People look more attractive with facemasks on, study shows

• British academics have revealed that people look more attractive in protective masks.
• In a research, men and women are judged with a face-covering obscuring the lower half of their faces.
• When we see someone wearing a mask, we no longer think "that person has a disease, I need to stay away".

Surgical face masks were mostly used by doctors before the COVID-19 pandemic but since the year 2020, protective or surgical masks have become a new normal. They have also become a necessity and several people take them as an accessory too.

And now, British academics have revealed that people look more attractive in protective masks.

The research,  carried out by the scientists at United Kingdom's Cardiff University, has surprisingly concluded that both men and women look better with a face-covering obscuring the lower half of their faces, The Guardian reported.

A face covered with a disposable-type surgical mask was likely to be considered the most appealing, as discovered by the research.

A reader from Cardiff University’s school of psychology and an expert in faces, Dr Michael Lewis, said that research carried out before the pandemic had discovered that medical face masks reduced attractiveness because they were associated with disease or illness.

“We wanted to test whether this had changed since face coverings became ubiquitous and understand whether the type of mask had any effect,” he said.

“Our study suggests faces are considered most attractive when covered by medical face masks. This may be because we’re used to healthcare workers wearing blue masks and now we associate these with people in caring or medical professions."

"At a time when we feel vulnerable, we may find the wearing of medical masks reassuring and so feel more positive towards the wearer.”

Lewis has said that the pandemic has changed people's psychology in how they perceive the wearers of masks. 

"When we see someone wearing a mask we no longer think 'that person has a disease, I need to stay away'".

He further said that it was also possible that masks made people more attractive because they directed attention to the eyes.