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New research pinpoints why makeup makes

female faces look more attractive
by Vladimir Hedrih — November 25, 2022 in Social Psychology

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A series of six studies on students of Gettysburg college found that faces

  Dissociative symptoms are common
with makeup were seen as more attractive, more symmetrical, more
among individuals with depression,
feminine, healthier, and more similar to faces of typical women than the study finds

same faces without makeup. Faces of younger women with makeup were,
however, perceived as older than faces without makeup. The study was  New research pinpoints why makeup

makes female faces look more
published in Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts.
attractive

Makeup, as a form of body art has been used for millennia to enhance the
 Beware of “phone snubbing”:
 beauty of the face. Styles of cosmetics have varied between cultures and Research reveals just how serious
through time, but actual modifications to the face were quite similar – phubbing can be
 makeup focuses on making the skin appear more even and facial features
 Amygdala connectivity predicts
more prominent.
ketamine treatment response among
 patients with anxious depression

  A new study says time spent with dogs

increases brain activity in the
prefrontal cortex
Studies have found that makeup changes the perception of traits such as
trustworthiness, earning potential, sexuality and dominance, but most of  Highly ruminative individuals with
the work focused on whether makeup increases attractiveness. depression exhibit abnormalities in the
neural processing of gastric
interoception
“Millions of people wear makeup, and research has shown that female
faces look more attractive with makeup, but there is little scientific
understanding of how this works. Our research sought to narrow down the
range of possible explanations, by investigating which factors of facial
beauty are responsible for the effect of makeup on attractiveness,” said
study author Richard Russell, a professor of psychology at Gettysburg
College.

To answer this question, the researchers organized a series of six studies.

In each of these studies, they showed Gettysburg College students two
sets of female faces of different age, each set consisting of faces with and
without makeup. The average age of women whose pictures were in the
first set was 21 (range 18-27). The second set consisted of pictures of
groups of pictures of women around 20, around 30, 40 and 50 years of
age. The average age for the second set was 32 years.

In each of the studies, students were asked to rate one trait –

attractiveness or a beauty factor of presented faces. In study 1, they rated
attractiveness of presented faces (“How attractive is this face?”). In study
2 they rated symmetry. It was deviation from faces of other women,
femininity, age, and health in subsequent studies, respectively. Between
50 and 66 students participated in each study.

Results were very consistent – students found faces with makeup to be

more attractive, more symmetrical, more similar to faces of women they
know, more feminine and healthier than faces without makeup. Faces with
makeup were, however, seen as older, but this was the case only for the
first set containing pictures of younger women. Faces with makeup were
not seen as older when faces of older women were rated.
RECENT

 Dissociative symptoms are common

among individuals with depression,
study finds
In their final analysis, authors examined whether makeup affects
attractiveness by modifying the studied factors of beauty that in turn affect  Eye-tracking study suggests that
negative comments on social media
the perception of attractiveness. They found that makeup did modify
are more attention-grabbing than
perceptions of health and femininity and these factors, in turn affected the positive comments
perception of attractiveness of the face. The same was the case with
symmetry in this analysis, although when this factor was analyzed  New research pinpoints why makeup
makes female faces look more
individually this effect did not appear.
attractive

“Makeup makes faces look more attractive by making them look more  Amygdala connectivity predicts
feminine and more healthy,” Russell told PsyPost. “We think that this ketamine treatment response among
happens because makeup manipulates visual features that are associated patients with anxious depression

with whether a face is male or female, and whether it is healthy or

 Beware of “phone snubbing”:
unhealthy.” Research reveals just how serious
phubbing can be
Makeup altered perceptions of age and similarity of the face to faces of
other women, but these changes did not translate into different ratings of
attractiveness of the face.
 “We investigated five known factors of facial attractiveness — symmetry,
typicality, age, femininity, and apparent health,” Russell explained. “We
found that makeup affects all of those factors, but our findings suggest
that the effect of makeup on attractiveness is due only to the modification
of femininity and apparent health. In other words, the effect of makeup on
perceived symmetry, typicality, and age is irrelevant to how makeup
makes faces look more beautiful. That was surprising to me.”

“There was already some empirical evidence for makeup affecting

femininity, health, and age perceptions, but this is the first study to show
that makeup makes faces appear more symmetrical and more average,”
noted co-author Carlota Batres, the director of The Preferences Lab.

The study highlights psychological mechanisms through which makeup

makes us perceive faces as more attractive. It should, nonetheless, be
taken into account that the study was done solely on college students, and
all faces that were rated were white Europeans.

“One major caveat is that we only used the faces of White women,”
Russell said. “Also, the faces were all in the age range of 18-52, and most
were younger than 30. It will be important to study these questions with a
wider range of faces.”

“Our findings increase the scientific understanding of how people

manipulate their appearance through decorations like makeup,” he added.

The study, “Makeup Works by Modifying Factors of Facial Beauty”, was

authored by Carlota Batres, Alex L. Jones, Christopher P. Barlett, Aurélie
Porcheron, Frédérique Morizot, and Richard Russell.

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