Women with attractive faces tend to have higher levels of the sex hormone oestrogen, according to a study published this month. The finding suggests that features such as large eyes and lips are linked to higher fertility and so make women appear more attractive.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Science, also revealed that make-up masks the visual clues to fertility, perhaps conning men into selecting a less fertile mate. Dr Miriam Law Smith and colleagues at the University of St Andrews photographed 56 female students aged 18 to 24 and collected urine samples from each before measuring their oestrogen levels at the same point during their menstrual cycles.
A group of 15 female and 14 male volunteers was shown the pictures and asked to rate them in terms of attractiveness, femininity and health. The researchers found that the higher a woman’s oestrogen levels the more attractive on average she was judged to be.
”Oestrogen levels related positively to femininity and attractiveness,” said Law Smith. The women thought most attractive had large eyes, a large forehead, a small jaw and large lips.
Although carried out on a small pool of women, the study supported previous research that showed our bodies can give visual clues about our fertility.
Tony Little, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Liverpool, said that 56 people amounted to a reasonable sample size. ”If it had been 30 or less then I would be worried about the results being statistically significant, but this should be enough to demonstrate an effect,” he said. — Â