Beauty Sleep

A report of a recent study discounts the idea of "Beauty Sleep" as a purely perceptual issue. In this study they took 15 men and women (ages 18-45) and deprived them of sleep for 48 hours in a room together not allowing them to use any toiletry products. While an interesting attempt at investigating this issue, I seriously do not think this study could have been more poorly performed. My questions are simple:

1. Why both men and women?, With this small of a group, I would think it would be impossible to tell the differences between men and women.


2. Why such a small sample size? This is not enough people to get any real discernable results.


3. What was really measured? There was little mention of how they determined or defined dark circles, skin deterioration, etc.


4. Why was the perception of beauty downplayed as not being significant vs. objective physical identifiable characteristics?
   

Beauty is purely a perception. Look at magazine ads in different countries and you will see vastly different thoughts on what is beautiful and what is not? Look at the new Dove girls ad -- those women are very beautiful, yet in a very different way than Hollywood may think of beauty. My feelings are quite the opposite of the recent article and study, if those individuals thought that they had bad skin, and thought that their eyes looked worse, then guess what, they did. Furthermore, if they thought that they looked better after getting a good nights rest, then again guess what, they did.

Related Topics: Inner Beauty,Your Body Image