Study Says Women Who Wear Makeup Appear More Confident; No One Is Really Shocked

I found this New York Times article via I Blame the Patriarchy who smartly reframes it as "New Study Shows Makeup is Not Optional." This really should surprise no one that women who want to move up in the corporate world should slap on the paint. (The study, by the way, was paid for my Proctor and Gamble, which sells Cover Girl, one of the world's largest cosmetics companies.) From the NY Times story:

The study’s 25 female subjects, aged 20 to 50 and white, African-American and Hispanic, were photographed barefaced and in three looks that researchers called natural, professional and glamorous. They were not allowed to look in a mirror, lest their feelings about the way they looked affect observers’ impressions. 

One hundred forty-nine adults (including 61 men) judged the pictures for 250 milliseconds each, enough time to make a snap judgment. 

Then 119 different adults (including 30 men) were given unlimited time to look at the same faces. The participants judged women made up in varying intensities of luminance contrast (fancy words for how much eyes and lips stand out compared with skin) as more competent than barefaced women, whether they had a quick glance or a longer inspection.

There's been a lot said in the feminist blogosphere about "choosing your choice," and the "choice" to wear makeup is part of that. I used scare quotes around the word choice, because no one exists in a bubble, and that "choice" to wear makeup comes with substantial cultural reinforcements. Yeah, I wear makeup. Not always, but enough that most days I leave the house with paint on my face. (That actually is my tube of Blue Valentine lipstick in the photo.) I am also in a lot of was not stereotypically feminine. A made-up face lets me drift through society relatively invisibly. It's my "choice," but I'm smart enough to know why I choose it.