The one where I airbrush myself...a lot

Those pictures, up the top there, are of me. Or rather, one of the them is me. One of them is so far removed from what I really look like, it's ridiculous.

There's always ranting going on in the media and on blogs about the unobtainable images that proliferate as a result of airbrushing. And yes, it isn't a very good thing that girls will grow up believing no one should have pores or cellulite. But has anyone stopped to think how the celebs themselves feel? Is it any wonder they have very public breakdowns and turn to alcohol and drugs when a computer geek has to sit in a darkened room for hours on end just to make them look perfect enough to go on the cover of a magazine.

So I decided to airbrush my very self, to see exactly how it does feel...

Obviously, I'm not an photoshopper by trade, so my retouching skills aren't quite up to par with the best of them. But you get the idea. In one picture I look real. You can see my freckles, my lashes aren't sky scrapers and I have imperfections. In the other, I look like a shocked doll. That, or a badly generated computer game character.

Surprisingly (or not), I hate the airbrushed version of me. I miss my freckles, I miss my cracked lips. They're what makes me...me. If everyone had flawless skin and no distinguishing features, the world would be a boring place.

So it's a worry that there's companies out there making money out of airbrushing pictures of your children, should they not look angelic enough in their photos. The result is possibly the scariest thing I've ever seen. The cost to the parent may only be US$40, but I don't even want to think about the cost to that child's self esteem. These children couldn't look any more perfect if they tried, yet they're already being taught that isn't good enough.

Airbrushing could be harmless - no one's going to get hurt by rubbing out a celebs spot every once in a while. But it's gone too far.

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