People Are Praising Urban Decay For Showing Photos Of "Real" Skin

Scrolling through the millions of photos showing people with immaculate complexions on Instagram, it's all too easy to lose sight of what's real. Thanks to apps like FaceTune, BeautyPlus, and Photoshop (to name but a few), erasing breakouts, fine lines, and pores from pictures before sharing them to the grid has become second nature for a lot of makeup artists and beauty brands.

But Urban Decay is embracing "real" skin, and their efforts aren't going unnoticed by their 9.8 million followers. Recently, the brand has made it their mission to showcase the work of makeup artists who haven't edited their pictures to blurred-out perfection, showing off their pores, wrinkles, moles, blemishes, and peach fuzz instead — because those things are not imperfections. It's just what skin actually looks like.

Best known for her bold beauty looks — and pictures where her pores and stray brow hairs haven't been erased into oblivion — self-taught makeup artist Meg, a.k.a. @glowawaymeg, was one of the first to make it onto Urban Decay's page, having fashioned a striking eye-makeup look with their new Born To Run Eyeshadow Palette. It wasn't long before Urban Decay's followers took to the comments section to praise them for choosing to feature her picture over something egregiously edited.

"I love it when makeup companies show skin unedited," one fan wrote. "LOVEEEEE TO SEE PORES & makeup look is beautiful," another said, followed by similar sentiments like, "It’s refreshing! And a good reminder of what skin should look like. It looks healthy and REAL!"

Makeup artist and beauty-brand founder Linda Hallberg, who's made a face full of freckles her calling card, has also popped up on Urban Decay's Instagram page, and the comments are just as encouraging.

"Urban, I feel like you’ve really been listening to your commenters and started showing us REAL artists again, not over filtered, Photoshopped nonsense. Super inspiring to showcase real talent! Love the diversity and humanity," one wrote. Another simply said, "I just love the bare skin."

Refreshingly, Urban Decay isn't the only beauty brand moving away from unattainable beauty standards and making a case for real skin — as beauty giant L'Oréal Paris has also recently been applauded for featuring an unedited model in one of their Instagram ad campaigns. Here's to seeing this trend turn into a movement... because we are so tired of Instagram eyebrows.