The cost of beauty: Perception of makeup and male mate choice

Makeup usage in women serves as a behavioral tactic of both intersexual attraction and intrasexual competition. However, this tactic may incur costs to men due to the artificially enhanced mate value achieved by makeup usage. Therefore, to avoid these potential costs, men may be sensitive to the makeup cues and lower their preference for women wearing makeup during mate choice, especially for men who are pursuing a long-term relationship. In the present research, we systematically tested this hypothesis by three studies. Specifically, the three studies consistently showed that adult males who were naive in applying makeup still displayed the ability to perceive the makeup status of female faces after exposure to female faces for sufficient time (at self-paced speed) or for moderately short time (6500 ms), even when the physical attractiveness and the possibilities that the target faces had undergone cosmetic surgery were controlled. Studies further revealed that the more long-term-mating oriented male participants were able to perceive makeup cues even after exposure to female faces for only 50 ms, and they tended to lower their perceived mate value for female targets wearing makeup in long-term mating scenarios even after exposure to female faces for only 6500 ms. Taken together, these results suggest that men are sensitive to the authenticity of the physical characteristics of potential mates and they can alter their tendency of mate choices accordingly, especially for men who are pursuing a long-term relationship.