Cate Blanchett Reveals Her Real Face; Demi Moore Hides Hers

Sarah B. Weir, Shine Senior Writer
Actress Cate Blanchett
Actress Cate Blanchett

This week, readers of Intelligent Life were treated to a cover that featured a refreshingly natural looking Cate Blanchett.

Editor Tim de Lisle expressed that it was a conscious choice to allow the actress to look like her self, a forty-two-year-old mother of three. "When other magazines photograph actresses, they routinely end up running heavily Photoshopped images, with every last wrinkle expunged," he wrote in the magazine. "Their skin is rendered so improbably smooth that, with the biggest stars, you wonder why the photographer didn't just do a shoot with their waxwork...."

Related: The Naked Face Project: Two Women's Primp-Free Challenge

Blanchett's image is in stark contrast to another photograph that made the rounds earlier in the week. Forty-nine year-old Demi Moore appeared in a new campaign for Helena Rubenstein so extensively retouched she looked more like an avatar than a flesh and blood woman.

Actress Demi Moore
Actress Demi Moore

In November 2011, researchers at Dartmouth University developed a software program that could identify how much a picture had been photoshopped. Ultimately, they suggested in a paper on their work, warnings could be put on heavily air brushed images like the ones on cigarette packages. "The ubiquity of these unrealistic and highly idealized images has been linked to eating disorders and body image dissatisfaction in men, women, and children," the paper said. "In response, several countries have considered legislating the labeling of retouched photos."

Both Cate Blanchett and Demi Moore are extraordinarily beautiful women. Moore has also been under intense media scrutiny after her break-up with Ashton Kutcher and stint in rehab; who wouldn't want to put their "best face" forward? Nonetheless, when she looks in the mirror, the face she is going to see won't be the porcelain visage from the Helena Rubenstein campaign. No amount of beauty cream is going change that.

Do you think more actresses should "hold" the airbrushing? Let us know in the comments below.