Each country, society and group has their own definition of what constitutes true beauty. The parameters of perfection change with time. What might be considered beautiful in Morocco may be considered the very definition of ugly in the US. Photographer and journalist Esther Honig decided to test this theory and sent a photograph of herself to 15 freelancers over the world to make her look more beautiful. This is what they came up with.
The experiment is a very thoughtful one, it makes us all reconsider what it truly means to be beautiful. As can be seen, the freelancer from Argentina painted Esther in an entirely different hue and added more glitter to the background.
The Australian freelancer it seems was hard pressed for time and couldn't really contribute much beyond added a few stokes of color here and there. As can be seen, he only added lipstick to her face without compromising her skin's pigmentation.
Morocco is a largely religious country which borrows their inspiration of what it means to be beautiful from their religion. The scarf is predominantly worn by women who generally cover all their skin except for their face.
The German freelancer made a bunch of changes to her. We can see that the final picture looks very illuminated as if someone shone bright light on her face. It is very illuminating and actually makes her look better.
This Ukrainian freelancer prefers his women to be slightly more suntanned. The color of her eyes have also been changed along with the background. But the facial dimensions of Esther remain untouched which is an extremely good achievement.
Bangladeshi Freelancer has two different takes. The first one overhauls Esther's makeup and actually give her a bra and the second one actually plays around with her face's dimensions. You can hardly tell that the second picture belongs to Esther.
Indonesian people are largely religious and most of the women cover their bodies completely. So it is slightly bizarre that the freelancer chose to not cover the girl completely in clothes or cover her face with the scarf.
The freelancer fro USA completely morphed the girl's face in both the versions of the picture. They also chose to give the eyes a completely different color. So which distortion of the picture looks better to you?
The freelancer from Pakistan did not touch her body's parameters on any other front but he did change her skin tone on the slightly brownish side of things. They also changed the color of the iris to brown.
Bulgarians completely overhauled the picture and we honestly cannot tell if the picture even belongs to Esther in the first place. It's like a completely different person. Now whether that means it's good or bad is entirely subjective.
The Philippine did not mess with the picture in any meaningful way whatsoever. They did however make Esther's eyes more brighter. The idea perhaps was to give off more beautiful vibes which would win you over with one look.
We're honestly taken inspired by what the Chilean freelancer was able to accomplish with their ingenuity. They actually managed to make Esther more attractive than she was. We are concerned about the botched placement of the pearl which looks completely artificial.
The different color contrast ratios do slightly strike as a little lackluster to us. But this is what the freelancer from Sri Lanka believes is the ideal case for beauty. It seems girls with different makeups and colors are more appealing there.
The freelancer from Kenya only made miniscule changes to Esther. They only added some mascara to Esther's eyes and illuminated the background lighting somewhat. But there are no other changes whatsoever to her face. This is a good sign because Kenyans don't like women with artificial changes to their face.
The Vietnamese freelancer is obviously very talented at what they do. They chose not to touch Esther's face whatsoever and only slightly illuminated her body and made slight adjustments to the color of her eye. She looks good in this one.
The Israeli freelancer made very bizarre changes to Esther's body skin tone. As can be seen, the left side of her face is brown while the right side of her face is slightly on the lighter side of things.
