What does real beauty look like?

How do you make a bunch of beauty editors quake in their stilettos?

Beauty brand Dove asked us to do the unthinkable at their latest event. Before we could even make an entrance in our carefully chosen outfits and carefully applied makeup, they herded us into the ladies’ room and told us to wash our faces with Dove Foaming Makeup Remover. For a beauty editor, this is akin to getting naked in public.

But there was some compensation. We were going to take it all off, yes, but a professional makeup artist was supposed to put it right back on, then — here was the real lure — we were going to have our picture taken by one of the best photographers working today, Sara Black.

The whole experience was an extremely effective way to get us thinking about what makes us feel beautiful (and secure, for that matter), which is what Dove’s advertising campaigns are all about. They’re not just about cleansing beauty bars but also “the concept of taking the average woman and making her feel beautiful,” explained event host Lexi Schulze. “Dove’s Real Beauty campaign makes women feel they don’t have to possess supermodel features. Being beautiful is as simple as having soft, smooth, glowing skin.”

Dove brand manager Jules Gollayan announced the search for the next batch of Dove Girls, who will appear on a billboard on EDSA and a special photo exhibit titled “Women on Women.”

Dove, which has been conducting its Real Beauty campaigns for 12 years now, is doing it again this year. Gollayan showed a video in which Dove asked American women on the street what they liked about their bodies, and it was truly heartbreaking because most of them couldn’t even name one thing they liked about themselves.

The white stuff: Dove’s White Beauty Bar, made of one-fourth moisturizing milk, has been Dove’s core product for 16 years.

In another video women were asked what they liked about their friends’ bodies, and all of them named at least one feature they would love to have. “They could see the beauty in their friends but they couldn’t see it in themselves,” noted Gollayan.

In a “Truth About Beauty” test taken in 2004 by 3,200 women of all ages in 10 countries, Dove found that only two percent of women described themselves as beautiful. Most women regarded themselves as “average” and “natural.”

“That’s something we want to change,” Gollayan says.

Ever since then, Dove’s campaigns have aimed to challenge society’s perceptions of beauty. A 2006 campaign promoting the notion that society’s standards of beauty are fake got 16 million views.

In 2010 Dove surveyed women again and the number of women who described themselves as beautiful had climbed to four percent — a two-percent increase in six years. “Our objective is to make the other 96 percent believe they’re beautiful,” Gollayan says.

In the US, Dove launched “Show Us Your Skin,” a more modern, energetic campaign that urged women to take their photo with a Dove product, upload it onto Dove’s website, and get a chance to be chosen and seen in Dove’s moving billboard in New York City’s Times Square.

Dove Philippines has fought for a similar campaign exclusive to Filipinas called “Reveal Your Glowing Skin,” “because we believe that Filipinas deserve the spotlight,” according to Gollayan.

Anyone can join this search for real beauties, and here’s how:

Use a Dove bar for seven days, the time it takes to see a noticeable change.

Visit the Dove page on Facebook.

Click on the link “Be the Next Dove Girl.” Upload your photo, a tight shot with a white background.

Get a chance to be chosen one of 10 finalists, appear in Dove’s LED billboard on EDSA and be featured in the Real Women gallery opening later this year, for which Dove has partnered with 10 top photographers: Sara Black, Jo Ann Bitagcol, Pilar Tuason, Denise Weldon, Mandy Navasero, Isa Lorenzo, MMU, Jeann Young, G-Nie Arambulo, and Lilian Uy. The exhibit will feature the women in depth, and go into their life stories.

Beauty bars: Modern Dove variants include Gentle Exfoliating, Cream Oil, Sensitive Skin Unscented, Pink/Rosa, and Go Fresh Cool Moisture.

Dove Beauty Council member Sara Black has been a longtime partner: “I did a book with them a number of years ago, to get ordinary women empowered. It’s not just physical beauty.”

The photographer — who’s a natural beauty herself — says our world is becoming more and more digital. “We’re all camera whores now, and visual things are becoming more and more apparent in our daily lives,” she says. “We upload a photo on Instagram and that becomes our statement for the day. Dove is a wonderful brand to partner with because they really champion the cause of women.”

And we haven’t even talked about the excellence of Dove’s products, like those beauty bars, one-fourth of which are made of moisturizing milk. Schulze says that after she gave birth, Dove’s Sensitive Skin Unscented Beauty Bar was the product she was sent home with by her pediatrician. “It’s a staple,” she says.

It’s also Dove’s runaway bestseller, according to Katrina May Paras, Dove’s brand assistant in Skin Cleansing. “It’s fragrance-free and we do clinical testing. Drugstores are always sold out.” But never fear: Dove’s core product for 16 years, the White Bar, is now available in four different sizes and prices — from P25 to P55 — so it’s more accessible and affordable.

What better reason to join the Dove campaign now and find your inner beautiful?

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