The Startling Scientific Secret of Blush

February

The Startling Scientific Secret of Blush

The Beauty Brains are counting down to Feb 14th with Science of St. Valentines Day posts. Only 4 days left!

Red is the color of love

Being in love has certain physiologic effects on your body: the thought of your loved one can make your heart beat faster, a glimpse can make your armpits damp with sweat, and a single flirtatious remark can turn your face a deep crimson red. Of all these effects, it’s the blushing that most obviously betrays your innermost feelings. No matter how hard you try, you can’t stop that tell tale color from spreading across your cheeks. But surprisingly, our ability to see colors may have actually evolved to help us spot these emotional cues.

Blood and blush

According to NewScientist, that’s exactly what Mark Changizi and his fellow researchers at Caltech in Pasadena, California are proposing. Realizing that blushing is caused by an increase in oxygen content in the blood, they charted how the color of blood changes with and without oxygen. They found that the color difference was most obvious in the range of 540 and 560 nanometers which just happens to be the same part of the light spectrum at which the cone cells in primates’ eyes are the most sensitive.

Red eye

This led to their theory that primates developed the ability to discriminate this shift in red color so they could read emotional cues that cause blushing. This in contrast to previous theories that presumed color vision evolved to help us pick out ripe fruits. So, presumably, there’s some evolutionary advantage to being able to read emotional cures – maybe the ability to detect blushing helps in the process of mate selection. (Of course you blush for other reasons than being in love, but cut us a break here, we’re trying to be romantics!)

So every time we brush on a little Clinique or Sonia Kashuk blush, we’ve got the power of millions of years of evolution on our side. Boys beware!

Do you have naturally rosy cheeks or do you wear blush to make yourself more attractive? Leave a comment and show the rest of the Beauty Brains community your true colors.

6 Responses to “The Startling Scientific Secret of Blush”

Sandy Says:

I have naturally rosy cheeks!
Gloria Says:

NARS makes the prettiest blushes!
Lucia Says:

Oh please!! the correlation doesn’t prove cause. This is a total stretch of scientific results. I bet there are other things that emit at the 540 and 560 range. Do chimps blush? they have color vision too, that means this capacity evolved long before we didn’t have hair in our face.
becca Says:

Lucia, I agree, that’s complete crap. Why in heck would early humans need to blush? What, were they embarrassed for being naked all the time? And how well can you really see the blush on even a slightly hairy face? And exposed skin in primates is generally highly pigmented, so even harder to see blushing.
isah Says:

The past tense form of “lead” is “led.”
thebeautybrains Says:

Thanks. We’re gonna have to scold that MidBrain. Interns…