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Who you calling 45?
A former Sports Illustrated swimsuit model has her bikini in a bunch after being portrayed as an old-timer in an Estée Lauder ad.
Caroline Louise Forsling says Estée Lauder’s Origins touched up a photo of her to promote an “anti-aging skin-care product” for women between the ages of 45 and 60.
The Swedish stunner says she’s “significantly younger than 45,” has never used the “anti-aging serum” Plantscription, and never gave her permission for the photo to be used in the ad.
Public records show she’s 35.
Now, she is suing the companies for $2 million, charging she has been “irreparably” damaged by the Plantscription promo.
Forsling is “a highly-successful fashion model” who has done runway shows for Ralph Lauren, Gucci and Chanel.
The suit says that in July of last year, she went to do a photo shoot for a Lauder company that makes hair-care products.
“Before stylists did Forsling’s hair and makeup for the photo shoot, the photographer took a photograph of Forsling’s face as a test shot” in which her “hair was pulled away from her face and she was wearing little or no makeup,” the suit says.
Forsling claims she “believed the test shot would not be used” and didn’t consent to it being used, so she was one sour Swede when a makeup artist told her he had seen the shot in an ad for Plantscription two months ago. The ad said Origins had “conducted a clinical study” of the product on women aged 45 to 60, and used Forsling’s picture in a “dramatization” of the results. The ad divides the pic of the beauty’s face into two parts — “before” and “after.”
In the “before” side, “Forsling’s face appears dark, with visible wrinkles on the forehead and near the eyes and lips,” while in the “after” half, her “face appears light, with smoother, younger-looking skin.”
It also had text pointing to the differences in the two sides, saying the product “reduces wrinkle length and depth,” “smooths uneven skin texture,” and “visibly lifts sagging contours.”
“Defendants did not disclose in the Plantscription ad . . . that Forsling never used Plantscription, that Forsling is not aged 45-60 or that the so-called ‘dramatization’ of the product did not result from the use of the product by Forsling, but rather reflected [their] manipulation of a photograph,” the suit notes. The suit seeks a court order “barring defendants from any unauthorized use of Forsling’s image or likeness,” and money damages for the company’s “false advertising and deceptive acts.”
A rep for the company declined comment. Additional reporting
by Rebecca Rosenberg