I have been interested in fashion and design for a very long time now. Basically, I don’t know when this interest started so that tells you about how long this fascination has been going on. With fashion and design come celebrities, models and airbrushing. Through research I have learned more about airbrushing and have come to find it quite interesting. However, what I find most interesting is our desire to look just like the models and celebrities in magazines, despite the fact that essentially everyone is aware of the fact that airbrushing is applied to all celebrity photos. Why do we have an obsession with the unreal and how can we see for ourselves what the truth behind the airbrushed photo is?

I have come across the saying "seeing is believing" several times in my life. It makes sense, hearing something from a friend does not seem as reliable as actually seeing it for ourselves. We have to see things to believe that they exist and to trust it, because we trust ourselves more than anyone else. This may be part of the reason why we have developed such an obsession with models and celebrities in magazines. We see the pictures in the magazines, therefore they must be real. There is no evidence in the picture to tell us otherwise. This combined with the way models and celebrities are portrayed in magazines, has us developing a desire to look just like them.

Models and celebrities are most often considered some of the most beautiful human beings on earth, they are also very wealthy, are often portrayed as very happy and thereby give us the impression that they are an example of what we would consider 'perfect'. All these factors play a role in our obsession to look just like them. We believe that if we are as pretty as these celebrities and models we too will be as successful, wealthy, loved, happy and 'perfect' as they are.

What we constantly forget is that these pictures are airbrushed, unreal, fake, manipulated, changed – whatever you want to call it. Ever noticed how the models and celebrities in these photos lack pores and birthmarks? What you are looking at is not the original state of this photo, what you see in the picture is not what the celebrity or model actually looks like. These photos are as fake as the silicone breasts you just implanted in order to look like your favorite celebrity (not saying specifically you did, but you get my point).

The website FluidEffect.com is great because it has before and after pictures of celebrities and models. FluidEffect.com clearly proves the huge difference there is between the real deal and the airbrushed photo. I advice you all to visit FluidEffect.com to see the truth and realize that even famous, beautiful, wealthy, "happy", "loved" and "perfect" celebrities and models have blemishes, "chubby" thighs, acne, oily skin, wrinkles, scars – you name it! Nobody is perfect.

Next time you pick up a magazine and feel that you are not as 'perfect' as the celebrities and models you see, think again and remember that it is all fake and that whoever you are obsessing over most certainly is as human as you are, underneath it all.

Pictures from: CBS Sportsline and Side 2: TV-Guide