The noted anthropologist, Helen E. Fisher, says that women around the world – and across various cultures – signal sexual interest with a remarkably similar sequence of expressions.

The smitten female’s behavior during courtship is well-documented. First, she smiles at her admirer, and her brows arch higher as her glance opens into a quick, wide-eyed gaze. Then she lets her eyelids drop, tilts her head down to one side, and looks away.    

“This sequential flirting gesture is so distinctive that [German ethologist Irenaus] Eibl-Eibesfeldt was convinced it is innate, a human female courtship ploy that evolved eons ago to signal sexual interest,” says Fisher.

What Do Women Find Attractive?

The good news is that you don’t always need an expensive cologne or a flashy sports car, although those do help. Sometimes it just happens. If you are lucky enough and you know when and how to make your move, it might just happen more often than not.

But what exactly do women find attractive in men? Researchers have devoted much time and effort in an attempt to pin the elusive qualities down. They have come up with a few proposals over the years.

Below ar science-based tips men can use to make themselves more attractive to the fairer sex.

1. Try to look older.

The well-informed art historian will tell you that Pablo Picasso was a notorious womanizer. The Spanish painter was married and well into his 40s when he started an affair with Marie-Therese Walter. The bright, sprightly, and attractive Walter was only 17 when she fell for the painter.

Psychologists today call it “the George Clooney effect.” Simply put, the theory posits that women like a little grey hair. In fact, a 2010 study of 3,770 adults suggested that women often prefer older men. As the women became more financially independent, they said they liked older guys even more.

“We think this suggests greater financial independence gives women more confidence in partner choices, and attracts them to powerful, attractive older men,” says Fhionna Moore, the study’s lead author.

2. Try to look rich and respectable.

Of course, Picasso had other things going for him. He was famous, a genius, and a man of means and social stature – all of which tend to attract women. In 2014, researchers from the Cardiff Metropolitan University found that women rated men pictured in luxury apartments higher than those in more modest domiciles.    

Scientists from the University of Wales Institute had arrived at a similar conclusion after an earlier study in 2010. Researchers from the institute found that women prefer men pictured with a Silver Bentley Continental GT over those photographed with a Red Ford Fiesta ST.

The study showed a marked disparity between men and women in this respect. The same paper suggests that neither social nor economic status seemed to factor into what men found attractive in women.

3. Grow a beard.

Much like his friend, Picasso, Ernest Hemingway was known to have carried on with women much younger than himself. The writer was 50 and married to his fourth wife when he began an affair with Adriana Ivancich, the 18-year-old daughter of an Italian aristocrat.  

The two lovers would meet secretly in small piazzettas and take the occasional ride in a closed gondola, which Hemingway fans know, often led to mischief.

Like Picasso, Hemingway was a creative genius, well-respected, and wealthy. But he had one other thing that women seem to find attractive in men: a masculine beard.

A 2013 study out of the University of New South Wales says women find men with beards more attractive than men who are clean-shaven.

“Facial hair correlates not only with maturity and masculinity, but also with dominance and aggression,” write Barnaby J. Dixson and Robert C. Brooks, the study’s authors. “An intermediate level of ‘beardedness’ is most attractive,” they conclude.

4. Build your muscles – or not.

Scientists from the University of California, Los Angeles, published a study indicating women prefer men with big muscles for one-night stands. Interestingly, the same study says women thought less muscular men were a better choice for long-term relationships.

Characteristics like muscularity are “cues of genes that increase offspring viability or reproductive success,” say researchers David A. Frederick and Martie G. Haselton.

So, what is evolution trying to tell us here? Well, if you want to catch a woman’s eye and keep her attention, you just might be better off not going to the gym too often.

5. Make her laugh.

Multiple studies indicate that women are more attracted to men who can make them laugh. In one such study, researchers found that women valued both their partner’s sense of humor and their own ability to make their partner laugh.

Good jokes are endearing, and women enjoy being lifted out of a bad mood with a smile and tender teasing, says the writer, Shawn Burns for Tools of Men.

Interestingly, the men who participated in the 2006 study seemed to value only their own ability to make their partner laugh. They did not always find women who made them laugh attractive.

In 2006, researchers from the US and Canada suggested that signals of genetic quality such as humor may have a greater influence on women. The researchers surmise that a woman’s inherently higher parental investment may trigger evolutionary instincts that urge a more discriminating choice of partners.  

6. Wear red.

In 2010, researchers conducting a study among women from China, England, Germany, and the US found that women are most attracted to men wearing red. In one experiment, female undergraduates looked at a color photograph of a man in either a red or green shirt, and then rated the man’s sex appeal.

Sure enough, the man was rated significantly higher when he was wearing a red shirt. The results were similar when researchers compared the red shirt to other color shirts as well. The researchers noted that participants generally weren’t aware that the man’s clothing color was influencing their perceptions of his sex appeal.

7. Flaunt your battle scars.

If you have scars, don’t hide them. Research shows that women find men with scars slightly more attractive than those who do not. In a 2009, scientists at the University of Liverpool and the University of Stirling took photos of 24 male and 24 female undergrads.

The researchers altered half of the images so the subjects appeared to have facial scars. They recruited another group of about 200 heterosexual male and female students to rate all the people pictured based on attractiveness.

The results indicate that women found men with scars slightly more attractive for short-term relationships than men without scars. Curiously, women’s scars did not seem to matter to men as much.

The Limitations of Scientific Research

Granted, there are limitations to what science has uncovered about the female psyche, so far. Most of the studies cited above are small. Many rely on self-reported feelings in a laboratory, which means women may react differently in real life.

Moreover, the participants in all but one of the research endeavors we’ve quoted involved Western college students. These do not comprise an especially diverse group.

But then every little bit of information helps, right?

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