Does this beauty shoot glamorise violence against women?

Her hair is perfectly curled, her make up is immaculate… and her black eye is horrifying. This controversial shot from Bulgarian magazine 12, is, bizarrely, for a beauty shoot. But is it really art… or is it simply glamorising domestic violence?

The other images in the magazine editorial, entitled Victim of Beauty, show one model with her throat cut and another with a badly bruised face. One particularly gruesome shot, shows a woman with her mouth ripped open.

[Related article: YSL Opium beauty ad makes ASA's top 10 most complained about list]

Hmmm, hardly beautiful… especially when violence against women is so prolific. One woman is raped every nine minutes in Britain; two women are killed every week in England and Wales by a current or former partner… and one in four women will suffer domestic abuse at some point in their lives.

It’s not the first time violence against women has been used to promote products. Last year, Tyler Shields (who recently set fire to a Birkin bag in the name of art) photographed Glee's Heather Morris dressed as a housewife and sporting a black eye. And another controversial editorial showed 15-year-old Hailey Clauson being ‘strangled.’

There is no explanation in the Bulgarian magazine for the most recent controversial images. But under the editorial it reads, ‘Recommended Parental Controls: pictures are not recommended for persons under 16 years. And for the faint hearted.’

Which begs the question, why put them in the magazine at all?