Do we have data from other cultures on this? Is makeup used to achieve the same effects in "all" cultures, especially ones that haven't been in contact with ours? Kinda hard to find new cultures to compare with, but descriptions from old time explorers etc should be useful.

Majority of Asian girls, be it Chinese, Japanese, Korean don't like to be tanned. Having light skin is seen as beautiful. I guess this could be related.

Well, the Egyptians invented eyeliner, but that had practical applications and both sexes used it.

Check the eyebrows too. We pluck them, and the contrast seems to cause that effect as well.

If my calculations are correct, women with clown makeup are the most attractive.

The correlation could be the other way since most guys are used to seeing women with make-up.

But women now have to keep wearing make-up in order to "keep up with" gender perception. (Or so one could argue.)

True but then it's nothing more than individual choice.

Except in many societies they don't.

I'm an American from the DC area who moved to Vienna, Austria.

The difference in dress and grooming between men and women here is nowhere near the grossly exaggerated level it was in the DC area.

Many parts of the US aren't as exaggerated as the DC area either, but it's a startling difference.

Women here rarely wear much makeup at all, don't run around in miniskirts in the winter, rarely wear impractical or dainty shoes, and don't dress up more than men on average.

It was quite a contrast with DC, where a significant portion of women would go on dates dressed up in fancy dresses, with fancy shoes, makeup, and jewelry, and their dates would be wearing khaki pants and polo shirts with ballcaps.

Women here are more like "real human beings." I caught myself thinking that way one day, with a kind of horror, but ruminating on it, it makes sense that the sexy, perfect image you devote your time to creating can backfire.

And, it's made me realize how similar men and women really look, if you took away head and facial hair.

(I joke about DC that you can't play "spot the hooker" because of the typical level of dress for women vs men.)