Anyone who knows me can attest to the fact I spend entirely too much time on Tinder.
I'm pretty sure my coworkers and friends are sick of me regaling them with tales of my terrible Tinder conquests and how I have a really annoying habit of saying “swipe right!” on things that make me happy (like coconut cupcakes and a great song on Spotify).
I actually paid for Tinder Plus just so I could get unlimited swipes and view the beautiful men in Rio de Janeiro and Paris.
Seeing as there's nothing more entertaining than f*cking around with our swipes, we decided to stage an experiment to go down in Tinder history: Who receives more right swipes, straight hair ladies or curly hair gals? Simple as that.
Every hair type has an opinion on the matter. Curly hair girls swear they get fewer matches when ringlets dominate their faces, while straight hair ladies claim they need curls to get some d*ck.
The Experiment:
I almost minored in chemistry, which technically almost makes me a scientist. So here are the parameters for our almost-scientific experiment.
We made two profiles for the same girl. Our Senior Editor, Laura Argintar, graciously agreed to play test dummy, and we referred to her as "Bella" for this story.
We created two profiles, one with curly hair and one with straight hair. Each profile displayed four photos and the exact same info. The key here was to keep it as basic and bland as possible. She professed a love of yoga, Netflix and chill, dance parties. You know, basic b*tch things.
Each profile featured group photos and no overtly sexy shots. We kept things balanced, for science.
Exhibit A: straight hair
Exhibit B: curly hair
Next, we indiscriminately swiped right on 100 people, then let it sit for about an hour. We also kept track of the quantity and quality of people that messaged our girl.
The most swipes went to...drumroll, please... curly hair!
Curly hair won by a landslide with 41 out of 100 swipes matched. Straight hair received less than half that amount, with 19 out of 100.
The responses the curly photo received was above average, for Tinder standards, anyway. No one was vulgar and people were respectful.
One guy even complimented her on her hair:
This guy tried to break her out of her basic shell:
Straight hair Laura/Bella didn't fare so well...
The reaction ranged from potentially X-rated:
To outright offers to bone:
Hypothesis: Girls with straight hair put out more? Girls with curly hair are more approachable?
Professionally, I know enough curly-haired girls that feel the need to straighten their locks before an interview or important meeting. Girls with straight hair like to curl their hair before they go out. Are we just fooling ourselves?
Do girls with curly hair get approached more because they seem like more fun? What about ladies with straight hair? Are they perceived as more sleek and, therefore, more open to sexual remarks?
According to a Dove study, 4 out of 10 little girls with natural ringlets said they hated their curls. Additionally, only 10 percent of women in the US said they feel proud of their curls. What gives?
As someone who never belonged to either the straight or curly hair camp (wavy girls, represent!), I've always been told my hair is not spirally enough to be considered curly, yet not flat enough to fall under the category of straight. Something as malleable as hair shouldn't matter and yet, it does — on Tinder, anyway.
The Grade released an even more triggering study explaining how women with profile photos featuring dogs, visible tattoos or eyeglasses can negatively impact their swipe rate by as much as 35 percent.
Seeing as I'm three for three, I shouldn't be surprised I'm still super single.
For men, the study points in a slightly different direction. Thirty-three percent of women were triggered by photos of guys not looking, wearing a hat or hiding in a group shot.
What did we learn? Curl your damn hair, have the most basic of profiles and let the Tinder gods work in your favor.
