Real Beauty Sketches is taking the internet by storm by revealing that women really are their own harshest critics. In the video above, forensic artist Gil Zamora (who sketches a handful of women from description alone) notes the disparity between the way women describe their own appearance and the way they are described by others.
The artist creates two sketches per woman — one based on her impression of her own appearance and the other created from a complete stranger’s description. Revealingly, the women tend to describe their features in a negative manner: “I kind of have a fat, rounder face”, “My mum told me I had a big jaw”, “I would say I have a pretty big forehead…”
But when described by others, the descriptions are much more positive: “She had blue eyes, very nice blue eyes”, “She was thin, so you could see her cheekbones”, “Cute nose…”
The resulting pairs of sketches are completely different to each other. Those created when the women described themselves are not as flattering as those created with the help of others. When presented with the sketches, some of the women became emotional.
One participant confesses: “I should be more grateful of my natural beauty. It impacts the friends that we make, the jobs we apply for, how we treat our children. It impacts everything.”
The campaign hopes to address the negative way that women see their own appearance. Its message says: “You are more beautiful than you think.”
Why it works: The video speaks on an emotional level and will be shared on social media by those supporting the real beauty message and sentiment.
Lee Kennedy-Washington
Lee Kennedy-Washington is the founder of Viral Seeding, a leading specialist content and influencer agency that focuses on securing coverage and social sharing for client campaigns.
He has over ten years of content marketing experience and Viral Seeding has worked to seed hundreds campaigns for brands that include BBC, eBay, Coca-Cola, Jaguar, Rovio and Amnesty international delivering hundreds of pieces of coverage and millions of views.