Article: We Are Read Before We Are Heard: Tired Skin at Work
We Are Read Before We Are Heard: Tired Skin at Work
Read time: 5 min
It is Thursday. You chaired the review at 8am. At 11am you settled a question that had been stuck for weeks. At 2pm, you present to management, and you are ready.
You walk into that two o'clock meeting. Before you say your first word, the room has already looked at your face and formed a first view of you.
We are read before we are heard.
What does "we are read before we are heard" mean?
It means people form a view of how you are coping from your face, before they hear what you have to say.
Nobody means harm by the reading. It happens in seconds, and it happens to all of us. You do it too. You glance at a colleague and think she looks worn out, before she has said good morning.
The reading has little to do with beauty. People are reading energy and strength: how composed you are, and how much you have left to give.
And the reading is often wrong. A face that shows a hard week can be read as a woman at her limit, when she is nowhere near it. She may be doing the best work of her year.
What do tired eyes and a tired face say at work?
A tired face gets read as more than tired. People who see it also judge the person as less healthy, less attractive and less appealing to be around. Four studies point the same way.
Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm photographed 23 adults twice: once after a full night's sleep and once after sleep loss. Then 65 untrained observers looked at each photograph for six seconds. They rated the same people as more tired, less healthy and less attractive after sleep loss (Axelsson and colleagues, British Medical Journal, 2010).
A follow-up study named what observers were picking up. Most of it sits around the eyes: hanging eyelids, redder eyes, swollen or puffy eyes and darker circles under them. Paler skin, more fine lines and drooping corners of the mouth were on the list too. The sleep-deprived faces also looked sadder (Sundelin and colleagues, Sleep, 2013).
A third study used a milder test: two nights of about four hours in bed. This time 122 raters said they were less willing to spend time with the people in the photographs. Their ratings of trustworthiness did not change (Sundelin and colleagues, Royal Society Open Science, 2017).
A fourth study looked at intelligence. Across four experiments, faces with more open eyelids and a slight upturn of the mouth were rated as more intelligent, and this was separate from how attractive the face was. One of the experiments used faces photographed before and after sleep restriction. The authors conclude that people may over-read small facial signs of mood and tiredness (Talamas and colleagues, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2016).
Now the limits. These were photographs of strangers, most of them young adults. The differences were small. None of the studies took place in a workplace, and none measured promotion or readiness for a role.
So why do they belong in a post for career women? Because of the one thing they did measure: short sleep. Short sleep is part of your working life. You go to bed, and your mind stays on the case you open in court at nine. The studies show what one or two short nights do to a face, and how quickly other people pick it up.
Why is a tired face mistaken for not being ready?
Because people treat how you look as a sign of how you are coping, and how you are coping as a sign of how much more you can carry.
I am Josephine Eneje, a trained cosmetic formulator and the founder of Dame Jo!. I spent over 20 years in corporate life, and this is one of the plainest things those years taught me.
Nobody says it aloud, and nobody means it unkindly.
People work with what they can see.
So the reading is honest, but it is incomplete.
It is a fair conclusion drawn from the wrong evidence.
Your face is reporting your week. It says nothing about your capability.
Many career women carry a great deal alongside their work. Some leave their skin alone on purpose, because they see skincare as vanity and want to be taken seriously.
I understand that choice. I also know what it can cost: you can be read as stretched on the very day you are at your best.
That gap, between what people see and who you are, is the reason I built Dame Jo!.
Why does a demanding week show on your face?
Because your skin keeps the hours you keep.
Think of the week before a big deadline. The nights get shorter. The days run long, under office lights and in front of a screen. By Thursday your skin looks duller, the area around your eyes looks puffier, and fine lines look sharper than they did on Monday.
None of that is a failing. Your week writes on your face.
If you want the science behind it, our Workplace Skin Intelligence page shows the data, and two Journal posts go deeper: What Your Working Week Is Actually Doing to Your Skin and What Causes Cortisol Face in Career Women.
How to look less tired at work
Start with the part of the reading that sits in your skin, because that part you can change.
Skincare does not replace sleep. What it can do is wake tired eyes and dull skin, so the late night you spent preparing does not show up on your face.
The 2013 study named puffy eyes, paler skin and more fine lines among the signs observers picked up. The right skincare helps to reduce puffy eyes after a short night and helps to even your skin tone. And when your skin holds on to its moisture and its barrier is sound, it reflects light more evenly, and the fine lines that dryness deepens look softer.
So we built a framework around your working day. This is how we prepare your skin for it. We call it Activate, Protect, Restore, and it gives your skin three jobs.
Activate: in the morning, wake up the look of your face and eye area before the first call.
Protect: through the day, shield your skin from what the day throws at it.
Restore: at night, rebuild the barrier while you sleep, however short the night.
We started with those three jobs. Then we formulated two serums to do them. The first goes on in the morning. It activates, then protects your skin through the day. The second goes on at night and restores.
Together they are the 24-Hour Lipid System. Three jobs. Two serums. One system.
It asks very little of your time. No routine you will abandon by Thursday.
That is why I wrote the line that sits on our Our Story page:
The life. The science. The data.
Dame Jo!® is the first skincare brand to formulate from workforce data and the documented physiological reality of your professional life.
Dame Jo!® | Skin strategy. Not just skincare.
Sources
- Axelsson J and colleagues. Beauty sleep: experimental study on the perceived health and attractiveness of sleep deprived people. British Medical Journal, 2010. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.c6614
- Sundelin T and colleagues. Cues of fatigue: effects of sleep deprivation on facial appearance. Sleep, 2013. https://doi.org/10.5665/sleep.2964
- Sundelin T and colleagues. Negative effects of restricted sleep on facial appearance and social appeal. Royal Society Open Science, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160918
- Talamas SN and colleagues. Eyelid-openness and mouth curvature influence perceived intelligence beyond attractiveness. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000152
