Does makeup really make a woman more attractive to men?:
Sure does:
Now some answers come in a new study by social psychologist Nicolas Geugen (Geugen, 2008). In his experiment, reported in the North American Journal of Psychology, Geugen had two young women sit in a bar in France, in the first condition with makeup on, and in the second condition with their faces simply cleaned and moisturised. Then they waited for men to chat them up.
When a man tried to start a conversation (nonverbal behaviours didn't count) one of the women signalled to experimental confederates that contact had been made by crossing her arms. Then she politely turned the man down, saying they were waiting for friends to arrive.
This procedure was repeated over 60 observational periods of one hour in two different bars. Here's what happened:
- No makeup condition: The first man 'made contact' with the two women after an average of 23 minutes, and thereafter they were hit on 1.5 times per hour.
- With makeup condition: The first man tried it on after only 17 minutes and the average number of chancers per hour was 2.
So makeup does pull the guys in. But how does it work? It seems to make a woman more attractive but studies have shown other effects as well:
cosmetics can send signals about status: one study published in the International Journal of Cosmetics Science has found that people judge women wearing cosmetics as higher earners with more prestigious jobs (Nash et al., 2006).
So what kind of makeup really does the trick?
Researchers have even looked at which components of makeup are most attractive to men. A recent study has found that eye makeup has the most powerful effect on female perceived attractivity, followed by foundation; lipstick, surprisingly, was found to have little independent effect (Mulhern et al., 2003).
