CVS has joined a handful of brands and retailers who have committed themselves to creating new standards for post-production alterations of beauty imagery. Beginning in April 2018, CVS will no longer change or enhance a person’s size, shape, proportion, skin or eye color, wrinkles or any other individual characteristics in imagery created for their stores, websites, social media and marketing materials.

To make the beauty aisles a place where customers can come to not only look good but feel good too, CVS will be introducing the CVS Beauty Mark, a watermark that will appear on all imagery that has not been materially-altered so consumers know what’s real and authentic, and what’s not. Furthermore, CVS will require transparency on all images with post-production alterations.

“As a woman, mother and president of a retail business whose customers predominantly are women, I realize we have a responsibility to think about the messages we send to the customers we reach each day,” said Helena Foulkes, President of CVS Pharmacy and Executive Vice President, CVS Health. “The connection between the propagation of unrealistic body images and negative health effects, especially in girls and young women, has been established. As a purpose-led company, we strive to do our best to assure all of the messages we are sending to our customers reflect our purpose of helping people on their path to better health.” Click here to view a video of Helena talking about the company’s recent decision.

These new guidelines will be implemented in an effort to lead positive change around transparency in beauty and address a growing health concern following years of groundbreaking decisions for the company – including the removal of tobacco and certain chemicals of concern from all store brand beauty.