Primarily relevant to here through the discussion of what people claim to find attractive vs. choose, but also considers various other measures of attractiveness. I dont agree with all these analyses but think its worth posting simply for considering the topic in a lot more detail then Ive previously seen.
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For what it's worth, I'm in my 40s and I'm just now becoming aware, sometimes, that the reason I think a woman is really pretty is because she's done a really good job with her makeup. Lot of obvious makeup is unattractive to me, but probably because I associate it with lower-class women. But no makeup is definitely less attractive than well-done subtle makeup. I think the same thing happens in reverse with more educated, higher-class women finding jacked guys in muscle shirts less attractive than a man who manages to signal strength/fitness and masculinity more subtly, but also don't find completely unfit, weak men attractive at all.
For what it's worth, I'm almost 40 and I remember marvelling at the fakery girls were pulling with makeup since about age 16 when they started slathering it on. I had a hard time getting it as a kid. What's the point? Your bone structure will be equally shit after you've painted makeup all over your face, everyone will see it. I guess I was typical-minding as apparently people don't see it and say weird shit along the lines of 'make up changing the entire face'. I remember seeing women like that but to me that wasn't attractive, just .. jarring.
Sure, it can pay off at times with hiding blemishes and improving contrasts, etc but as a fan of athletic women and/or big boobs I've always felt most of them would've been far better served by spending time in a gym or getting a nice set of silicone implants.
After all, these don't wash off in water and especially for the implants, the time investment is probably far lower.
While I agree makeup is just a distraction, and the important thinks appearance signals (which are actually improved by eg time in the gym) are just covered up by makeup - there's a wide variety in makeup skill, and it'll vary with social class.
There's a big difference between this and natural looking makeup.
True.
You can't cover body shape by makeup or clothing, unless you go for the full beekeeper burqa outfit. And even in that case, e.g. the width of the body and other such will still be discernible, and probably any guy would be able to distinguish a mildly overweight from a slender woman wearing a burqa looking at a high-def video.
face shape but yeah
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The silicone implants bit does demonstrate that big boobs and thin waist are not really naturally attainable unless you're very genetically blessed; if you have naturally big boobs, you'll be big all round and if you have a tiny waist, same. So there are unrealistic standards.
When men say they like a thin waist, they mean relative to the hips and bust. Women trying to fit into a size 0 dress is something that they do for other women. Not for men. (This is not meant to imply that no men prefer women with a tiny build).
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Makeup does change the entire face, even if you don't try to change your bone structure.
Reddit has enough examples, e.g. https://old.reddit.com/r/MakeupAddiction/comments/87tns7/no_makeup_vs_no_makeup_makeup/
This might be old but its so off I have to comment. That comparison is absolutely not apples to apples. The second one is in a different place, with what seems to be very different lighting (and not right out of a hot shower) - unless shes putting the makeup all the way down her neck to below the shirt, thats most of the skin change. Colour resolution is worse on the left, which hits faces hard. Her hair is combed, shes looking at a different angle, and her head is more pushed forward. More generally, you are looking at still images. If you see people in real life, with the environment, and all sorts of angles and postures, differences are much smaller. I think the only real difference here is darkening the brows and eyelashes - and those are visibly unnatural. Not at first glance, but as I looked at the image enough to write this comment, my brain adjusts to the fact that no skin really glows like that, even with makeup, and they start to look comically dark. In real life you would notice much quicker, and interact with her much longer. Similarly, I think her natural eyelashes would propably be fine in reality (not sure about the brows) - the resolution really distorts fine hairs (and rewards comically intense chunky ones). This close to the level of falling for those freeze-frame protraits they use as article thumbnails these days.
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Individual differences, I guess.
To you, it may look quite different. To me, same nose, same eyes, same hairline, same lips, same overall shape, the face on the right looks maybe 5% more attractive on account of the paint and the main difference I'm seeing is that she tilted her face to the side in the right picture.
An honest question: are you neuroatypical in any way?
No. I lack many tribal instincts, but I have fairly good instincts re: other minds and their agendas.
I may be atypical in that it was found I'm very good at spotting visual errors such as subtly wrong film aspect ratio, a landsdcape photograph being off horizontal by 1°, etc. Most people look at the photo and think it's okay. To me, the 1-2° it's off seems wrong, and looking at a 16:9 film squashed into 4:3 torture.
Also, I'm believed to be very good at finding mushrooms, which involves finding the right shape of the right color among all the visual noise of the forest floor.
It's really not easy at all. Back when we often went picking mushrooms as a family of 5, I'd often find 40-50% of the total.
Being fast on your feet, which I am isn't helpful - the bottleneck is processing all the visual information. If I hurry through a forest with mushrooms, I'll fail to spot practically all of them. E.g. I walk at ~1.5-2 kph when searching for them.
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