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Keeping up with maintaining the beauty standard of right now is a tiresome task that can often leave us deflated – and lead us to try bizarre methods in order to ‘improve’ our looks.
From taping up our face to prevent wrinkles, smearing banana skin or snail mucin (slime) on our face for moisturising, there’s little we won’t do.
When it comes to the effectiveness of these methods, they’re pretty questionable. If in doubt, let’s turn to science, shall we?
Firstly, it’s important to remember that beauty and attractiveness are subjective and vary from person to person, with beauty standards changing according to different cultures, depending on where you are in the world. For example, foot binding is a big thing in China, and sharpening teeth favourable in Malawi and the Mentawai Islands.
Attraction has been studied by scientists, with Dr Ed Morrison, senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Portsmouth, noted to BBC Science Focus how “the evolutionary theory” of attractiveness assesses their “underlying biology: their hormones, their health, and their genes.”
iStockphoto by Getty images
But this explanation alone is too basic, as Dr Veronica Lamarche, senior psychology lecturer at the University of Essex, highlights how biology and culture combine.
“Attractiveness is somewhat of a subjective experience,” she explained. “Certain physical attributes that people rate as attractive might simply reflect traits that are advantageous – or signalled social desirability – at a certain point in time.”
But if you want to be perceived as more attractive, then do something that pumps the adrenaline, like riding a rollercoaster – but why?
It’s all to do with the ‘misattribution of arousal’ theory, which implies that physical excitement can be confused with romantic attraction.
In 1974, as Lamarche explained how this was tested in research take took place on a wobbly bridge, which found that people thought the other person was more attractive when they were standing on the wobbly bridge, as they were mixing up their anxiety of being on the bridge to how they were perceiving the attraction of someone else.
Something to remember next time you’re thinking of a date spot!
To quote Jessie J’s ‘Price Tag’, when it comes to attraction, it’s “not about the money” despite what the manosphere wants you to believe. It may have been previously, when women were finally dependent on men as they couldn’t open their own bank accounts, as
Lamarch noted how women’s “physical safety and wellbeing” were “on the line.”
Nowadays, women have the financial freedom to make their own decisions and generate their own wealth, and there isn’t evidence to point to that says wealth is attractive.
Physical appearance is not as important to measure attractiveness, especially for women who are “less interested in physical attractiveness on its own,” and prioritise personality traits, Dr Morrison noted.
The trend is that people are often well matched on attractiveness, and so aren’t interested in wanting to be with the most physically attractive person.
There’s one trait that Lamarche and Morrison agree is the most vital trait to measure attractiveness, and that’s simply being a nice person.
“People want caring partners; they want someone they feel they can trust,” says Lamarche. “That’s the biggest influence on attractiveness.”
Meanwhile, Morrison noted how “There’s no super-secret technique” to achieve more attractiveness but rather the biggest change you how you present yourself to the world.
“If you want to make yourself attractive, that’s probably the best thing to do. Be charming and nice and funny, because that definitely works well.”
Elsewhere, I asked ChatGPT to help ‘improve’ my appearance, and Met Gala makeup artists are sharing how to get the looks.
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