Body and face painting dates back at least 10,000 years. According to Pliny the Elder, even 2,000 years ago, the Romans used natural products in ways that are familiar to us today: they had blush, deodorants, hair dye, anti-wrinkle ointments, breath fresheners, and more.
Over the years, those who have used cosmetics have attracted the admiring glances of others for various reasons – sometimes ritualistic or on the occasion of various honors, but most often, and especially in modern times, the context has always been sexual.
Does wearing makeup really affect how others treat us? Even if it’s easier to accept that makeup affects others’ impression of us, does it really encourage the other person to make the first move?
A study by social psychologist Nicolas Gugen sheds some interesting light on the matter. He used two women who were sitting in a bar in France, in the first case with makeup and in the second case without makeup. In both cases they sat and waited for the men to speak to them.
When a man tried to start a conversation, the woman politely declined the invitation with the excuse that they were expecting friends and signaled the scientists. The procedure was repeated 60 times for one hour in two different bars. Here are the results:
Without makeup – the first contact attempt with both women was after an average of 23 minutes, and then there were attempts on average 1.5 times per hour.
With makeup – first contact was made after an average of 17 minutes and the average number of attempts thereafter was 2 per hour.
These results certainly show that makeup played a significant role in changing men’s behavior, with one-third more men attempting conversation with women when they were wearing makeup.
However, the following details are worth noting. Wearing makeup may have given women more confidence and thus unconsciously changed their behavior to attract more men. And, secondly, the test was conducted in France, and the can-do culture in other countries is very likely to give different results in other places.
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko:
