Helen Mirren’s 1st L’Oreal Ad Is Raw, Refreshing, & Officially Unretouched
Helen Mirren’s 1st L’Oreal Ad Is Raw, Refreshing, & Officially Unretouched
We’ve been eager to see Helen Mirren’s L’Oreal ads since she was announced as the beauty brand’s new spokesperson back in October — but it seems other people were more eager to accuse her first commercial as being inauthentic.
The 30-second ad, currently airing in the UK and Ireland for L’Oreal Age Perfect, is cheeky, smart, and raw — just like Mirren, herself. It touches on two sides of getting older: The part that’s kind of a bummer — we see the nearly 70-year-old Oscar winner (whose birthday is later in July) being offered a seat at the bus stop by a younger woman; a kind yet somewhat embarrassing gesture — as well as beginning to feel strong, mature, and invincible, just as she is.
More than anything, Mirren seems confident in her own skin, instead of pining after her youth. “[Age Perfect has] the science I trust to help me look like me,” she says. It’s not something we’re used to seeing very often in beauty campaigns, which are generally airbrushed into oblivion.
But some viewers didn’t see it that way. The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority received a complaint, recently, from a person claiming that “post-production techniques had been used to alter Helen Mirren’s appearance, specifically with regards to the lines around her mouth,” and therefore “misleadingly exaggerat[ing]” the effects of the actual product being sold.
However, the complaint was officially overturned on Wednesday, with the ASA stating that “consumers would expect Helen Mirren to have been professionally styled and made-up for the photo shoot, and to have been photographed and filmed professionally in flattering conditions.” Doesn’t hurt when the model’s a total sexpot, either.
“Our perfect age is now,” Mirren affirms in her ad, looking nothing short of radiant — wrinkles, gray hair, and all. “So are we worth it?” she asks, touching on L’Oreal’s famous ‘Because you’re worth it’ tagline. “More than ever.”
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