beyonce and Cindy Crawford in unphotoshopped glory

Queen/King Bey, whichever way you refer to her has been reported to be human. Yes people, Beyonce Giselle Knowles is not #Flawless (Pause for the screams from the thousands of Bey stans).

We woke up to the Bey Hive all abuzz, complaining about photos of Beyonce’s unretouched face that surfaced. In true Hive fashion they stuck by their queen and went on to slam the use of the pictures as petty and in poor taste.

It seems the pictures are from an old L’Oreal campaign. And this isn’t the first time L’Oreal has touched up her photos, they were accused of ‘whitening’ her skin for a Feria ad campaign in 2008.

http://youtu.be/mHkErP_HyQE

But in the land of beauty and fashion, the battle of photoshop has been a long contested and sometimes welcomed one. With lobbyists complaining that it gives unrealistic ideas of beauty and un-achieavable standards and others welcoming a little bit of nature manipulation.

Beyonce herself has been known to speak up against photoshop, in 2013, clothing retailer H&M tried to retouch her photos for their Spring/Summer campaign. Beyonce was reportedly furious and didn’t approve the images of her less curvier body. The retailer was then forced to use the originals of her bootylicious self.

Another heavyweight in the industry was exposed au naturel, if you will in a leaked photo. Supermodel Cindy Crawford’s December 2013 cover shoot for Latin America Marie Claire was leaked online. A single photo of the 48 year old model as she is. The picture of course caused an uproar and some rather cruel comments, while there were people who applauded the picture because it was real. The model herself once said:

“Even I don’t wake up looking like Cindy Crawford.” 

An acknowledgement of the ‘beauty industry machine’ and how all is not as it appears.

Here is a mini gallery of the leaked pictures of the two women.

They are still gorgeous, are they not? So why do these magazines and beauty companies strive to perfect them? Just imagine a world where everything was as is? Just imagine if society taught that love of self, flaws and all, is better than an ideal no one can live up to. Imagine that world, oh what a beauty it would be!