Beauty blogger shares pictures of herself with and without make-up and lets people brutally judge her

When Alicia Keys hit the red carpet at the MTV VMAs completely barefaced and without an ounce of make-up on, women around the world cheered.

Looking insanely amazing and protesting against the judgement of women based on their looks, Alicia’s make-up free stance is something we all need to get onboard with.

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And beauty blogger Francesca from Working with Monolids is determined to do her bit as well, creating an online experiment to see the effect of the “make-up tax” or the idea that women who wear make-up earn more and are treated better.

Using the website PhotoFeeler where users can rate photos based on the qualities they think that person has, Indonesian-based Francesca put up two pictures. One was her barefaced, and the other was exactly the same, but edited using an app to add make-up to her face.

“The only difference I made [was] to add a bit of colour to my lips and cheeks, darkened my brows, evened out my skin tone & got rid of my spots, and added a winged liner. So nothing drastic, but probably about 30-45min of work IRL (1h if I'm breaking out really badly),” wrote Francesca.

Overwhelmingly, people rated Francesca are more competent, likeable and influential with make-up on.

The beauty blogger then repeated the experiment in a dating setting. Not only was she rated more smart and trustworthy looking, but 81 percent of people rated her as attractive with make-up on, compared to 24 percent without.

Summing up her findings, Francesca admits the “make-up tax” in her opinion definitely exists.

“I would think going out without make up signals confidence, but nope. People think you're more confident with makeup,” she wrote on her blog. “Kinda goes against what people like to say about makeup and insecurity.

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