Relation between facial morphology, personality and the functions of facial make‐up in women

Abstract

Our external appearance plays a key role in everyday life's social interactions. Hence, taking care of our appearance allows us to adjust and protect ourselves, as well as communicate emotional disposition (i.e. sympathy or aversion) and social information (i.e. values, status). However, some discrete body parts or characteristics appear to be more salient than others in contributing to global body image. For example, authors showed that facial attractiveness is one of the best predictors of overall physical attractiveness and represent one of the primary factors influencing global self-esteem. Make-up is therefore ought to play a major influence in these parameters. Moreover, in a previous study whose subject was to explain the reasons that motivate women to make-up, we showed a high implication of specific psychological traits in correlation with two make-up functions (i.e. psycho-behavioural profiles 'Seduction' and 'Camouflage'; group S and group C, respectively). The purpose of this study was to assess the possible relation between our two psycho-behavioural profiles and some morphological parameters know to be involved in facial attraction (i.e. facial asymmetry and skin visual quality). First of all, our study revealed for women from the group C a greater asymmetry of the lower face (i.e. mouth area) that could be related to a possible larger amount of negative emotional experiences. Concerning make-up behaviour, women from the group S more extensively manipulated their relative facial attractiveness, by using a large range of colours, but also through a significantly longer make-up process used to adjust their visual asymmetry and therefore increase their potential of attractiveness. On the overall, our results suggest that make-up is used differentially, according to stable psychological profiles of women, to manipulate specific visual/morphological facial features involved in attractiveness.

Risk Factors Leading to Preference for Extreme Facial Retouching

“…Women apply facial makeup to increase their facial attractiveness, and it also increases the global selfesteem. 7 A previous brain imaging study reported that the orbitofrontal cortex, a region known to be involved in representing stimulus-reward value, responded to facial attractiveness, 24 and a face with makeup induced greater activation in this brain region than the same face without makeup. 25 Moreover, the ventral tegmental area, which is the center of reward system, showed greater activation for selfface than for unknown face.…”

“…6 Facial makeup, which is similar to facial retouching, may have a similar effect of increasing self-esteem in women. 7 Thus, this study hypothesized that people with low self-esteem prefer stronger facial retouching (Hypothesis 1).…”

What is physical attractiveness? A discussion of definitions and paradigms

“…The elementary approach is also adopted by researchers who attempt to define the significance of certain qualities of physical attractiveness that are related to self-care, such as clothing (e.g., Creekmore, 1980;Guéguen, 2014;Lennon, 1990;Nielsen & Kernaleguen, 1976;Townsend & Levy, 1990), make-up (e.g., Korichi, Pelle-de-Queral, Gazano, & Aubert, 2011;Egan & Cordan, 2009;Mulhern, Fieldman, Hussey, Le, & Pineau, 2003;Stephen, 2010), and hairstyle (e.g., Mesko & Bereczkei, 2004).…”

Internet‐based lay person rating of facial photographs to assess effects of a cleansing product and a decent cosmetic foundation on the attractiveness of female faces

“…The investigation of outward appearance and human attractiveness has gained increasing interest in psychological research . Since the 1970th , in this context also the role of cosmetics was investigated scientifically . The enhancement of attractiveness of people by use of cosmetics is one of the core issues of the cosmetic industry.…”