CVS's Beauty Mark: Challenging the Beauty Illusion
- Brea Cannady
- 13 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Beauty marketing has taught us to trust an illusion. To aim for the kind of perfection that doesn’t exist outside a screen: skin without pores, faces without texture, smiles without lines. Images that convince us that real faces need fixing. Until CVS Pharmacy decided to break that spell.
The Psychological Cost of ‘Perfect’ Imagery
In 2018, CVS Pharmacy decided to stop selling an illusion. It became the first major U.S. retailer to commit to showing beauty images as they really are. No digital slimming. No wrinkle removal. No secret edits. Every untouched photo would carry a small red symbol called The Beauty Mark, and every retouched one would be labelled clearly. The goal was simple but radical: to make honesty visible and hold itself accountable for the psychological impact of what it shows.
It was a policy rooted in consumer mental health rather than marketing optics. CVS recognised what research had been saying for years: that constant exposure to digitally altered imagery harms self-esteem and fuels body dissatisfaction. Studies by the American Psychological Association and Royal Society for Public Health have linked idealised imagery to higher anxiety, lower self-worth, and distorted body image. What we see every day shapes how we feel about ourselves, and when the standard is impossible, so is peace of mind.
The initiative was led internally by Cara McNulty, President of Behavioral Health and Mental Well-Being at CVS Health, who made sure the project was grounded in psychology rather than PR. CVS also drew on the expertise of media psychologists, including Dr Pamela Rutledge, to better understand how digital manipulation shapes perception and mental health. This combination of leadership and evidence-based input made Beauty Mark one of the most credible steps toward authentic representation the industry had seen.
What Made Beauty Mark Different
Beauty Mark wasn’t a campaign with an end date. It was a policy change backed by measurable goals and public reporting. CVS didn’t just promise transparency; it embedded it into its supply chain, training, and brand partnerships. Major partners like L’Oréal, CoverGirl, and Neutrogena joined the initiative, pledging to reduce retouching in their own materials.
Within a few years, CVS beauty aisles started to look recognisably human again. Texture, freckles, and natural expression reappeared. What consumers saw on the shelves began to reflect the people buying the products.
It sounds simple, but in a culture that profits from insecurity, it was a direct challenge to how beauty is sold. By 2021, CVS reached full compliance for all imagery created by and for the company.
The Beauty Mark helped reshape how beauty is discussed. For decades, advertising treated mental health as irrelevant; as if the psychological fallout of constant comparison was a personal weakness, not a predictable effect. CVS flipped that logic. By treating authenticity as a health issue, they made it harder for competitors to pretend that “perfect” imagery comes without a cost.
There’s still progress to make. The Beauty Mark only applies to imagery CVS controls, not every product it sells. But it proved something vital: a mainstream retailer can link mental wellbeing to marketing ethics and make it stick.
CVS Taking the Challenge to the Next Level
In 2023, CVS expanded Beauty Mark to address the wider effects of social media and digital filters. The company launched educational campaigns about how exposure to edited images online affects body image and self-esteem, continuing to link beauty marketing to mental health in everyday life.
This shift mattered because it acknowledged that the issue isn’t confined to advertising. It’s about the entire environment people now live in — one where self-comparison is constant and often invisible. By broadening the initiative, CVS recognised that psychological responsibility doesn’t stop at removing Photoshop. It includes educating consumers and changing the norms that shape how beauty is perceived in the first place.
A Shift We’re Here For
CVS belongs on our Brands Getting It Right list because it took accountability seriously. The company treated the psychological harm of unrealistic imagery as a solvable problem, not an inevitable side effect of selling beauty. It set clear standards, met them, and shared its progress publicly.
It showed that integrity in marketing isn’t theoretical. It’s operational. When a corporation as large as CVS can commit to truth in advertising and build it into policy, the argument that “it can’t be done” falls apart.
CVS also proved that responsibility and profit are not opposites. The Beauty Mark strengthened consumer trust and positioned the company as a credible voice on wellbeing — something most beauty brands still fail to achieve.
No initiative is perfect, but this one is proof of what real progress looks like: structural, transparent, and informed by psychology rather than optics. When one of America’s biggest retailers treats mental health as part of its duty of care, it sends a message the rest of the industry can’t ignore.
Agree every brand should treat mental health like a matter of ethics? Sign the Index:MH™ pledge.