Which of these faces is male, and which female? In fact both photos show the same androgynous face; the only difference is the amount of contrast in the image. But most people see the face on the left as female and the one on the right as male.

Gettysburg College psychologist Richard Russell says, “Though people are not consciously aware of the sex difference in contrast, they unconsciously use contrast as a cue to tell what sex a face is. We also use the amount of contrast in a face to judge how masculine or feminine the face is, which is related to how attractive we think it is.”

Cosmetics may serve to make a female face more attractive by heightening this contrast. “Cosmetics are typically used in precisely the correct way to exaggerate this difference,” Russell says. “Making the eyes and lips darker without changing the surrounding skin increases the facial contrast. Femininity and attractiveness are highly correlated, so making a face more feminine also makes it more attractive.”

(Richard Russell, “A Sex Difference in Facial Pigmentation and Its Exaggeration by Cosmetics,” Perception 38:8 [August 2009], 1211-1219.)