Effects of Use of Cosmetics on Women’s Psychological Well-being

Abstract

This experiment demonstrates how the use of cosmetics on a woman’s face affects her psychological well-being. The subjects were twenty-four women in their twenties. They have a habit of wearing wear make-up in their everyday life. The experimental conditions were: (a) no make-up, (b) self-make-up using their own cosmetics, (c) make-up by a professional female beautician. Each subject was asked to rate the degree of her self-confidence, self-satisfaction, state anxiety, and activation, and to utter a vowel sound for three seconds under each of the above-mentioned make-up conditions. The main results showed: (a) the use of cosmetics increases feelings of self-confidence and self-satisfaction, regardless of whether make-up was applied by the subject or a professional beautician, (b) the activation level increases while the degree of state anxiety decreases when make-up was applied by a professional beautician, and (c) the subjects’ voice pitch heightened when their make-up was applied by a professional beautician; this suggests that the subjects’ emotional state was activated under this condition. In conclusion, our study found that the use of cosmetics gives people more self-confidence and makes them feel happier, thus enhancing their psychological well-being.

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