I love taking selfies. I started taking them with my mom's digital camera when I was 11 years old, and I haven't stopped since then. The front facing camera was probably one of the best things to happen to me. I've never blinked an eye at the people who make fun of people for taking selfies because I love taking pictures of myself. As a millennial, I have been introduced to photo sharing and editing sites throughout the years. First came the websites where we put bubbly-font words over our pictures, then came Instagram with filters and now we have apps that can edit away our "imperfections."
About three months ago I downloaded an app called "Facetune." The app was about $4, and it seemed like a pretty good investment. I needed an app on my phone where I could easily edit things (or people) out of pictures if I needed to. After a night out this app came in handy. I would use tools like "smoother," "blur," "tones," etc. to edit out the unwanted items. These features are obviously supposed to be used on your face, but I wasn't about to edit my face on some app. I wasn't going to be one of "those girls."
The times have changed. Today, March 8, 2016, I edited my face on the Facetune app. I had taken a pretty good selfie on Snapchat that was intended for my boyfriend but I thought, "Hey, I'll post this on Instagram." Before posting it I wanted to edit some fly-away hairs out of the picture (not everyone is perfect). I opened the app and opened the picture. I immediately got distracted by the options in the toolbar. I decided to try to use Facetune for what it is actually for, and here's what happened.
The "whiten" feature caught my eye first. Teeth whitener is so expensive! It must be so much easier just to do it with an app. I used this tool to whiten my teeth in the picture. The results were insane. My teeth looked amazing. Not natural, but amazing. After staring at the picture for a moment I noticed that my extremely white teeth made my eyes look discolored, so I then whitened the whites of my eyes, too. I didn't actually see much of a difference there.
The next tool that I used was called "smooth." I used this tool, at first, to smooth out the bags under my eyes. My bags did not disappear but they were much smaller. This app made me look like I actually got a decent night's sleep. I then used the "smooth" tool on my uneven toned cheeks, chin and forehead. This feature made my skin look so even and smooth. I can understand how this can become addicting.
The use of these two tools made my face look drastically different. My teeth were whiter, my skin was smoother and it made me feel like crap. The "imperfections" on my face that I see every day in the mirror had practically disappeared. I looked beautiful in the photo, but it wasn't what I actually looked like.
This experience taught me many things, but most of all it taught me to be comfortable in my own skin. Sure, you can edit a photo to make your face look "perfect," but what is the point of that? Do you want a certain amount of "likes" on social media? Do you want some boy to think you're beautiful? When someone sees you in the real world, they are going to see you for exactly who you are not the person that you create with a $4 app on your iPhone. Using a filter is one thing, but editing away your face is just a bit too much.
