The Secret Signals of Cigarettes, Glasses and Make-up

wore make-up and no glasses received good ratings on appear-

ance and personal presentation but lower on personal skills

such as listening and building rapport.

Wearing make-up definitely adds to

a woman's perceived self-confidence.

The assistants who wore no make-up were rated worst on per-

sonal skills and personal presentation and wearing glasses

without make-up made little difference to the customers' atti-

tudes and recall. Most female customers had noted when

make-up was not being worn by the assistant while most men

could not recall whether she wore it or not. Interestingly, both

women who wore make-up were thought to be wearing shorter

skirts than those without make-up, demonstrating that make-

up also presents a sexier image than wearing none. The

bottom line here is clear — make-up gives a woman a more

intelligent, confident and sexier image and the combination of

glasses and make-up in business has the most positive and

memorable impact on observers, so having a pair of non-cor-

rectable glasses could be an excellent strategy for business

meetings.

A Little Lippy, Lady?

For one of our television shows, we asked nine women to turn
up for a series of interviews with both male and female inter-
viewers. For half the interviews, each woman wore lipstick but
they did not wear it to the other half. The interviewer's atti-
tudes after the experiment quickly became clear - the women
Wearing red lipstick and using larger lip displays were seen as
more interested in themselves and in men's attention, while
women with reduced lip displays and muted or pastel colours
were seen as more career oriented and businesslike. The
Women with no lipstick were seen as more serious about work

I