One might thing that the maker of facial fillers would be promoting a different message – but Juvederm and its maker, Allergan, are promoting the results of its research says most women don’t want to erase alll their lines and wrinkles.

Apparently, the constant exposure to images of celebrities who have obviously had some work done is contributing to this new attitude among women, the brand says.

Allergan says they assembled a panel of women in their early 50s, took photos, and retouched them to varying degrees – like in the example shown above. The women chose the photo they liked best – and all picked the one that kept some lines and wrinkles, but not all, while rejecting the flawless photos that made them look years younger.

The surprising results were reinforced by public preference as well. When shown the images, on average nearly two thirds (63%) of the 2,000 women surveyed said the participants looked better with most of their wrinkles intact and with only subtle tweaks made to their appearance. Nearly two in three respondents (64%), thought the images of the women with a few wrinkles softened looked refreshed and 69% thought they looked good for their age.

Debbie Christian, a participant in the social experiment, said: “I like some of my wrinkles as they add to my character, but others I can do without. I feel great on the inside and the image which I chose as my favourite still looked exactly like me, just with subtle tweaks, which refreshed my look. I would never want to look totally flawless at my age, that’s not realistic and I would just look fake.”

Honey Langcaster-James, Behavioural Psychologist, attended the experiment and commented: 

“What’s really interesting is that women today don’t want to look years younger; they want to age well which for them, means looking great for their age. All of the women who took part in the experiment showed just that- subtle tweaks is all they wanted and they were adamant that they wanted to still look like ‘them’.”

The experiment is part of a wider communications campaign called #THISISME, which celebrates women’s choices to age well, by embracing the lines they like and saying goodbye to the ones they don’t.