This woman ventured into the Tinder wilds to find out how guys really feel about makeup-free pictures

Guys, Tinder can be a scary place. Sure, the app can yield some genuine connections, but at its core, it makes it easy to judge people based on appearances. That’s a lot of pressure! As a result, photo retouching apps like Relook are growing in popularity. According to the app’s description, Relook “enhances natural beauty” of your photos.

Beauty vlogger Alexa Mitchell—known on YouTube as Maican Girl—decided to run a little social experiment with the two apps. How would guys on Tinder react to her natural photos vs her retouched, Relook-ified photos? Let’s walk through her experiment step-by-step.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxyANHBx1uU

Alexa uploaded three makeup-free selfies to Tinder. (And by the way, she looked pretty flawless to begin with.) Then, she swiped right 100 times. After five hours, she had 16 matches. Not bad. Then, she kicked the experiment up a notch.

For the next phase, Alexa busted out Relook. She took the three pictures and gave them the full treatment. First, Alexa built a base with the “Clean” and “Smooth” tools. Other tools removed blemishes and erased under eye circles. She lightened her cheeks, darkened her eyes and enhanced her lips. She even whitened her teeth. Finally, she blurred and de-focused the background so all eyes went straight to her.

The results? Three nice photos. The thing is, Alexa looked equally as great in the “before” photos. But what would the males of Tinder think?

Alexa replaced the original three photos with the newly-retouched ones, swiped right 100 more times, waited another 5 hours and awaited the results. This time, she got 73 matches. The messages yielded more introductions, compliments and smiley faces.

“Hey you are really pretty!” wrote Juan. “You have a gorgeous smile,” wrote Enrique.

In the end, the edited photos were 57% more popular than the #nomakeup ones. The outcome isn’t shocking, just a little disappointing. We wish we lived in a world where more guys swiped right on the all-natural look. Or, one with a few less photo editing apps. I think the best we can all do is be ourselves on the Internet and try not get so hung up on looks. Oh, and maybe edit out a blemish here and there.

(Featured image via YouTube)