In hope to examine global beauty standards, Kansas City-based freelance journalist Esther Honig came up with a project she titled “Before & After”. Her work brings light as to how ideals of beauty differ across various cultures around the world.
Esther started her project by sending off an unaltered photo of herself to over 40 Photoshop enthusiasts (some are experts, others are amateur) in more than 25 countries and asked them to “make me beautiful.” Working with freelancers across different countries, she also expected that the image would differ from one country to another, but she herself was surprised with the dramatic and drastic changes.
Here are some photos Esther has collected and each one represents the personal and cultural concepts of beauty of the one who created them:
The original image
Argentina
Australia
Bangladesh
Bulgaria
Chile
Germany
Greece
India
Indonesia
Israel
Italy
Kenya
Morocco
Pakistan
Philippines
Romania
Serbia
Sri Lanka
United Kingdom
Ukrain
United States of America
Venezuela
Vietnam
After taking a loo at these photos, you’ll notice that there are clear differences – the color of the eyes, eyebrows, skin tone, makeup and many others. But among these images, the most dramatic change is that of Morocco where Esther’s hair is totally covered in accordance with religious custom. While the most drastic is that of USA where she
Check out more of these fascinating images as Esther continues with her project on her website.