App Shows Long-Term Facial Effects of Drinking

Think you look haggard after a heavy night of drinking? Imagine what you'd look like after a decade of it—and with a new mobile phone app, you won't have to imagine. Forensic artist Auriole Prince has developed an app called the "Drinking Time Machine" that shows people what they would look like after 10 years of heavy drinking. The results are not pretty. The booze-plus-time equation results in unflattering features such as deepening wrinkles, puffy pores and bloodshot eyes, to a varying degree of intensity based on whether you imbibed a couple of glasses of wine a day versus a full bottle. The app was initially created as part of a February campaign that the Scottish government launched to curb boozing among women aged 30 to 50. "This is a new angle. You can tell people about liver disease until you are blue in the face, but it's not going to change attitudes," says Prince. "This is such a great way of making people realize they are going to affect their looks as well. When you drink, the blood vessels in the cheeks become dilated and the more you drink the more this happens, which gives you the reddish look. You can also gain weight because alcohol is very calorific." The software version of the app could also soon be hitting schools in Scotland as a preventative measure to stop teen binge drinking. You can try it out here on the Staffordshire Police Facebook page.