Why do women open their mouth when they put on mascara? Related: If they don’t, then why not?
The list of perplexing things about women never grows shorter…
Best regards,
Leo
Try opening your eyes wide while keeping your mouth closed.
I thought about that before, and tried it. If you stay relaxed, its not really necessary. Nonetheless, in a non-scientific poll I conducted, many women do not raise their heads.
But Occams’ razor (insert grooming joke here) I guess applies.
If you don’t open your mouth, the other way to get the eyes open wide enough is to raise the eyebrows. Doing this every day can promote wrinkling of the forehead.
I don’t open my mouth, but I do turn my mouth down or just gently pull down the skin under my lower lid to mascara the lower lashes. Try it. It makes the lashes pop out just a little, so they’re easier to get the wand onto without painting the skin underneath the tiny lashes.
I don’t do this. Plus even if do open my mouth and widen my eyes, my eyebrows still raise.
I always open my mouth when applying mascara but just now did a very scientific experiment–I got my mascara brush and a mirror and put it on with my mouth closed.
Easy as pie.
So now I wonder why I (and others) always automatically open my mouth. There must be some explanation.
Not sure why.
But it sure is sexy. I love watching my wife put on make up.
Maybe that is why?
It’s just the tilting of your head that causes the mouth to open. Try it; lean forward, stick your chin out a little, then try and open your eyes wide while trying not to poke yourself in the eyeball with a stick.
David Feldman addresses this in one of his “Imponderables” books, although he is not nearly as rigorous and scholarly as Cecil.
He offers multiple possibilities and likes the last one best:
- Aids concentration
- Involuntary reflex action, though he adds this has been disproven by [some mysterious unnamed] research
- Avoid blinking
- No reason
- Relaxation
- Tighten the skin around the eyes, a theory supported by two plastic surgeons.
I think you might be on to something. When I lean over the sink (closer to the mirror because I can’t see without my glasses), stick my chin out, open my eyes really wide, there’s not much else for my mouth to do but to open. If I’m doing it at a mirror where I don’t have to lean so far forward, I usually don’t.
I used to do it; it *seemed *to somehow aid the operation by opening the eye or stretching the skin or whatever, but anyway, one day a boyfriend asked about it and I got to realize how stupid (I think) it looks and I stopped doing it. I see no difference in ease of application at all.
I tried it this morning, with and without open mouth, and , honestly, found that the deep in breath of open mouth helped me steady my hand at handling the brush. Odd, I’d never thought about it before. Any scientific interpretation of that?
Just found this addressed in detail by a popular advisor on YouTube in the friendly rant Things Boys Don’t Understand Part 3 - YouTube.
It’s #7, at 5:55 in.
A friend used to wonder why people open their mouths when putting contact lenses in or taking them out. Same idea?