Think you’ve got a great poker face? Guess again. Whether you like it or not, your cheeks are selling you out more than you realize!
When you’re nervous, excited, bashful or in love, those rosy-pink cheeks often display your feelings for the world to see, no matter how much you might try to hide it.
Just like lips, our cheeks flush when there is heightened blood flow sent to the area, but there are a lot of theories about why that happens in the first place.
Some scientists describe it as a sign of self-consciousness, or nervousness, while others think it’s more indicative of good health, passion, sexual excitement or wistful young love. (As Darwin put it: “No happy pair of young lovers, valuing each other’s admiration and love more than anything else in the world, probably ever courted each other without many a blush.”)
Blushing—like ticklishness—is a phenomenon that tends to disappear with age, and is even more prevalent in girls than boys, which makes it all the more feminine and youthful in its nature.
So that fresh-faced Lolita look you’re going for every time you apply your blush in the morning? Carry on—seems there may be some truth to it!
