Science

Two studies follow.

Springer et al.^{(1, pdf)} showed the following noses individually to 308 judges and asked them to judge whether they belong to women or men.  Each of the four images shows the average of a sample of men or women, none of whom were the judges.

The results of this study should not be surprising, and one might think it remarkable that some researcher would spend time documenting this, but hard evidence that feminists have been unfairly blaming patriarchy, yet again, is welcome.

The following picture contrasts the looks of cellulite in a young woman with that in a middle-aged woman.

This article will address two recently published reports on acne treatment.

There was a time when I heard about some topical applications that claimed to shrink fat cells just beneath the skin.  If true, then they could help improve cellulite, the cottage-cheese-like appearance of the skin that many women have in the back of the upper thighs and buttocks and some men also.  I assumed these were a scam, but some of these drugs work, and here is the latest literature review on them.

This article addresses the latest literature review on drugs that have been documented to improve the health and appearance of aged or photodamaged skin.^{(1, pdf)}

One point that has repeatedly come up in this site’s criticism is that beauty standards fluctuate greatly, an alleged example being that overweight women were preferred in medieval Europe.  Just about everyone points out Peter Paul Rubens’ paintings featuring obese women.  What did medieval Europeans prefer in women’s looks?

Terry Pettijohn and Abraham Tesser have published a series of papers on variation in the physical features – mostly facial features – of American movie actresses and actors, Miss Americas and Playboy Playmates of the Year as a function of social and economic conditions from the 1930s to the 1990s.