The #Skinpositivity Movement

Forget the filters, skin-clusivity is taking the beauty world – and Instagram – by storm. Emirates Woman discovers why it’s time to embrace your imperfections, acne, scars and all

- Aoife Stuart-Madge

If you’ve been on Instagram lately, you might have noticed the selfie landscape has shifted slightly. A backlash against hyper filtered images coupled with the growing influence of the global body positive movement have conspired to create a perfect storm of realism on the social media site that was once synonymous with perfection, airbrushing and photo-shopping.

The upshot? Bloggers and even celebrities are getting seriously truthful about everything from their stretch marks to the angles they use to fake the perfect abs. And one issue in particular that has come to the fore in this body issue amnesty, is acne.

The Valencia filter has been stripped back and we’re now seeing spots, whiteheads, pimples, redness and scars in their rawist glory.

Case in point: an empowering new photo series by photographer Peter DeVito which features models with untouched skin with slogans such as ‘acne is normal’ and ‘I’m so sick and tired of the photoshop’. The images have been endorsed by countless Instagram followers, including model Cara Delevingne – regarded by many as the benchmark for millennial cool.

Then there’s Australian model Bella Lucia, who recently shared a throw-back image of her acne-plagued teenage self, confessing: “I struggled with acne for many years as a young girl, not only was it isolated to just my face but it affected my chest and back. This severely affected my self-esteem and I had to stop modelling as a result.