Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches” Show That You’re Prettier Than You Think

A recent campaign by Dove reveals that others probably describe you as a happier, prettier version of yourself than you do.

Dove Real Beauty Sketches campaign is in sync with the brand’s previous efforts toward showing “real” women in commercials and promoting the idea that all shapes and sizes are beautiful.

“Women are their own worst beauty critics,” the campaign’s website states, noting that this was the motivation behind the marketing experiment.

The experiment is a series of sketched portraits of woman. Each woman was sketched twice by a forensic artist – once based on a woman’s own description of herself, and then again based on another’s perceptions of the same woman. The women were all hidden behind a curtain so the artist could not see them.

The results show that the portraits based on others’ descriptions turned out to be inherently less flawed, showing more conventionally attractive, balanced features, including fuller lips, softer lines and even happier expressions.
When the women were shown the sketches, their emotions ranged from shocked to flattered.

“I have this whole thing about having dark circles and crows feet around my eyes, and those were not part of the stranger’s sketch at all,” one woman said. “The stranger’s was a little more gentle.”

“She looks closed off and fatter,” another woman said of the sketch that was drawn based on her own descriptions.

The company’s research notes that only 4 percent of women around the world think they are beautiful, but the main takeaway of the campaign proves something important, Dove says: “You are more beautiful than you think.”