Dove Real Beauty Real Women were Photoshopped (?--UPDATE)

Comics weren't the only thing in the New York relevant to this website; it also contained a bombshell for social enterprise.

One of the paragons of corporate social responsibility is the Dove "Real Beauty" ad campaign, best known for its landmark Evolution video critique of photo-manipulation and its once ubiquitous ads featuring unretouched real women.

However, it may all be a sham. Tucked into a profile of Pascal Dangin, one of the world's best photo retouchers, is the following true confession:

To avoid such complaints, retouchers tend to practice semi-clandestinely. “It is known that everybody does it, but they protest,” Dangin said recently. “The people who complain about retouching are the first to say, ‘Get this thing off my arm.’ ” I mentioned the Dove ad campaign that proudly featured lumpier-than-usual “real women” in their undergarments. It turned out that it was a Dangin job. “Do you know how much retouching was on that?” he asked. “But it was great to do, a challenge, to keep everyone’s skin and faces showing the mileage but not looking unattractive.”

Ad Age told the story to the marketing biz; Jezebel told the story to blogosphere; and so on and so on and so on . . . .

The resulting debate about the ethics of retouched reality is not only relevant to the beauty industry. Every day I read articles portraying charity and social enterprise in ways that are as unreal as any retouched model.

UPDATE: Unilever denies it; the retoucher says (natch) that his quote was taken out of context. Of course, Dangin is also reported to work without public acknowedgment, and the possibility exists that Dangin is scurrying back under the cover of a nondisclosure agreement. Did he or didn't he? In today's pseudo-environments, no one can ever know for sure.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A sharp analysis from MedaBistro.