I absolutely adore Snapchat. I think it's such a fun app. It's an easy way to show a glimpse of your life, and I use it to keep in contact with some friends. We are able to keep up with what is going on in each others' lives without even using words. It's really quite insane. However, I have a bone to pick with some of the "selfie lenses" Snapchat utilizes.

I worry that some of the lenses give into the ideal of traditional beauty, and it can easily give people a false sense of what they "should" look like. I will use my own selfies to show you what I mean.

Alright, so here you have your average, run-of-the mill selfie. Poor lighting, a slight double chin, and an awkward smile are common characteristics of my selfies, so I figured it would be okay to let them be in this one!

Here we have what I refer to as the "pretty" selfie lens. Here, my face is airbrushed more than just a little. Any skin issues (i.e. pimples or discoloration) are buffed out. Even my partial dimple is mostly brushed out. The other major difference is that my eyes are huge. It's kind of creepy if you look at it for too long. It's also obvious that the coloration overall is warmer. It's not just my face - my clothes and apartment wall also take on warmer hues. Also, it might seem subtle in the pictures, but my face is thinned out. It sucks in a little bit of width on each side to slim my face. My nose is also thinner.

Now we have the popular flower crown lens. Once again, my skin is brushed and evened out. Also, my eyes are still huge! Not only that, but they are given additional shine. I don't know if that's necessarily supposed to be more beautiful. I think it actually adds an element of cartoonish-ness to my face. I don't think my face is as thinned out in this one as it was in the pretty face lens, but I think it's still a little bit slimmer. My nose has retained more of its normal shape, so that's nice. Also, we have left out the warmer hues. My face, clothes, and apartment are their normal colors.

I'm not smiling with this one, so experimentally, it shouldn't be allowed to qualify for data use, but I'm not a scientist, so I'm going to use it. I'm not even sure what the name of this selfie lens is. It's pretty, but it has some of the same characteristics as the other ones. My eyes are enlarged, my face and nose are slimmed, and my skin is airbrushed. I think the coloring is okay. However, this also adds makeup. The eyeliner and mascara are used to define my already bigger eyes, and the hot pink lipstick (while fierce) adds a little bit more shape to my lips, making them look bigger as well. I also think my eyebrows might be more defined.

While none of these things are in and of themselves bad, I think the continuous usage of these features in multiple Snapchat lenses is harmful. It's telling people, especially girls, that you need to be slimmer and have more defined facial features to be considered beautiful. I absolutely believe that there are certain facial features that are consistently aesthetically pleasing, but even those are affected by these lenses. I don't consider myself traditionally pretty, but I am confident in the way I look. I have freckles and a double chin and my face is sometimes a little splotchy and red because that's just what my skin looks like, and that's okay.

Seeing my face in these lenses isn't even the most devastating part of the story. It's exiting out of them and seeing my face instantly widen, my nose broaden, my eyes shrink, and my red splotches come back. Because I have seen my face through these lenses, I am instantly more aware of the imperfections I have, and I feel worse about myself.

So, next time I am looking through the selfie lenses, I think I'll try to scroll past the ones that I know will distort my face in this way and go straight to the one that turns my eyes into mouths or gives me a beard or lets me swap faces with someone else.