Men and Women Totally Disagree on the “Perfect” Lip Size, Study Finds

In today’s fast-changing beauty standards, one feature continues to grab attention: lips. A new study reveals that men and women don’t always see “ideal” lip size the same way — and the reasons might surprise you. These findings offer a deeper look into how personal taste, culture, and psychology shape what we find attractive.

During the study, participants were shown digitally altered images of faces with varying lip sizes.

Participants rated the attractiveness of these images, allowing researchers to gauge preferences across genders.

Key findings:

• General preferences: Overall, participants rated male faces with thinner lips and female faces with fuller lips as more attractive.
• Gender-specific preferences: Female participants showed a stronger preference for plumper lips on female faces. Male participants preferred female faces with natural, unaltered lips.
• Isolated lip perception: Interestingly, when shown images of lips without the surrounding facial context, participants still exhibited shifts in attractiveness ratings, suggesting that lip size is processed as a distinct facial feature.

The study’s findings resonate with current beauty trends, especially the growing popularity of lip filler treatments.

Instagram and TikTok are full of influencers rocking plump lips, and this can really influence how we think beauty should look. This trend, known as “lip dysmorphia,” shows how seeing the same beauty ideals over and over can change the way we see ourselves.

The study’s insights could help understand body image issues and the motivations behind some cosmetic procedures.

Looks like seeing certain beauty standards over and over can change how we see ourselves, which might lead to a cycle of getting more cosmetic work done.

Professor Alais noted, “Not only do the results indicate that lip plumping may primarily appeal to women, but also that exposure to faces with artificially enhanced lip sizes could lead to ’lip dysmorphia.’”

Posts like this tend to spark interest and conversations online. People on Reddit have brought it up too — and here’s what some of them had to say about it:

• I’m male myself, mind you, but there seems to be this lingering idea among men that male approval dictates general women beauty standards, when is fairly obvious it’s female approval. For basic acceptance. © Vlad*****Draculea / Reddit
• It’s a combination of a lot of things. Plus, everyone has insecurities. As a married man, I hear from my wife that her friends hate their “insert random thing,” and like 95% of the time, it baffles me. Her one friend hates her eyelashes. That is not a man’s approval thing. I’ve never heard of a man going I find your eyelashes attractive so this is a woman thing. And at least to me, they are all attractive women. But that is also a thing, lots of people in the world and all find attractive and value in different things. For each person who likes more full-figured women, there is another who likes the opposite, and some find it all attractive. Also, there are a lot of mean people on the internet, wish everyone would be kinder to each other, maybe this stuff wouldn’t happen as much. © Notoneusernameleft / Reddit
• I don’t think this is a groundbreaking statement whatsoever. In fact, many women with lip fillers would probably tell you that they do it for themselves and not to attract a man.
  At this point in the social media game, both female and male standards deviated from each other on what they find attractive and what they wanna look like. See: male bodybuilders and female makeup trends. Each gender does it for themselves and the validation of other people of the same gender. © MattBrey / Reddit

Many celebrities today are embracing a more natural look — with some even dissolving their fillers and returning to their natural beauty after years of enhancements.