These are the computer-generated composite face of the 10 women with highest and lowest levels of oestrogen – which do you find more attractive? Answers at the end of the story (Image: Miriam Law Smith)

Feminine beauty, the subject of philosophical and artistic musings for millennia, can be predicted by something as basic as hormones – in women, but not men. Researchers at the University of St Andrews in Fife, UK, have found that women’s facial attractiveness is directly related to their oestrogen levels.

Miriam Law Smith and colleagues photographed 59 women, aged between 18 and 25, every week for six weeks. On each occasion, they provided a urine sample for hormone analysis and gave information on where they were in their menstrual cycle. None of the women wore make-up, nor were they taking the contraceptive pill.

The researchers then selected the photograph of each woman that had been taken at the time of her highest urine-oestrogen level. As expected, this correlated to the point of ovulation in the women’s menstrual cycles. These photographs were rated by 14 men and 15 women, also aged 18 to 25, for attractiveness, health and femininity.


The group also rated two composite face images. One composite was an amalgamation of the 10 women with the lowest peak-oestrogen levels, while the other image was a combination of the 10 women with the highest levels (see image).

Facial formation

“There was a very strong and direct correlation between the level of each woman’s oestrogen and how attractive, healthy and feminine they were found to be, showing that fertility is related to attractiveness,” Law Smith told New Scientist. The faces considered most healthy and feminine were also deemed the most attractive.

“It is likely that those women with higher hormone levels also had increased levels of oestrogen during puberty – the time when the hormone has a crucial role in determining facial appearance,” she suggests.

The amount of oestrogen produced by a person’s body during the average seven-year-long puberty is largely determined by heredity. The hormone has lasting effects on bone growth and tissue formation as well as the skin’s appearance, Law Smith explains.

So should 13-year-old girls be given doses of oestrogen in the hope that they will grow into more beautiful women? “Absolutely not,” Law Smith says. “It certainly may make them more attractive, but who knows what other effects the hormone may have?”

Of course there may be an easier way – faking it. A further study by Law Smith’s group found that when women wore make-up the correlation between perceived attraction and oestrogen levels was completely masked, because make-up improved appearance.

Image answers: The left-hand composite faces was from women with the highest oestrogen levels, and was judged more attractive than the composite face on the right, from women with the lowest levels of oestrogen.