Around two weeks ago, Brinton Parker (fellow fashion and beauty blogger) of Huffington Post Women released an interesting article. Parker conducted a “social experiment” which tested the different reactions she would get from men on the dating website Tinder based on the levels of makeup she wore in her photos. I’ve never used an online dating website, but Parker explains the whole thing in her post entitled “How Men on Tinder Reacted to Three Different Levels of Makeup.” I do suggest reading the article before continuing this post. It was quite interesting, and after reading up on some different opinions surrounding this article, I’ve decided to express some of my own.
Mainly, I’d like to address the errors in Parker’s self-proclaimed experiment. Below, you will find the three sets of photos that she used for each of her profiles.
No Makeup
“Regular” Makeup
“Heavy” Makeup
Firstly, you may have noticed the quotation marks I used around “regular” and “heavy,” and this is for two reasons. In my opinion, the average makeup seen here can be considered very minimal and portray a “natural” look. The “heavier” makeup seems to only mean that she’s wearing lipstick as compared to the average makeup. Yes, in comparison she may be wearing more makeup, but it certainly is not considered “heavy.” If anything, the looks featured for her third account are just more bold. The fact that Parker had many no-makeup pictures to pull off her Facebook account expresses to me that she is already a very confident girl who only dabs on some cosmetics for special events or nights out (as portrayed in some photos). The image to the left is a more accurate representation of what “heavy” makeup would look like.
Moving on from that topic, the vibes sent from the different images are an indication for the responses she received. The pictures where she had no makeup feature Parker with a cute dog and in the woods. On the other hand, her regular makeup photos capture her with a drink and what seem like professional head shots. Obviously, with no makeup and an earthy vibe, men are going to find you “cute” or “funny” as opposed to the heavy makeup where men will assume that she’s into fashion and beauty, and perhaps a bit classier.
Aside from that, Parker is just a naturally attractive woman. Her skin looks just as clear and glowing with no makeup on versus average or heavy makeup. These results are not conclusive in deciding how things would have played out if it were any other person. There are people who look dramatically different with makeup compared to natural-faced.
Finally, only sampling 100 people each time is not very representative of the entire male population. Based on the breakdown of the varying ages of those who responded, “men” seems to only encapsulate those in their 20s. What if with the same photos, she advertised that she was 27? Would older men react differently, or would she even attract men in their early 30s?
There are so many more issues I could point out, but I’ll stop here. I do commend her for taking the time and effort to conduct her experiment, but I can definitely say she was not an IB student as her experimental design is quite flawed. I feel that this experiment might of had more validity if Parker asked each man why they decided to engage in a conversation with her. Correlation does not equal causation, and I can’t help but feel that her results were nothing more than the luck of the draw.
Dating websites will always be sketchy, and not to take any hits at people who have found their life partners this way, but the best connections are made in real life. Sure, getting tons of people wanting to date you only after seeing your face might be flattering, but it doesn’t say anything about how you’ll bond on a deeper level. (And not to mention all the catfishes out there.) Furthermore, it shouldn’t matter to your future partner how much makeup you do or do not wear. First impressions are important, but mean little when they’re based on one face at one point frozen in time. A solid relationship means loving all your faces at every moment, for the rest of your lives.
