What happens when a biracial woman undergoes the ‘make me beautiful’ project?

Some time ago Esther Honig sent out an unaltered image of herself to 40 individuals from 25 countries around the world. Each individual was to photoshop her image using one direction: make her beautiful. The results were pretty interesting as each photoshopper’s interpretation of beauty was exposed by the task. The project went viral and drew everyone’s attention to the power of photoshop and the differing definitions of beautiful around the world.

When Priscilla Yuki Willson, a biracial woman and friend of Honig, undertook the same project a whole new questions was raised: how could she fit into the conventional standards of beauty?

Having a Japanese mother and black father has been a confusing experience for Yuki Willson. She describes it as “living in a culture that’s still adjusting to [her] face.” Of the results she says “I found that my face actually challenged the application of photoshop in this instance. As a biracial woman there is no standard of beauty or mould that can easily fit my face.”

The pictures are super varied and while some images appear to have undergone few changes – evening out skin tone and adding minimal makeup – others are drastically different, from face shape and size to one pic from the USA which adds big hair, red lips, and an eye colour reminiscent of pond scum.

Then there’s the result from Algeria; that photoshopper has clearly done acid.

Words by Alix