The CVS Beauty Mark

Referencing Marci Robin’s article for Allure

In the last year CVS has worked long and hard towards their goal of being Photoshop-free in their imagery by 2020. Using what is now known as the CVS beauty mark, the “Beauty Unaltered” logo shows customers what images have been unaltered. Starting with their own campaign, “Beauty in Real Life,” they focused on featuring a diverse cast of women in unretouched imagery. Being their largest campaign to date, it’s also important to know that the cast, photographer, director, marketing, and beauty teams are all female.

Currently, CVS claims that about 70% of their beauty imagery follows the standards of the CVS beauty mark. As a company that holds and sells a variety of beauty brands, this goal pushes for others to create campaigns that feature unaltered and unedited images. Major drugstore brands, such as Neutrogena, CoverGirl, Olay, and Revlon have participated, and celebrity amabassadors, like Kerry Washington, Ashley Graham, and Ayesha Curry, have all participated in this movement.

It has been a year since CVS first announced their movement and campaign that began this change of imagery. According to the brand statement, the company has even instituted “a contractual requirement for all of its beauty influencer partners to create and share only imagery that has not been digitally altered and does not use social filters." The amount of progress they have made so far and their commitment to embracing unedited imagery in the beauty industry is amazing. We also have to applaud the companies that are stepping forward and joining in this movement. This is how we can work together to eliminate the unrealistic beauty standards that effect our lives daily.